Powering the future: EIC unites energy corporate leaders and EIC-backed innovators in Bucharest

Bucharest, Romania | 9–10 April 2025 – OMV Petrom hosted a landmark edition of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Multi-Corporate Day at its headquarters in Bucharest, welcoming energy sector leaders and 17 EIC-backed startups from 11 countries. This exclusive acceleration activity marked the first of its kind held in Romania, the second with OMV Petrom, and is part of the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme.  

Bringing together some of the most promising startups from the EIC portfolio, the leading energy corporation in Southeast Europe and strategic partners—OMV Petrom, Bonatti, Confind, and Romgaz—this activity is part of the business acceleration services provided to EIC-backed startups to foster collaboration, pilot projects, co-development opportunities, and strategic investments.  

The selected startups, chosen by the participating corporations and trained by the EIC to align with their innovation priorities, showcased cutting-edge solutions in areas such as AI, predictive maintenance, energy storage, and IoT. The two-days event featured reverse pitching by the corporates, startup presentations, interactive Q&A sessions, and tailored one-on-one meetings aimed at driving concrete business outcomes. 

"At OMV Petrom, we partner with the EIC through the Corporate Partnership Programme for the second time because we value open innovation and collaboration with external startups and scaleups. The programme gives us access to high-quality, pre-selected companies that are well-prepared to address our specific challenges with clear and actionable business cases." Ion Ionut Georgian, Head of IT at OMV Petrom. 

OMV Petrom, Bonatti, Confind and Romgaz met the most promising EIC innovators, spanning industries such as AI, predictive maintenance, energy storage, and IoT: 

• AEInnova (Spain) developing ATEX-certified, heat-powered sensors for industrial digitalisation. 

• Alerion Technologies (Spain) specialising in autonomous drones for infrastructure inspections. 

• Allpriv (France) delivering military-grade cybersecurity for critical endpoints. 

• Cold Pad (France) providing non-intrusive repair solutions for industrial structures. 

• CORE (Greece) offering AI-driven predictive maintenance for industrial equipment. 

• Deftpower (Netherlands) enabling SaaS solutions for eMSP businesses across Europe. 

• Enging (Portugal) revolutionising predictive maintenance with AI-powered Electrical Signature Analysis. 

• Golana Computing (France) optimising asset management through advanced AI analytics. 

• Infinite Foundry (Portugal) specialising in AI-driven digital twin technology for asset performance. 

• Iris.ai (Norway) advancing AI/NLP solutions for R&D knowledge retrieval. 

• MITIS (Belgium) developing decentralised energy converters to reduce GHG emissions. 

• Modelway (Italy) providing AI-driven software solutions for industrial optimisation. 

• Neuron Soundware (Czech Republic) delivering AI-based predictive maintenance for industrial equipment. 

• OTECHOS (Norway) revolutionising oil production with next-generation Electric Submersible Pumps. 

• Sensia Solutions (Spain) offering advanced sensing and monitoring for industrial applications. 

• Spotlite (Portugal) specialising in satellite-based infrastructure monitoring. 

• Teraloop (Finland) developing innovative flywheel energy storage solutions. 

For the startups, this acceleration programme offers a unique chance to engage directly with key decision-makers from the energy sector.  

A standout participant, Cold Pad—a French deep tech company supported by a €2.5 million EIC grant and equity investment from the EIC Fund—captured the attention of OMV Petrom decision-makers. Their revolutionary, non-intrusive mechanical fastener sparked discussions on potential applications within OMV Petrom’s operations. 

“The Corporate Partnership Programme gave us unparalleled access to top industry decision-makers and allowed us to build strategic connections with leaders like OMV Petrom. The tailored training we received ensured we could directly address their challenges, significantly accelerating the path to collaboration.” said Franck Matteoli, COO of Cold Pad. 
 
This EIC Multicorporate Day underscored the transformative potential of open innovation—blending the agility and disruptive technologies of startups with the scale and expertise of leading corporations. 

Additional information 

About the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme 

The EIC Corporate Partnership Programme, an initiative of the EIC Business Acceleration Services, allows EIC-backed innovators to boost their network and do business with relevant decision-makers from the largest companies in Europe. Since 2017, the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme has organised 74 initiatives with +120 corporate partners including ABB, Airbus, BMW, CaixaBank, CommerzBank, Enel, Ferrovial, L'Oreal, Medtronic, Neste, Roche, Saint-Gobain, Shell, Siemens Energy, Solvay or Telefonica. Over 1200 EIC-funded startups and scaleups and +2500 corporate high-level representatives have been able to participate in these initiatives reporting a significant business impact, follow-ups, and business deals. 

The EIC is looking for large corporations with open innovation spirit, interested in integrating innovations coming from startups, scaleups and research projects directly into their business offering, procurement and R&D activities as well as investing in highly innovative/deep tech companies. Open application for corporations. 

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