First-ever Eurowards edition in the Greater Region
This European award is open to any kind of start-up and is organised in four categories: Encouragement, Seed, Start-up, Expansion. Venture capital funds linked to EUROWARDS will invest in companies with European ambitions in selected economic sectors. With the support of the European Commission, our first sectorial agreement links us to the eContent Fund for Start-ups (EFS), a venture fund of 52 million euro which will co-invest minority shares with other regional or national funds. Mr Frédéric Béguin, president of Eurowards:,"2002 was a great year for EUROWARDS. We received this year more projects than ever (1126 at European level) and the quality of the business proposals is constantly increasing, partly due to our renewed on-line application form helping the participants to work more and better on their project. We changed our former operational name "European Awards for the Spirit of Enterprise" into "EUROWARDS" to reinforce our communication and our presence in participating countries, including three new central-European countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. EUROWARDS has started a new approach by setting up local joint-ventures with key partners that will play a significant role in EUROWARDS development at regional and national level. I am pleased to announce that Mr Benoît Conotte, Vice-President, joined EUROWARDS before the summer to take over those responsibilities. I will personally be committed in the Spirit of Enterprise Fund (SoEF) linked to EUROWARDS. SoEF is a private equity investment fund which will invest into European early stage companies operating in the eContent sector. This targeted 60 million EUR fund is regulated in Luxembourg and is co-promoted by Mangrove Capital Partners. In the Great Region, we were happy to organize the 3rd edition of EUROWARDS with our partners First Tuesday Luxembourg. We are also proud of the support of Mr Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament and Sir Albert Bore, President of the Committee of the Regions." The "First-ever" Greater Region Eurowards edition had attracted more than 45 projects from which only 28 entered the selection process. During the month of September 2002 the selection committee evaluated these projects and ranked them on 4 criteria: orginilaity, viability, presentation and European approach. A final selection of 8 projects had been invited four hours before the official ceremony to present their venture in front of the jury, out of which we are proud to announce the 2002 "First-ever" Greater Region Eurowards Winners: - Winner Category SEED,4M (LU),"The jury saw a strong asset and an innovative approach for material modelling which could provide substantial cost savings." - Winner Category START-UP,Athentic Drink (FR),"The jury appreciated the only player in a self-created niche market which accepts his products. Further the application of collaborative and viral marketing together with the seemless transition of processes or habits from the (draft) beer market into the cola market." - Winner Category EXPANSION,Safe AG (DE),"The jury appreciated the innovative way to address an existing and urgent need of big corporations, i.e. Recurring (small) strategic purchasing. Bundeled with ahuge European potential." These projects will enter the final selection for the European Ceremony 2002 which will be held within the third annual symposium for Europe¹s business entrepreneurs, investors community, industry and government leaders, organized by Serge Kubla, Vice-President of the walloon Government and Minister of Economic Affairs. This year¹s event will be held under the auspices of Minister Kubla¹s action plan ''4x4 for Entrepreneurship'' and is entitled ''Taste of Entrepreneurship, Financing and Research''. The symposium will once again take place in the university city of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, on the 19th and 20th of November 2002.
Countries
Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg