Over the next two years, the EU funding program “EuropeanPioneers” will support 25 startups and SMEs in the European Union with a total of 4.5 million Euros. The scheme targets businesses active in the fields of Smart City Services, Social Connected TV, Pervasive Gaming and E-Learning.
The aim of the project is to boost media-sector startups and SMEs with innovative business models. The application deadline for the first round is Oct. 31, 2014. Interested companies can apply online from Sept. 1 at www.europeanpioneers.eu.
In the course of the 8-month program, the selected startups will receive funding of between 50,000 and 250,000 Euros each, as well as access to the technologies of the powerful FIWARE and FI-CONTENT software platforms.
The platforms provide open-source software, software as a service and cloud service infrastructures for the digital industry. These technologies have been developed by companies and research institu-tions in the context of the EU’s “Future Internet Public Private Partnership”.
The participants will also be supported by experienced coaches in areas including con-cept and business model development, milestone-planning, user-testing, team-building, marketing and financing.
In addition, the program offers access to mentors and a strong network of useful business contacts. This year, 5 companies will be accepted onto the program, and two more application rounds in 2015 will select a further 10 participants each.
EuropeanPioneers is a consortium of innovation experts from all over Europe, led by startup-builder etventure (Berlin) in collaboration with the following partners: the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS (Sankt Augus-tin), Weblify (Poland), Thoughtbox (Ireland) and F-Secure (Finland). EuropeanPioneers is one of 16 accelerators which will distribute a total of 80 million Euros to innovative companies on behalf of the European Union.
Filed Under: Rapid prototyping