"Innovative Enterprise Vienna 2018" (IEV2018), a joint event of the European Commission and the Austrian EU Council Presidency, took place at the Austria Center Vienna on 21-22 November 2018. "Innovative Enterprise" is the central event format of the European Commission/DG Research and Innovation, with regard to "Access to Risk Finance Activities" for innovative companies.
The event was opened by Michael Esterl, Secretary General of the Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW), together with Patrick Child, Deputy Director General of DG Research and Innovation. Their opening addresses were complemented by introductory remarks from Wilhelm Molterer, President of the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI), and the CEO of EIF, Pierluigi Gilibert.
IEV2018 took place at a particularly decisive moment in time: The consultations on the successor programme of Horizon 2020 were at a very decisive stage, driven by the Austrian EU Council Presidency. The event therefore looked deeply into the EC's plans for a "European Innovation Council" (EIC), which is foreseen to form the third pillar of Horizon Europe. The main objective of the EIC will be to enable highly successful international market entry for Europe’s most promising breakthrough innovators, by at the same time scaling up these enterprises (mostly SMEs) to a real next level. In financial terms, the Commission intends to provide "blended finance" to these entrepreneurs, i.e. a mix of grants and equity.
The event put strong emphasis on including real-life experiences of entrepreneurs. The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) showcased its role in supporting these companies in their preparatory phase.
Beyond this particular EIC-related emphasis, IEV2018 also put a focus on the broad range of InnovFin Risk Finance measures. The positive effects of collaboration between European and national levels in innovative enterprise finance were well demonstrated by the Austrian aws entering into the next phase of InnovEnterprise SME guarantee finance with an additional guarantee amount of € 96 million. This was celebrated by a signing ceremony between EIF and aws on the first day of the conference.
The range of InnovFin measures (financially topped up by the Juncker Plan = EFSI) in the current period will be continued by the InvestEU programme from 2021 onwards, as Wilhelm Molterer, Managing Director of EFSI, made very clear. Equity finance for innovation is still a difficult field for Austria in some respects. A recent study from Germany was taken as a basis to discuss which further development steps could be taken in Austria. A highly relevant recent InnoFin/EFSI development that was also presented at the conference is the Pan-European Fund-of-Funds intiative (FoF) "Venture EU". Such FoF approaches could be a powerful uplift for European equity-based innovation finance to a real next level.
Novel thematic finance models of the InnovFin range were also presented, such as the particular facilities for Infectious Diseases (IDFF), for Energy Demo Pilots (EDP), and also the new "Thematic Investment Platform" (TIP) model, with the first thematic platform on "Circular Biotechnology" to be launched very soon.
The EU-financed "Access4SMEs" network was an important partner for the conference, not only by organising a particular session with regard to the challenges of deeptech, but also by organising one out of two investment pitching sessions, which took place in parallel to the main conference. These two additional parallel pitching sessions were a real novelty of the Austrian "Innovative Enterprise" event, demonstrating equity finance matching in practice. The Austrian "Pioneers"- globally renowned for the "Pioneers Festival" - organised their successful pitching session on the first day. Both presented their inspiring winners to the conference.
