The Startup Europe initiative was born with the aim to connect entrepreneurs at a pan-European scale. Oriented to the idea of the EU Single Market, startups were also the target of the policy.
Years after and a number of projects and consortia established, next season is ready to go live. Launched as a pilot programme in 2014, Startup Europe has been open to startups from all over Europe. In 2020, Entrepreneurial ecosystems have been launched in 30 countries across the European Union and other associated Member States. Ordered by funding secured we have the top-ten countries lead by Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Latvia, Belgium, United Kingdom (despite of Brexit), Netherlands, Portugal, Estonia and Ireland. With so much being done, there is still room for more. And here we are now.
Coming calls by the 10th and 18th of November are planning to support different elements:
- Connecting startup ecosystems in different countries and funding startups doing cross-national acceleration programmes
- Co-creation of programmes for startups in less developed ecosystems with more developed ones
- Scaling-up deep tech ecosystems.
- Supporting women-led startups and scaleups in Europe.
These four “topics” are backed with nearly 20 million euros. This time the European Union is focusing more in underrepresented countries participants such as the so-called wideding countries, which include Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Faroe Islands, North Macedonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.
Official information on these open calls can be found here:
- The official “power point“
- The video recording session presented by the EC officials.
Entrepreneurial ecosystems are valuable because they serve as a valuable tool for new entrepreneurs to accelerate their growth, develop new skills and find the right people to connect with. They will also be able to learn how to identify growth opportunities, acquire funding and drive innovation.
The ecosystem bridge between the EU regions is an excellent way of encouraging growth across different borders. It’s not only an incentive for innovation but also for creating new jobs which will contribute to the stability of Europe’s economy. For the EU, it’s an incentive towards increasing their digital economy; helping create more jobs, increasing exports and strengthening European economy, the time for building a pan-European ecosystem is now.
So if you are interested to build or participate in a proposal, feel free to ping our experts at Sploro. We have been supporting the creation of international consortia for over a decade and would like to keep on helping pan-European innovation happen