If you look at the innovation of a European Startup founder deep technology, the European Innovation Council (EIC) is a name you should know. Horizon has turned into a power house to support EIC Startups and SMIs with € 10.1 billion budget (EU flagship research and innovation funding program), which has completed more than 150 investment rounds in 2024, with only 60. This powerful investment activity indicates the EIC’s original role in nurturing innovation across the continent.
It is the main driver of EIC’s success in helping startups to reach the market Corporate Partnership Program (CPP)The More than 120 top 120 top corporations, such as ABB, Abinbev, Airbus, Engi, IKEA and Shell, have benefited more than 1,500 EC-backed startups. As a result, there have already been more than 100 deals and more than 500 follow-ups. To facilitate this cooperation, the EIC accelerates the growth of Europe’s innovative ecosystem, ensuring global scales and startups for success.
This structural method of cooperation is the subject of the newly published EIC report, Unlocking innovation with corporate ventureSeven -year CPP Data Capture. The goal is to better understand what the elements of this partnership are important for success, as well as understanding where there is a place to grow. To draw from this study, the EIC supports Europe’s DIPTEC ecosystem that supports startups because they scale up and overall industrialization innovation.
In this exclusive interview, Staffen Ouki, the acting director of the European Innovation Council and the SMES executive agency, which is responsible for the implementation of the EIC), has shared his view for the future of European DipTartch Startups. He has discussed how the EC Corporate Partnership Program is playing an important role in scaling on DITTEC startups, facing the main challenges in collaboration with corporate interests and how Azmia plans to support Europe’s Diptech Ecosystem in the coming years.
Thank you for joining us, Staffen! To turn off things with a broader point of view, what are your top strategic priorities for the EIC Corporate Partnership Program in the next five years? In other words, what more can startups expect to see?
The EIC is the favorite investor for visionary innovators, trying to unlock the huge private deep technology investment and increase the fuel in Europe’s green and digital transitions. The EIC Corporate Partnership Program is the main part of this strategy. In the next five years, we will continue EC-supported scale-ups by connecting them to the decision-makers of Europe and expanding their network, winning new clients and accelerating their growth. We are currently in the third edition of this program, during which we will facilitate 31 hand-on corporate and multi-corporate days in 30 months, focusing on the field of main strategic innovations such as health, biotech, energy and sustainability.
Given your role in the leadership of the Ismia, you have a unique vantage point on the challenges of startups throughout Europe. From your point of view, some of the biggest obstacles to starting with corporations are the face -to -face key and how does EC CPP help them overcome them?
Quickly dynamic, risk-tolerant startups are often in a layered, anti-risk decision chain, causing suspended pilots and misses. This challenge has been highlighted in the recent report of the EIC ”Unlocking innovation with corporate venture“‘Internal Missiline’ and the so -called ‘pilot trap’ refer to many partnerships as the root cause of not making a scale.
The EIC corporate partnership program helps overcome these obstacles with a structural, multi-phase structure. It matches the startups with corporations on the basis of defined innovation requirements and shared objectives. The program force a unified roadmap on the one hand, to identify their most stressful challenges with corporations, and on the other hand, intensively partner to equip the scale-ups with intensive consultants and stakeholder-linear workshops. The result is the basis of clear administration and executive purchase-in protection, sustainable, long-term cooperation.
The EIC Corporate Partnership Program has already enabled more than 1500 startup-corporate cooperation and helped to achieve more than 100 contracts. Can you give an example of a scente that proves that this national partnership contributes to novelty across Europe to scaling.
Holsim is a good example of a successful corporate-startup partnership made by the EC Corporate Partnership Program. In Greece Nanolik’s IoT Inventory-Management Solutions and scaling it worldwide, Holsim proved how structured matchmaking, thorough preparation and strong operational commitment could turn a proof-off-consept into a widespread installation.
It, instead, accelerates the way of scaleup industrialization and increases the company’s competition. Several partners replicate this blueprint throughout different industries, create valid pilots, align internal stakeholders, and encourage the executive by-in. It eventually advances the systematic adoption of cutting-Ez technologies and strengthens Europe’s innovative ecosystem.
The EIC Corporate Partnership Program is a part of the EIC Business Acceleration Services (BAS), which provides multiple suitable programs to assist the startup scale. For readers who may not be familiar with BAS, how does EC CPP fits in this broader initiative and how does it work alongside other BAS programs to support Europe’s startups?
EIC Business Acceleration Services (BAS) provides multiple created programs to assist the Startup scale, include three main pillars: contracts, contacts and skills. The CPP especially supports the “Agreement” pillar to facilitate the partnership between startups and large corporations. It also works in addition to other BAS initiatives such as EIC Innovation Programs, Investor Preparation Programs and Scaling Club, creating a broad ecosystem that supports startups with business development, investment preparation, internationalization and consolidation of ecosystem.
Aimia has just just released a new report, Unlocking innovation with corporate ventureExamining why so many corporate-startup partnerships struggle to distribute. What are some of the key acceptance from that study and how are they shaping the CPP approach?
The report confirms many things we have learned over the past few years, especially surround the importance of the structure. One of the biggest blockers of successful partnership is the internal misconception between the business units, the priority or even innovative teams and corporations between the innovative teams and the collection. That’s why many busyness never goes out of the pilot episode.
What we have seen depends on four things that success is: alignment of clear strategy, far -reaching internal commitment, interested in strong internal skills and testing. The main topic of how we created these pillars are from the Taillard Scouting and the Challenge Fraping to the next follow -up of Baghdan. By embedding this structure of our approach, we have been able to significantly improve the possibilities of scale-ups to protect real, permanent deals.
Where do you see the unique opportunity to lead Europe in Europe as the global competition with the United States and Asia intensifies? How can initiatives like EC CPP help strengthen Europe’s position?
Europe’s innovative leadership includes the superiority of the main research and the strong and vibrant deep technology sector. The EIC corporate partnership program accelerates it by the same way for startups and chief corporations encouraging a clean win-win. With this, the corporations are driven by the invention, allowing them to face competition worldwide, while European startups have the opportunity to scale Europe, instead of watching somewhere else. By encouraging strategic partnerships and providing access to new markets and investment, the program contributes to Europe’s competition, reduce dependence and opening new opportunities. The key to protecting Europe in the Global Innovation race is an associate ecosystem. The CPP has become an essential initiative to achieve it.
If you are a European Startup founder or decision -maker if a corporate is in a corporate you can Full EIC Report Download hereOr explore what is the meaning of partnering in the EIC Corporate Partnership Program HereThe
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