Should you’re a European startup founder eyeing deep tech innovation, the European Innovation Council (EIC) is a reputation it’s best to know. With a €10.1 billion funds beneath Horizon Europe (the EU’s flagship analysis and innovation funding programme) the EIC has turn into a powerhouse in supporting startups and SMEs, finishing over 150 funding rounds, together with 60 in 2024 alone. This sturdy funding exercise underscores the EIC’s pivotal position in nurturing innovation throughout the continent.
A key driver of the EIC’s success in serving to startups attain the market is its Corporate Partnership Programme (CPP). The CPP has facilitated the introduction of over 1,500 EIC-backed startups to greater than 120 main firms corresponding to ABB, ABInBev, Airbus, ENGIE, Ikea and Shell. This has already resulted in additional than 100 offers and over 500 follow-ups. By facilitating these collaborations, the EIC accelerates the expansion of Europe’s innovation ecosystem, making certain startups have the assets to scale and thrive globally.
This structured strategy to collaboration is the topic of the newly launched EIC report, Unlocking Innovation with Corporate Venturing, capturing seven years of CPP information. The purpose is to raised perceive what parts of those partnerships are important for achievement, alongside understanding the place there’s room to develop. Drawing from this analysis, the EIC hopes to additional strengthen Europe’s deeptech ecosystem, help startups as they scale up and total industrialise innovation.
On this unique interview, Stéphane Ouaki, appearing Director of EISMEA (the European Innovation Council and SMEs Govt Company, which is chargeable for the implementation of the EIC), shares his imaginative and prescient for the way forward for European deeptech startups. He discusses how the EIC Company Partnership Programme is enjoying an important position in scaling deeptech startups, the important thing challenges confronted in corporate-startup collaborations, and the way EISMEA plans to proceed supporting Europe’s deeptech ecosystem within the years to return.
Thanks for becoming a member of us, Stéphane! To kick issues off with a wider perspective, what are your prime strategic priorities for the EIC Company Partnership Programme over the subsequent 5 years? In different phrases, what can startups count on to see extra of?
The EIC strives to be the investor of alternative for visionary innovators, to unlock huge non-public deep tech funding, and to gasoline breakthroughs in Europe’s inexperienced and digital transitions. The EIC Company Partnership Programme is a key a part of this technique. Over the subsequent 5 years, we’ll proceed propelling EIC-backed scale-ups by connecting them with decision-makers at Europe’s main companies and serving to them broaden networks, win new purchasers, and speed up development. We’re at the moment within the third version of this programme, throughout which we’ll facilitate 31 hands-on Company and Multi-Company Days over 30 months, specializing in key strategic innovation areas corresponding to Well being, Biotech, Vitality, and Sustainability.
Given your position on the helm of EISMEA, you might have a singular vantage level on the challenges and alternatives dealing with startups throughout Europe. Out of your perspective, what are among the greatest hurdles startups face when partnering with corporates, and the way does the EIC CPP assist to beat them?
Quick-moving, risk-tolerant startups typically conflict with corporates’ layered, risk-averse resolution chains, resulting in stalled pilots and missed alternatives. This problem is highlighted within the EIC’s current report “Unlocking Innovation with Corporate Venturing”, citing ‘inside misalignment’ and the so-called ‘pilot lure’ as key the reason why many partnerships by no means scale.
The EIC Company Partnership Programme helps to beat these hurdles with a structured, multi-phase framework. This matches startups to corporates, primarily based on clearly outlined innovation wants and shared aims. The programme forges a unified roadmap by, on the one hand, partnering intently with corporates to pinpoint their most urgent challenges, and on the opposite, to equip scale-ups with intensive mentoring and stakeholder-alignment workshops. The result’s clear governance and securing government buy-in, laying the muse for sustainable, long-term collaboration.
The EIC Company Partnership Programme has already enabled over 1500 startup-corporate collaborations and helped obtain greater than 100 offers. Are you able to give a concrete instance that demonstrates how such a partnership contributes to scaling innovation throughout Europe?
Holcim is an efficient instance of a profitable corporate-startup partnership made attainable by the EIC Company Partnership Programme. By piloting Nanolike’s IoT inventory-management resolution in Greece and scaling it globally, Holcim demonstrated how structured matchmaking, thorough preparation and robust operational dedication can flip a proof-of-concept into widespread deployment.
This, in flip, accelerates the scaleup’s path to industrialisation and enhances the corporate’s competitiveness. A very good variety of partnerships replicate this blueprint throughout various industries, producing validated pilots, aligning inside stakeholders and fostering government buy-in. This finally advances the systemic adoption of cutting-edge applied sciences and strengthens Europe’s innovation ecosystem.
The EIC Company Partnership Programme is a part of the EIC Enterprise Acceleration Providers (BAS), which gives a spread of tailor-made programmes to assist startups scale. For readers who might not be conversant in the BAS, how does the EIC CPP match into this broader initiative, and the way does it work alongside different BAS programmes to help startups in Europe?
The EIC Enterprise Acceleration Providers (BAS) gives a spread of tailor-made programmes to assist startups scale, encompassing three principal pillars: Contracts, Contacts, and Abilities. The CPP particularly helps the “Contracts” pillar by facilitating partnerships between startups and enormous firms. It really works alongside different BAS initiatives, such because the EIC Innovation Procurement Programme, Investor Readiness Programme, and Scaling Membership, making a complete ecosystem that helps startups with enterprise improvement, funding readiness, internationalisation, and ecosystem integration.
EISMEA has simply launched a brand new report, Unlocking Innovation with Corporate Venturing, analyzing why so many corporate-startup partnerships battle to ship. What are among the key takeaways from that analysis, and the way are they shaping the CPP’s strategy?
The report confirms most of the issues we’ve discovered over the previous few years, notably across the significance of construction. One of many greatest blockers to profitable partnerships is inside misalignment inside corporates between enterprise models, priorities, and even between innovation groups and procurement. That’s why many engagements by no means transfer past the pilot section.
What we’ve seen is that success will depend on 4 issues: clear technique alignment, far-reaching inside dedication, sturdy in-house abilities, and a willingness to experiment. These pillars are on the core of how we’ve constructed the CPP, from the tailor-made scouting and problem framing to the post-engagement follow-up. By embedding this construction in our strategy, we’ve been capable of considerably enhance the possibilities of scale-ups securing actual, lasting offers.
As world competitors intensifies, notably with the US and Asia, the place do you see Europe’s distinctive alternative to guide in innovation? How can initiatives just like the EIC CPP assist strengthen Europe’s place?
Europe’s innovation management is rooted in its analysis excellence and robust and vibrant deep tech sector. The EIC Company Partnership Programme accelerates this by fostering a transparent win-win for startups and main firms alike. With this, corporates are fuelled by homegrown improvements, permitting them to face world competitors, whereas European startups get the alternatives to scale in Europe, as a substitute of getting to look elsewhere for alternatives to develop. By fostering strategic partnerships and offering entry to new markets and funding, the Programme contributes to enhancing Europe’s competitiveness, lowering dependencies, and opening new alternatives. The important thing to securing Europe’s management within the world innovation race is a collaborative ecosystem. The CPP has grown to turn into an indispensable initiative to attain this.
Should you’re a European startup founder or decision-maker at a company, you may download the full EIC report here, or discover what it means to turn into a accomplice within the EIC Company Partnership Programme here.
