FundingBox at Web Summit 2018: Introducing #FundingGrowth

Startups, entrepreneurs and innovation EU projects

Over 70,000 people from 160 countries landed in Lisbon last week to attend the largest tech event in Europe: the Web Summit. CEOs and founders of the world’s biggest companies, the most promising startups, influential investors and leading journalists made the room feel crowded and vibrant.

More than 1200 speakers, 2200 journalists and over 2000 startups met under the same roof, where 25 conferences were held. And at FundingBox we couldn’t miss it. We love startups, so we organised our own pitch competition. We met tens of innovative startups coming from all over the world. Startups related to content, social media, advertising and marketing, music, education, games, human resources, news, augmented reality, travel and hospitality, marketplaces, mobile apps, digital identity, smart cities, food, retail… and we could keep enumerating the long list of startups we met.

But it was Unipos, a startup from Japan that offers the simplest way to recognise and reward employees through peer bonus, the one that won FundingBox pitch competition, because Seiya’s pitch was the most seen video, with almost 400 views on Twitter.

In our pitch competition we introduced #FundingGrowth, the new FundingBox hashtag. At FundingBox we are growth catalysts. We are the guide for any entrepreneur in the quest for growth. For that, we offer equity-free funding and acceleration services to startups and SMEs through innovation projects funded under the Horizon 2020 Programme from the European Commission:

• <IMPACT> Growth is a startups accelerator that has distributed €1,8 million among 28 startups working in Smart Agrifood, Smart Cities, Smart Content or Smart Manufacturing verticals. The beneficiaries got up to €250,000 equity-free and a complete set of acceleration services.
• <IMPACT> Connected Car is also a startups and SMEs accelerator with a €2.1 million budget distributed to over 60 companies that are leading the creation of new value chains in the Connected Car OpenSpace with vehicle, infrastructure and device interactions, as well as consumer and business services.
• RobotUnion is the the first European accelerator fully focused on Robotics startups and SMEs. This project recently closed it first open call distributing up to €223k equity-free funding to 20 companies that will also be accelerated.
• I4MS is the European initiative to digitalise the manufacturing industry. SMEs and mid-caps can apply for technological and financial support to experiment with innovative technologies and services, and they can also become members of I4MS Online Community. Besides, this programme is one of the key initiatives of the European Commission to shape the pan-European network of Digital Innovation Hubs.
• L4MS is an acceleration program for European Manufacturing SMEs and mid-caps to automate the intra-factory logistics with mobile robots with up to €250k equity-free funding and acceleration services. L4MS Open Call is available until November 30, so manufacturing SMEs and mid-caps still have two weeks to apply.
• TETRAMAX is the number 1 innovation hub for digitizing European industries in the domain of customized and low-energy computing (CLEC). Its mission is to boost innovation for SMEs in search of leading-edge digital technologies and solutions. It currently has two open calls available: the Entrepreneurial TTX call and the Bilateral TTX call.
• C-VoUCHER combines design and technology to support SMEs on their way towards circular economy. For that, it will support 66 SMEs in their transition from linear value chains (cradle to waste) towards circular models (cradle to cradle®) with a total value of €4.2 million. Right now SMEs interested in creating sustainable business models with a circular economy approach and design thinking methodologies can apply for C-VoUCHER Circularity Programme open call to get up to €60k funding in vouchers.
• SMOOTH is going to help SMEs handle the complexities of GDPR compliance, and it has created a pilot program, which is an online tool to generate awareness on the GDPR obligations and assess the level of compliance of companies with key provisions of the regulation, such as the requirements for consent and transparency. Small companies can join SMOOTH pilot program now to get one year free services of SMOOTH software.
• WeldGalaxy is a digital dynamic knowledge management based B2B platform for welding in manufacturing industries that will bring together global buyers and EU sellers of welding equipment along with auxiliaries/consumables and services.
• Integradde is an initiative that aims to develop an end-to-end Digital Manufacturing solution, enabling a cybersecured bidirectional data-flow for a seamless integration across the entire Additive Manufacturing (AM) chain.The goal is to develop a new manufacturing methodology capable of ensuring the manufacturability, reliability and quality of a target metal component from initial product design via Direct Energy Deposition (DED) technologies, implementing a zero-defect manufacturing approach ensuring robustness, stability and repeatability of the AM process.

The Internet of tomorrow, a human-centric Internet fostered by NGI4eu

Internet innovators had a date during the Web Summit to attend NGI4eu workshop in the afternoon of the 6th of November. Next Generation Internet is an EU-funded initiative distributing between €50k and €200k grants to build the Internet of tomorrow, a human-centric Internet that respects human and societal values, privacy, participation and diversity, and offers new functionalities to support people’s real needs and address global sustainability challenges by linking research, policy, and society.

Part of the NGI4eu initiative is LEDGER, a project in which FundingBox is collaborating. LEDGER, the Venture Builder for Human Centric Solutions, will support SMEs and startups developing an MVP to achieve new models that preserve citizens digital sovereignty in vertical cluster domains such us Health, Finance, Public Services and Energy.

A total of 32 teams, which include research contributions and use decentralized technologies, will be selected through two open calls to join its Venture Builder Program and get tech and business mentoring and equity-free funding -up to €200k for best in class.

FundingBox Team