Achievements & Learning Points

A presentation to the FITT Conference, Brussels by David Moir, St John’s Innovation Centre,

Cambridge UK10th May 2011

Partnership & Objectives• A Consortium of 9 organisations from 5 EU countries including 2

universities, 2 business incubators, 2 specialists in early-stage financing, 2 incubator networks and a communications specialist.

• A Partnership of 45 leading-edge business & technology incubators, 8 ICT clusters, 5 early-stage investors and 4 stakeholders across 28 European countries plus an Advisory Council of 8 policy experts from across Europe.

• A set of objectives focused on:-o assisting 400 European SMEso assembling a powerful toolkito establishing the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Exchange (EIX)o investigate and contribute to new early stage funding modelso investigate & enhance networking between clusters and incubatorso evolve & deliver strong policy advice

OUTCOMES – the EIX & Tools

Entrepreneurship & Innovation Exchangeo EIX at the heart of ACHIEVE More (http://eandix.ning.com/ )

o 535 members, 49 countries (EU, Brazil, NZ, Bahrain)o Entrepreneurs, incubators, investors, clusters, researcherso Hub for blogs, documents and tool sharing

Tools o ISMA 360 © - Marketing strategy development

- 100+ coaches trained, 300+ SMEs coachedo Investor Readiness - 2-day course “to understand how investors think”

- Now run by many incubators in the EIX: Delft, Gate Garching, Timisoara

- 41 training sessions, 752 businesses 59 investments, total €9.9m disclosed

OUTCOMES – PPP Seed FundsFund Type Size Public:

PrivateSources of Funding Managed

byInvest per company

Chalmers Centre of Excellence

€17m 1:2 EIF, Chalmers U of Tech, Länsförsäkringar Alliance, 6th Swedish National Pension Fund, alumni

Chalmers Innova-tion

<SEK0.5m (€45k) in incubation Phase. < SEK1.5m total

Main Port Industry Specific

€8m 1:1 TechnoPartner, Delft U of Tech, Rabobank, KLM, Schipol Group

Rabobank Average may not exceed €800,000

NE Angel Regional €19.5m 1:1.3 NE Finance, local angels

Rivers Capital

£50k to £150,000

OUTCOMES – Networking & Media. Cluster – Incubator Networkingo Progress on understanding & exploitation of complementarities between

incubators and clusterso Survey shows fields of activity for further cooperation

Media Communications Strategyo Support European policy of applauding:o Starting own business / Willingness to take riskso Media Library:o 43 films (each available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian &

Polish versions) document experiences in incubators, start-ups and ICT clusters in 6 countries

o Films downloaded >7,000 times

OUTCOMES – Overall Impact

External Funds Leveraged > €54.4M

Total SMEs Impacted 1002 (direct) + 772 (indirect) = 1774

Percentage of Target 400 SMEs 251% (direct) + 193% (indirect) = 444%

CONCLUSIONS

Our Policy Recommendations focus on 5 areas:-o Support of Skills Needed for KIS Ventureso EIX Networking Platformo Establishing PPP Seed Fundso Clustering Better Practiceo Media Communications Strategy

Paramount in terms of Future Lessons are:-o Tools – Effectiveness of “train-the-trainer” approacho EIX – the power of social networking but ...o Seed Funds – investor education (understanding KIS)

– importance of tax breaks – cross border lessons