To implement this approach, 3 open calls for respectively 3 MVP Builder support programmes were launched, resulting in 2641 started applications, of which 725 applications were submitted from 39 different countries. Aside from the phenomenal open call participation numbers, a +50K contacts database, a +1000 members strong online community and equally strong Twitter following were built.
34 open-source and privacy-enhancing projects, 16 in the first, 9 in the second, and 9 in the third round were selected via a multilayered selection process based on a funnel approach geared towards finding and selecting the best proposals for LEDGER.
During the 3 MVP Builder Programmes all beneficiaries received state-of-the-art support and access to technology and decentralisation knowledge provided by the researchers in residence. Each of the 34 beneficiaries was assigned a Technical and Business Mentor, who worked with them on a regular basis. Continuous improvements in the programme management were achieved by the constant implementation of lessons learned from the different programmes. As a result, 33 MVPs and 63 open-source repositories are publicly available on LEDGER’s GitHub profile. In the first two rounds, technical developments concluded with the MVP and business cases delivery of each of the beneficiaries. Those with the highest potential were selected to join a 3-month Business Ignition. The significantly shorter third programme (6 instead of 12 months) provided the Business Ignition service throughout its entirety. Overall 20 market-tested MVPs and business plans were generated in the process through which over 500 interviews were conducted by the beneficiaries, contributing to better meeting market interest.
Paving the way for sustainability of the beneficiaries, they were connected with investors, corporates and other stakeholders within the respective vertical cluster domains via business acceleration activities like the demo day brokerage events, interviews and matchmaking aimed at generating access to market. A LEDGER Innovators Profile section was created on the project website and online community, and they were included in the official NGI Solutions Discovery Tool. Results of these activities include among others, one representative use-case per 5 LEDGER verticals by beneficiaries from all 3 cohorts, namely SafePKT, Usody, GeneCoop, Unified Science and Orvium.
In direct relation to their LEDGER participation, 108 jobs were created, 127 partnerships formed and 17 awards won, e.g.second cohort beneficiaries Orvium and Global Passport Project won the Blockchain Venture Day Starter and Social Good Awards respectively and 3 first cohort beneficiaries (Unified Science and Merits; ECP) won the EIC Blockchain 4 Social Good Prize awarded with 1M€. Throughout LEDGER, a total of 5,35M€ public funding was awarded to the 34 beneficiaries. At the time of writing, LEDGER beneficiaries had been able to raise overall an additional 1,26M€ public and 20,4M€ private funding.
