On 22 May 2023, the EIC Tech to Market (T2M) Programme organised its first Tech Demo Day, in Advanced materials for energy and environmental sustainability, in collaboration with Francesco Matteucci, EIC Programme Manager of Advanced materials for energy and environmental sustainability. Six EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition awardees pitched their projects to a diversified panel of experts, including academics, investors, corporate representatives, and EIC business coaches. Keep reading to find out what the participants had to say about their experience in the Programme so far.
The EIC T2M Venture Building Programme aims at helping to build start-ups to exploit promising research results through venture building services. The Programme is composed of 4 main phases – Tech Demo Days, Opportunities’ exploration, Team creation and Venture support services. Besides the Tech Demo Day, on this first phase of the Programme, the innovators also had access to a collective training session, and individual support sessions, where they received insights from a business expert and an expert in the field of Advanced materials for energy and environmental sustainability.
Right guidance to take the first market steps
Simon Beckers, from Vrije University of Brussels, participated in the Tech Demo Day, with the project SHINTO. For him, the chance to listen and interact with experts and entrepreneurs was the most beneficial part of the Programme. In his opinion, “this is a good chance to get the first feeling of what crucial risks your business is facing and need to be mitigated, or what information you file is missing in order to become investible”.
Simon added that “the experts made us think about important future problems and how to use them to assess the attractiveness of our ideas. For instance, important factors concerning the scalability of our business should be analysed”.
Beatriz Oraá, from B5tec, was also one of the EIC beneficiaries at the Tech Demo Day, presenting her project REDCAP. For her, “the most important part of the first phase of the Programme was to have the chance to present our technology to a broad panel of experts and obtain feedback”.
“During our mentoring session with the expert, we were able to focus on what we want to show about our technology and how to do it. Moreover, we learned some tips about presenting our technology”, Beatriz added.
The role of the experts
We spoke with Cesar Gimeno, from MAPFRE, who was a member of the panel. As an expert, “my role within the EIC Tech to Market Venture Building Programme is to provide feedback and support to EIC Pathfinder & Transition beneficiaries, which often have a background in academia and research, in their journey to transform their scientific results into viable commercial products”, said Cesar.
In his point of view, “the most interesting part of it was the possibility to get to better-known cutting-edge technologies and innovation while at the same time interacting with people with a passion for bringing technological innovations to the market”.
If you’re interested in participating in future Tech Demo Days, read more and apply here.
About the EIC Tech to Market (T2M) Venture Building Programme
The EIC Tech to Market Venture Building Programme aims to help build start-ups to exploit promising research results through venture building services, comprising a range of activities from identification of promising business ideas to venture creation and development.
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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.