Among the 700 SMEs directly contacted, around 50% expressed interest to enter into the open innovation approach of our action. We have generated a strong pipeline of opportunities for collaboration in multiple fields and what we have confirmed is that SMEs are ready to invest manpower in a true innovation opportunity when their financial risk can be managed with a first validation stage.
The 34 demonstrators in progress cover 10 different sectors where smartization addresses bankable challenges. The Medical, Agro-food, and Process control segments showed the strongest traction.
During these 3,5 years of activity, the gateone-project has generated momentum for a wider adoption of miniaturised smart systems in innovative and sustainable products, meeting industrial and end-users needs in a broad range of applications and sectors.
In order to have the best chances for SMEs to succeed beyond the gateone-project, we tend to work on the validation of the future procurement chain. We check the availability of critical components and also the level of competition in presence. The Innovation chain and the best practice for market exploitation are then a common ground for all the demonstrators. The gateone-project works on the industrial chain structuration to prepare a favorable environment for innovative product development.
A few SMEs have already generated revenue from these demonstrators. If we take these figures into account, the performance increases with a leverage effect that reaches x2,45 and could reach 5x if the business projections are confirmed in 2019. The turnover projections in 2019 could reach 4,25M€.
Thanks to a pro-active promotion of RTO technologies value potential and the “free sample” offer by our approach, we have been able to initiate a strong interest from SMEs and generated market traction. Beyond the bilateral partnership, a number of demonstrators have succeeded to perform an “ecosystem design” integrating the missing links in the value chain.
In addition, one company has been created, another is under creation and generated a substantial flow of investment for the year to come thanks to the high visibility gained with the innovation radar prize.
The success of the gateone-project proves that it is a high-performance tool to generate an incentive for technology adoption among European SMEs with a short to medium term business impact. Based on the results reached, a sustainability plan has been elaborated combining public and private financing in a dedicated early stage investment fund addressing specific innovation challenges of start-up and SMEs
The gateone-project was an ambitious project in terms of activities and targeted number of demonstrators to be delivered as well as targeted KPIs. The quantitative and qualitative objectives. Some of them have even been exceeded. It is an important scheme to be further exploited at Pan European level. It leverages on the Pan European added-value contributing to a Single Digital market supporting jointly the growth of European SMEs and start-ups with the adoption and exploitation of smart technologies.
