WP1: Project Management and Quality Assurance
Led by MTB as Project Coordinator, SEP Consortium has put in place and fine-tuned the management framework and communication channels within the consortium in order to ensure adequate coordination of the activities. During the first reporting period, a Quality Assurance Plan was approved to provide the consortium with a common guideline to ensure the smooth functioning of the project. Also, periodic communication was established with the Project Officer and the Startup Europe Initiative team, whose guidelines and recommendations were promptly incorporated into the Consortium’s action plan. Furthermore, SEP undertook, in close coordination and agreement with the Commission, the amendment process of the Grant Agreement and the DoW.
WP2: Matching
During the 24 months of the project life, SEP Consortium organized and ran 19 matching events involving 43 corporates and 331 startups. The Matching Events were organized in partnership with relevant stakeholders and influencers in the European Startup ecosystem and hosted at leading Startup Community events.
WP3: Mapping
Under the WP3 activities, SEP Consortium collected key data-points from high-potential growth startups in Europe. The data collection process, carried out with the support of AngelList services, aimed at serving both as a filtering mechanism for the SEP Matching Events, as well as a tool to track and promote the performance of top European startups. Over 3000 startups were engaged in the data collection process during the first reporting period. The data collection and analysis resulted in the publication and dissemination of 15 SEP Monitor reports, one Report on Startup Transatlantic M&A, and a Policy Hack Report.
WP4: Sharing
Led by Nesta, the SEP Consortium produced two reports: the Guide to European Corporate - Startup Interactions (later renamed ‘Winning Together – a guide to successful corporate-startup collaboration’) and a ‘What Works’ report, uncovering motivations and barriers for startups and corporations engaged in different types of collaborative activities (renamed Scaling Together – Overcoming Barriers in Corporate Startup Collaboration). Both reports were very well received in the business community, and have been featured in Bloomberg, Tech City News, City AM, Wired-gov, Intelligent HQ, Corriere.it and other media channels. In addition to distributing 2,000+ hard copies to corporate members and intermediaries, each report had 1,500+ unique downloads to date and 2,000+ online views. In June 2016, Nesta launched the online ranking of Europe’s 25 Corporate Startup Stars with an awards ceremony hosted at Startup Europe Summit in Berlin. Nesta’s reports, blog posts, tools and corporates’ best practices were collected, collated and curated to produce an online ‘What Works’ repository of resources on Corporate-Startup collaboration, the aim of which is to enable more and better corporate support for startups.
WP5: Dissemination and Exploitation
SEP Consortium, led by BISITE-ACCELERATOR has focused its strategy and effort in order to build a strong SEP brand aligned with the Startup Europe Initiative. Both the website domain (www.startupeuropepartnership.eu) and the social media channels were launched and are regularly updated.
WP6: Startup Europe Summit
This WP was added through the Grant Agreement and DoW amendment process. SEP Consortium, led by Factory, planned, organized, and ran two editions of the Startup Europe Summit conference in Berlin, first on February 13th and 14th 2015 and then on June 9th and 10th 2016. Each edition of the event saw over 1000 attendees from the startup community, corporates and businesses, and other ecosystem stakeholders gathering together to discuss about the future of the tech entrepreneurial ecosystem in Europe.
WP7: Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley (SEC2SV)
SEP Consortium welcomed the PO’s suggestion to organize an annual mission to Silicon Valley with top delegates from the European startup ecosystem. SEP Consortium, led by MTB and in partnership with Mind the Bridge Inc. in US, worked to define a program for the mission, involve key stakeholders and develop strategic partnerships. Two missions were organized on September 21st - 25th 2015 and on September 12th – 20th 2016.
WP8: SEP Investors Forum
SEP Consortium added a third additional WP to describe the actions undertaken to engage the pan-European community of investors and accelerators. The Consortium, led by MTB, organized several events and workshops dedicated to helping investors, and partnered with them for the startup scouting activities. Over the first 8 months of activities, SEP Consortium has brought in 142 investors into the SEP Investors Forum.
