The European Commission kicked into gear a fresh initiative on Thursday to help 100 unicorns scale up to become Europe's deep tech champions and help achieve the EU's digital and green objectives.
In a speech delivered to an audience of deep tech entrepeneurs and investors in Stockholm, EVP Margrethe Vestager started by highlighting the progress (to be) made with 'The New European Innovation Agenda'.
Launched almost a year ago by Mariya Gabriel, the recently resigned Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, this was in essence the formulation of a multi-faceted strategy to stimulate innovation across all sectors of the economy.
Vestager is now making those plans more concrete, with the launch of 'Regional Innovation Valleys' and the 'EIC Scale Up 100' initiative, which will identify and support the growth of 100 promising European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to become 'unicorns'.
Ready to scale up with the #EUeic? 🚀
Introducing the 🆕 Scale Up 100 initiative!
The goal: identify, promote, and support the growth of 💯 promising European #deeptech companies.
Learn more here 👉https://t.co/RrYUl2G3Ju pic.twitter.com/g8uoO68c27— European Innovation Council (@EUeic) June 1, 2023
The selected startups will also get a welcome helping hand from a group called the EIC Scaling Club, which includes 100 investors, 100 companies with innovation units, 100 'agencies, clusters and media', and 100 independent mentors.
Important disclosure: Tech.eu and our parent company Webrazzi are a part of the EIC Scaling Club, a project funded by the EU through the European Innovation Council, alongside consortium lead TechTour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, EurA and IESE Business School. More on our involvement soon!
University lobby group CESAER took the opportunity of the launch of the initiatives to call for more support to ensure deep tech entrepreneurship at universities is fostered within the wider innovation ecosystem. The EU and its institutions should better acknowledge the pivotal role that science and technology universities play in driving deep tech innovation, CESAER claims.
Also read:
EIC Fund takes stock, having pumped €331 million into deep tech startups since November
40% of companies in first 2023 EIC Accelerator are female led
Featured image credit: Guillaume Périgois / Unsplash
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