News

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER EVENTS

Brussels, November 13th 2015 - On November 5th the 13th edition of the Nordic Venture Forum took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. The sixty-three best innovative companies in Online Mobile, Clean Technology, Life Sciences and Food showcased to an audience of international venture capital investors. All the presenting entrepreneurs were selected by an international jury from over 100 applications, based upon criteria such as: business potential, team experience, product & technology and competitive position.
Among the 18 award winners is the Norwegian company Piql, part of the Eureka network. Piql was awarded in the ICT sector for its migration free long term preservation and storage of digital data. As award winner of the Nordic Venture Forum, Piql won a pitching slot at the prestigious European Venture Summit (EVS), taking place on December 7th & 8th in Dusseldorf, Germany.
 
A very intense first year of the Eureka High-tech Investment Programme will conclude with two further match-making events where the participating companies will have the opportunity to meet with investors and business angels and explore business synergies and opportunities. On November 21st the Eureka Venture Forum will convene in Cascais, Portugal, 10 start-ups and 20 investors for an intense half day programme; and on December 7th & 8th in Dusseldorf, Germany, will take place the European Venture Summit, with some 100 presenting companies and 100+ attending venture capitalists. This year the European Venture Summit special theme is ‘Digital convergence: Digital Health – Digital Industry – Digital Energy’.The opening of the European Venture Summit will focus on the theme, and leading experts from science and practice are invited as keynote speakers to highlight the state-of-art, and guide several discussion sessions. 
 
For further information:
Eureka Venture Forum, 21 November in Cascais: HERE
European Venture Summit, 7-8 December in Dusseldorf: HERE


EUREKA HIGH-TECH INVESTMENT PROGRAMME – VENTURE ACADEMIES
 
Brussels, May 29th 2015 - The third phase of the EUREKA High-tech Investment Programme, organized by the EUREKA Network in collaboration with Europe Unlimited and EBAN, concluded this month. After an initial phase consisting of online webinars addressing crucial challenges that entrepreneurs are facing when looking for investment, the Programme has foreseen 3 local Venture Academies focused on developing the investment readiness of the applying companies, and aimed to help innovative entrepreneurs leaders to better prepare for presentations and meetings with angel, venture capital and corporate investors.
 
The three Venture Academies took place in Utrecht (NL), Copenhagen (DK) and Brussels (BE) last April 17th, April 21st and May 11th. The companies that attended the events have been selected through an online review process carried out by investors expert reviewers on 7 criteria: business potential, team experience, technology merit, competitive position, investment interest and profile quality. Based on the reviews, companies were ranked, and the top 40 companies have been selected to participate in the Venture Academies. The events consisted in a very interactive format, during which entrepreneurs pitched their presentation a first time in the morning, received feedback and remarks from the coaches, and pitched again a second time in the afternoon. At the end of the day, coaches engaged in individual discussions in order to better focus their comments and improvement suggestions. As stated by Oscar Chabrera, co-founder of the company ViLynx, participation to the Venture Academies and the EUREKA High-tech Investment Programme “is raising our awareness in European Venture Capital easing our go to market deployment in Europe”. From a coach and organiser’s perspective, Ana Barjasic, EBAN representative at the events, noticed how “during a single day of excellent coaching is possible to help the company with a great ground breaking technology but lacking in market knowledge, to adapt not only their presentations, but also their business model, to make it more investment ready”.
 
Based on all the comments and reviews received during the Academies, participating companies have been invited to improve their presentations and profiles for a second online selection. The selection committee will choose and announce in the first week of June the top 30 companies that will be invited to pitch their business in front of an audience of 60 specialized VCs, angels and corporate VCs at the Alpine High-tech Venture Forum on June 24-25 at the Swiss-tech Convention Center in Lausanne, Switzerland.
 
For more information on the EUREKA High-tech Investment Programme: www.eurekahtip.eu