Skip to main content
Story 26 March 2021
Public

Events - EIC Procurers of Innovation Day with Jose de Mello Group

banner-josedemello.png
Jasper Havermans

José de Mello Group partnered up with the European Innovation Council for the EIC Procurers Day on 18 & 19 March 2021. EIC Procurers days are tailor-made and highly effective acceleration services to facilitate collaboration between large procurer departments and EIC-funded innovators. Over these two days, EIC beneficiaries had the opportunity to pitch their Mobility and Health-related innovations to the procurers José de Mello Residências e Serviços (JMRS), CUF & Brisa

 

37 EIC-funded start-ups and scaleups from more than 17 countries pitched their solutions to José de Mello Group’s representatives. Topics such as ‘health’, ‘senior care’ and ‘mobility’ were the main subjects over these two days, leading to many interesting pitching sessions and business meetings.  After the event, we got together with João Mil-Homens, Head of Innovation at José de Mello Capital & Teresa Sousa, Innovation Manager at José de Mello Capital, Marta Bento Amorim, Head of Strategic Planning and Innovation at CUF, Bruno Tavares, M&A Manager at Brisa and Julie Sufana, CMO from the EIC-funded startup contextflow. 

 

The European Unicorns 

It was the first time that José de Mello Group teamed up with the EIC. As to what piqued their interest, João mentioned that “there is a pool of European companies that are outstanding and have the potential to become the next European unicorns”. Teresa added that “the EIC program has the best European startups and this partnership contributes to our internationalization efforts”. Marta stated that joining the event “will help CUF to find potential solutions to their internal challenges”. Bruno mentioned that “it is always interesting to take part in scouting events that are relevant to our industry and will expand our ecosystem”.  

The key word of the event was ‘synergies’ as corporates tried to identify new opportunities and solutions with the EIC-innovators that took part in the event. João eagerly mentioned that the event “was extremely successful on different levels, including the scouting process, the coaching sessions, the presentations by the SMEs, and overall, how their solutions fitted the current needs of our companies”. Teresa also praised the preparation of the participants adding that “you can really tell that startups and SMEs were well prepared with clear tailor-made proposals”.  

 

Opening new doors 

Bruno disclosed that Brisa spotted interesting startups during the event “that had a product or solution that was interesting. Brisa’s ecosystem ranges from tech to infrastructure, to operations and asset management. Some of these companies showed something that we are trying to do or that we want to do. They fill a gap and, on top of that, there was a good vibe”. On another note, Marta shared that “closing the event with actual solutions that you can move on to a proof of concept was our main goal and we accomplished that.”  

Julie Sufana, Chief Marketing Officer at contextflow, an Austrian-based startup that develops deep learning-based tools to improve radiology workflows, said that “the opportunity to put what we have found in our clinical research into practice with a large hospital group could be transformative for both sides. That was the main motivation, the new market, the opportunity of a senior product to be used in clinical routine with a large group”. Julie also talked about the benefits of being part of the EIC Community: “EIC funding has been instrumental in enabling us to hit our next milestones. From a technology standpoint, we were able to move from a testing version to the one now being deployed into clinical practice. We can now sell, scale up and truly make a positive impact in radiologists' daily routine”.   

 

Interested in EIC Procurers Days? 

Are you looking for opportunities to connect with some of the largest public and private procurers of innovation in Europe? The next EIC Procurers Day, this time with ORSI, will take place on 22 June 2021 (applications will open in the week of 29 March 2021). Stay tuned to our events calendar and apply today to grab the opportunity to take your business to the next level. 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.

Please log in to see comments and contribute