Innovation Radar Support Services

Project Information

IRSUS

Grant agreement ID: 779990

DOI

10.3030/779990

Project closed

EC signature date 31 October 2017

Start date 1 December 2017

End date 30 November 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 999 593,75

EU contribution

€ 999 593,75

Coordinated by

ZABALA INNOVATION CONSULTING SA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - IRSUS (Innovation Radar Support Services)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2019-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

IRSUS was a project aimed to provide free support services to promising innovations emerging from the research framework programmes by the European Commission like FP7 or H2020.
Together with DG Connect we have been able to identify, mainly thanks to the Innovation Radar tool, a number of innovations which had an incredible potential to scale and increase the impact in the markets and society. All them as results of Research and Development activities supported with public funds through the research framework programmes.
Irsus has developed a very complete programme for supporting startups. On a first stage, a first set of activities were oriented to the scouting of activities and running of four different open calls. These activities atracted 229 applicants from all corners of Europe.After a selection based on facts like the size of the company, the maturity level and the potential capacity to scale up IRSUS picked 89 companies from 25 countries to participate within our activities.
Our programme divided the activities in four main categories:
(1) Entrepeneurial skills: training and online contents;
(2) Fundraising activities: linked to the training, pitch reviews;
(3) Networking: B2B events, online thematic meetings, missions;
(4) Promotion: through our own channels (blog, networks) but also providing Support to attend to events and in some cases covering trip expenses

But above all, if there is something, IRSUS is truly proud of within the programme is the portfolio of startups. Available online at our website we can mention a few things about its categorization.
- 52% of the portfolio was categorised as Pre-seed state, that is innovator presenting an unmatured state for private investment with products still under development or with limited market tests accomplished, low or limited number of clients, and needing business development training, acceleration and support in the access to clients and corporates.
- 25% of the engaged innovators were categorized into the Seed stage group. These innovators have received at least 1 equity investment (100K€-1M€) and they are focused on looking for a first bigger round of investment, and connecting with big corporates as clients, and they are willing to maximise their brand, company and product in sectoral events.
- 20% of the portfolio was categorized as Serie A, this group including innovators with relevant clients already testing the product and sufficient knowledge about the investment environment. In addition, those in this category have already received one or more rounds of up to 1M€-5M€ and are looking for new investment rounds.
- 3% of the portfolio (3 companies) were categorized as Serie B level, with big rounds of investment achieved (+5M€). These are firms that are in the process of internationalization of their innovative solutions, entering new markets and/or accessing to new partnerships with corporates.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

"The actual delivery of the services provided a myriad of activities. Starting from trainings, we had the chance to provide master sessions on topics like UX/UI, finance modelling, public and private fundraising, agile methodologies, business pitch, digital marketing and inspirational talks by startup Founders. Private mentoring sessions on demand occurred in items like IP, commercial exploitation, tax relieve, tax equity, Internationalization, Social Innovation, Fiware, EU fundraising for SMEs and StartUps, Alternative Financing like Crowdfunding and micro investing smart cities. At the same part a set of chosen companies were part of a ""sounding board"" where they had direct access to coaches that personalised for them a set of services.
Event vouchers of up to 600€ provided free access to companies to events like the Web Summit, Slush, the South Summit, Startup Olé and many other sectorial conferences.
Networking was also a fact among the selected startups. We organised the Innovation Radar Show tour in places like Madrid, Budapest and Milan. Those B2B events gathered regional startups in our porfolio with the local ecosystem of investors and corporations. At the same time virtual thematic days were organised among startups from ehealth, smart cities or energy sectors.
A couple of digital missions with our companies happened in Berlin and London. The first one co-located with the FIWARE Summit and the Smart Country Conference, in which a group of startups had the chance to participate in this 3days event totally free, particpate in billateral encounters with city representatives and join a ""speed dating"" afternoon with several German accelerators, VCs and corporates. The mission to London was an event for nearly a dozen of startups in which they had the chance to pitch their company in front of a crowd of over 60 people comprised by major investors, banks and corporate partners. Additionaly we have provided a package of perks to the startups like free credits on AWS or free office space to organise micro-events. Presence on external events was granted in cases like the South Summit, Startup Olé or the FIWARE Summit.
I3 entities are showcased in the 22 seeking investment and 21 in innovations we support categories. Other companies preferred not to be publicly available mainly for confidentiality issues"

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Among the top indicators measuring the efectiveness of our performance we can be proud of the following facts. The companies in our portfolio raised 14.6M€ during our project execution. A 92% of the selected companies utilised our services. The programme was valued with a score of 4 out of 5 by the startups. We have facilitated direct connections with new acceleration programmes or incubators to over 50 companies in our portfolio. Direct relations have been accounted for over 30 external organisations and our innovators. These connections have been made with crowdfunding platforms, other EU projects, major corporations, public administration, investors, customers, etc.

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