The first year of the project period (01-12/2020) was dedicated to project implementation and documentation activities, primarily setting up the project management team and structure, reaching a common understanding with regards to each partner’s specific execution papers related to all work packages as well as a first trial support programme.
From 03/2020 onwards, the project organization, communication and processes were faced with the effects of the Corona pandemic. A shift in focus of global startup development and support trends, the cancellation of relevant scaleup support formats and the subsequent development of virtual formats required many adjustments in their general and project specific activities from all partners.
Regardless of the new challenges and specifically reacting to the pandemic situation, project partners executed an internal scaleup scouting programme: a “Post-Corona” call with a focus on scalable innovation to overcome the crisis. This programme also served as a trial for cooperation and learning for the coming support activities.
In the 2nd year of the project period (01-12/2021) all labs launched their support programmes as planned and successfully executed calls addressing specific technology verticals and challenges. The partners and supporting stakeholders, scouted, identified, evaluated and invited many scaleups and startups to join the labs. The support included many different offerings with a clear focus on very individualized and customized coach-scaleup support. To measure the success of the support, the partners earlier defined clear KPIs, most importantly in the definition of “transactional” scaling success, e.g. successfully entering new markets and adding new (cross-border) customers, concluding strategic partnerships, adding new resources that support the scaling effort, establishing pilots or closing a financial investment.
During the 3rd and last year of the project (01-12/2022) all labs continued their support programmes, developed business models for the time following the European funding and intensified the documentation of achievements.
For the business future of the project beyond the European financial support, each lab defined a viable business plan as a key to the sustainability and future financing of the Scaleup Lab programmes. The plans included the funding and sponsorship strategies as well as the future cooperation between the partners building on the very high level of interactivity and connectedness that has been built between the partners during the project life. As an example, the AgTech Lab became the nucleus for the Serbian AgTech supercluster, funded by USAID.
The team also organised several workshops and conferences like Smart Region Days to connect the scaleups with relevant decision makers and stakeholders in public administrations and development agencies from different European countries. The partners actively participated at conferences, workshops, matchmaking events, pitch events and exhibitions, like e.g. Xhibition, ViennaUp, WebSummit or Anuga Food Tech.
Measuring the outcome of the project, the four labs executed 10 acceleration programmes, identifying 340 startups and scaleups of which 161 received general support, 125 were accepted into the programmes and with 82 startups and scaleups very customized action plans were agreed and executed. Under the predefined most relevant KPIs, 51 scaling success transaction were achieved.
