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During 2017-2019, 14 startups will be financed up to €250,000 with equity free funding
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Top performing startups will have the opportunity to receive additional private funding of up to €1.5 million from participating investment funds
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IMPACT Growth expects to surpass the success achieved in the first open call, which had more than 1,900 applications from 60 countries
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The programme is funded by the European Commission and framed within the FIWARE ecosystem
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Led by ISDI and FundingBox, it has the support of the FIWARE Foundation, Accelerace, Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Kibo Ventures, Invesdor, Danone, Ferrovial Servicios, DOCOMO Digital and MADE
Barcelona, 5th September 2017 – Following the huge success of the first call, the startup acceleration programme IMPACT Growth launches its second open call for startups, with a fund of €3.6 million and a final aim of identifying four European super startups.
Coordinated by FundingBox and with the acceleration process led by ISDI and Accelerace, the programme is supported by the participation of the FIWARE Foundation, Mobile World Capital Barcelona, Accelerace, Kibo Ventures and Invesdor. Industry leaders Danone, Ferrovial Servicios, DOCOMO Digital and MADE will provide further market support to the SMEs and startups involved. IMPACT Growth is an initiative funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.
The second open call, which will be launched on 5 September during DLD Tel Aviv Innovation Festival, will select 14 startups that will be financed with up to €250,000 equity free funding. In this round, IMPACT Growth expects to surpass the success achieved in the first open call, which received applications from more than 1,900 startups from 60 countries.
The programme is focused on four verticals and is aimed at companies with a proven track-record, and with products that are already in the market. The four verticals are: Smart Infrastructure & Cities, Smart Content, Smart Manufacturing and Smart AgriFood.
IMPACT Growth builds its expertise on the successful work previously done by IMPACT, the accelerator that invested €6.4 million in 63 startups during 2014-2016. IMPACT has recently been named among the global top ten in Gust’s Global Accelerator Report, after evaluating 579 programmes from five continents.
On par with IMPACT’s previous programmes, funding will go hand in hand with a high-performance startup training programme in which renowned experts and international entrepreneurs will deliver practical classes in the cities of Madrid, Copenhagen and Barcelona. Following the week-long acceleration bootcamp, startups will not be required to relocate to another city, they will simply have remote access to an international network of more than one hundred recognised mentors, founders and investors, who are all experts in different key areas of knowledge, both in the digital sector and from within the accelerator’s four verticals.
Mentors will help startups solve complex issues related to business, technology and scalability.
The participation of the FIWARE Foundation will allow the beneficiaries to receive support in incorporating FIWARE technologies into their software architecture. FIWARE is an innovative, open source and cloud-based technology stack that eases the creation and global deployment of smart services and applications in the new digital era.
Interested startups can apply on the IMPACT Growth website. Applying before the first cutoff of 24 October gives applications more time to be considered; the final deadline is 12 December.
The 14 selected startups of IMPACT Growth first open call
About IMPACT
IMPACT is an accelerator formed by a consortium of 11 entities based in Spain, Poland, Denmark, Italy and Mexico, among other countries.
· ISDI is an institution created by Internet industry professionals in 2009. ISDI contributes to digital transformation and generates a competitive ecosystem by training digital professionals, promoting digital talent, disseminating knowledge, supporting entrepreneurs and transforming companies.
With headquarters in Madrid, Barcelona, Mexico D.F. and Silicon Valley, ISDI is the first “digital native” business school in Spain and has more and more online, mixed and blended executive courses. ISDI also provides personalized training in digital disciplines in Spain and other countries to companies including Telefónica, Correos, Gas Natural, Mapfre, Bankia, BBVA, El Corte Inglés, Vodafone, Prisa, Godó, Coca Cola, Nestlé, and Danone.
In addition, through the ISDI Foundation, the school forms and advises NGOs in their development in the digital field, and supports and promotes initiatives linked to digital skills and programming concepts for children.
ISDI participates in initiatives to reduce unemployment through training with various institutional bodies and participates with the European Commission in designing the new framework of professions for the Digital Agenda 2020.
· FundingBox is the go-to platform for digital disruptors to join tech communities and win public funding. FundingBox is a community where entrepreneurs can meet, interact and collaborate to win public funding. FundingBox provides “scale ups” (startups and tech SMEs) with simple and personalized access to both public funding and interactive tech communities. Awarding bodies use FundingBox to distribute their funding and build communities that can grow and become integral parts of their ecosystems. FundingBox has over 25 years’ experience in public funding, having won over €1 billion for its customers in this period. The company is composed of more than 30 professionals, with hubs in Spain, Denmark and Poland.
· The FIWARE Foundation is the legal independent body providing shared resources to help achieving the FIWARE mission that is to develop an open sustainable ecosystem around public, royalty-free and implementation-driven software platform standards that will ease the creation of Smart Solutions in multiple sectors.
The FIWARE Foundation accomplishes its goal by promoting, augmenting, protecting, and validating the FIWARE technologies as well as the activities of the FIWARE community, empowering its members including end users, developers and rest of stakeholders in the entire ecosystem. The FIWARE Foundation is open: anybody can join contributing to a transparent governance of FIWARE activities and rising through the ranks, based on merit.
· Mobile World Capital Barcelona is an initiative driving the mobile and digital transformation of society while helping improve people’s lives globally. With support of the public and private sector throughout Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain, MWCapital focuses on three areas: the empowerment of new generations, professionals and citizens in the use of digital technologies; the digital transformation of industries; and the acceleration of innovation through digital-based entrepreneurship. Collectively, our programmes are positively transforming Education, Industry and the Economy. MWCapital hosts the Mobile World Congress and delivers 4 Years From Now [4YFN], a business platform for the startup community.
