What is EIT Jumpstarter?
It is a pre-accelerator program enacted for supporting innovators that intend to operate with their activities in various sectors, such as healthcare, agri-food, raw materials, energy, urban mobility and manufacturing industries.The programme is run as a unique cross-industrial incubation initiative enacted by EIT Health, EIT RawMaterials EIT Food, EIT InnoEnergy, EIT Manufacturing and EIT Urban Mobility. These are six Knowledge and Innovation Communities funded by the EIT, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. They bring together businesses, research centres and universities as partners creating a favourable environment for creative thought and innovation to flourish in many sectors and intellectual fields.
What is the aim of the Jumpstarter Competition?
The program intends to support teams with innovative business ideas, who want to jumpstart their company. It offers active services in favour of the admitted start-ups. These are introduced to experts and creative communities for supporting ideas and turning them to viable businesses.
Who are selected by the programme? For the current edition, the programme is targeted to future start-ups coming from Central-Eastern and Southern Europe, that is from :Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Romania, Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Republic of North Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and KosovoFurthermore, proposals on start-up promotion must relate to six specific industries: health, raw materials, food, energy, manufacturing and urban mobility.
Applicants must be innovators, scientists, PHD students or master’s students, even part of research teams, with a product or service idea to disrupt the existing markets in the field defined by the call.
What do the winners get?
Selected applicants attend a 8 months-long program, during which they will discuss and develop the best business model for your innovative idea. Courses will be offered using the lean start-up methodology from the Silicon Valley translated to the European Environment. Themes to be discussed with the learner will be: market segmentation, customer value proposition, market segmentation, financials, investment basics, legal basics. Furthermore, selected applicants will benefit of travel and accommodation support. The best teams in each category will have the chance to win a €10,000 money prize. The participation to the program gives opportunities to get new contacts with EIT Communities’industrial partners such as GE Healthcare, Siemens, Philips, Roche, Bosch, Nestlé, Pepsico and Maspex, among others.
What happened in the past competitions?
The EIT Jumpstarter program has trained 348 start-up teams since 2017. In 2019 EIT Jumpstarter won the Best Association Training Initiative Award of the European Association Awards.
Some important deadlines
Deadline for submitting business ideas: 16 April 2021 at 23:59 CETSelection of ideas and invitation of the bootcamps: 16th May 2021.Bootcamps will be held online in June 2021Local joint trainings: September 2021Grand Final: November 2021.