· Accelerace is one of the world’s Top 10 seed accelerators. Since 2008, Accelerace has spotted, trained and invested in more than 300 promising Danish and international startups and scale-ups. 88% of the companies are still in business. As a part of the national Scale-Up Denmark initiative, Accelerace scales startups in the field of technology, foodtech, cleantech, life science and welfaretech with the help from experienced serial entrepreneurs, camps and network. Accelerace has up until today invested more than 260 mio. DKK in promising startups that have completed the Accelerace program and has engaged partners e.g. Maersk, Novo Nordisk Fonden, Bang & Olufsen and SE to deliver access to world-class industry expertise.
· With over $120M assets under management, Kibo Ventures is one of the most active Spanish Venture Capital firms in the digital space. Having made over 40 investments, Kibo Ventures invests in companies with high growth potential and helps Spanish entrepreneurs with global ambition, a technology differentiation and scalable business models or in companies expanding into Spanish speaking countries where they can leverage on Kibo Ventures’ network. Kibo Ventures has invested in prominent companies of the Spanish tech ecosystem such as Carto, Flywire, Job and Talent, Logtrust, Jetlore, Blueliv, iContainers, Worldsensing or Promociones Farma. Kibo Ventures has a very international profile, with companies based in Spain, US, UK, Germany, Portugal and Latam and 40+ US/European co-investors.
· Invesdor is the Nordic market leader in equity crowdfunding platforms measured in invested capital and revenue in 2015.
A financial technology (fintech) company founded in Finland in 2012, Invesdor operates an online investment platform that connects ambitious European growth companies with investors worldwide. So far Invesdor has helped raise more than 26 million euros and hosted more than 70 successful equity crowdfunding campaigns. Invesdor’s clients include private and publicly traded companies from Finland, the UK, Norway and Denmark as well as investors from more than 50 countries. Invesdor has offices in London and Helsinki.
· Ferrovial Servicios, SA, is the company of Ferrovial Group, which within the Services Division, operates in Spain, Portugal and other countries in the areas of comprehensive maintenance of facilities, industrial facility and energy management.
Ferrovial is currently managing more than 2700 buildings, offering the following services: comprehensive maintenance of buildings and lighting installations (electric, compressed air, heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration, fire protection…), facilities management, industrial installations’ maintenance, energy management, energy services for buildings and street lighting, installations’ implementation and audits, road and infrastructure maintenance and cleaning.
Ferrovial Servicios is the entity leading the Smart Infrastructure & Cities Vertical. The corporate participates in the dissemination of the Open call, startup selection proposing the specific challenges to be addressed, supporting the selected projects in its vertical by allocating them a Corporate Mentor which can analyze their potential from the Corporate point of view. Ferrovial Servicios also provides support to the projects funded, once finalized the Acceleration Programme, by offering them commercial partnerships in case potential success is detected.
· DOCOMO Digital is the unit for the global digital ecosystem of NTT DOCOMO. The company has over 15 years of expertise in mobile content, distributed through its proprietary platforms managing customer acquisition and mobile payments, thanks to the connection to over 200 mobile network operators in the world.
DOCOMO Digital is also active in managing Open Innovation through its corporate acceleration program, b-ventures, aimed at accelerating the growth of tech start-ups in the mobile content and mobile payments sectors, taking full advantage of its consolidated worldwide infrastructure and well-established international business relationships.
DOCOMO Digital is a global company based in London and present on 6 continents through nearly 1,000 people of 50 nationalities in 35 offices.
· DANONE is a world leader in dairy products, bottled water and other foods for children and clinics, with more than 900 million consumers. Isaac Carasso created the world’s first factory of industrial yogurt for general consumption in Barcelona in 1919. The group is now present in 140 countries. In Spain, Danone has production facilities in Madrid, Barcelona, Asturias and Valencia, which supply 40,000 shops and more than 11 million homes daily.
Danone was born out of innovation and being a fundamental pillar at all levels is woven into the DNA of the company. Therefore, it is very important for Danone to support initiatives such as IMPACT GROWTH that support the talent of young startups and that contribute to the promotion of research and development of the whole society.
· MADE is an independent association led by industry executives that aims to facilitate the development of innovative world-class manufacturing solutions to and for primarily European industry, enabling Denmark to compete globally and create growth in industry jobs. MADE will achieve its goals through the development of strategic partnerships between research institutes and industry, to deliver state of the art: manufacturing technology, leadership, operating models and education.
MADE consists of 113 large and small Danish manufacturing companies (incl. Grundfos, Danfoss, LEGO Group, Siemens Wind Power and over 80 SME’s), five universities (University of Southern Denmark, Technical University of Denmark, Aalborg University, Copenhagen Business School, Aarhus University), three technological service institutes and is supported by private foundations and associations.
MADE has three focus areas; applied industrial research, innovation and education. At the heart of MADE the applied research platform focuses on improving the competitiveness of MADE’s industrial partners. 44 Ph.D. and Postdoc projects have been initiated . MADE was started on a 25 M EURO budget (for 2014-2018) where over 50 % of the financing is provided by the industrial partners. MADE has just been granted a new program MADE DIGITAL (2017-2019) with a total budget of 25 M Euro, to speed up digitalization of Danish Manufacturing.
For more information
linkedin.com/company/impact-accelerator
Header photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash.
