East meets West at ‘Startup Bridge’ ICT Innovation networking event
Startups from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine met with representatives of the innovation ecosystem in France and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) at the event ‘Startup Bridge: East meets West’. EU4Digital Facility organised the ICT Innovation networking event in partnership with Expertise France. Held in Paris on 16 June 2023, the event was hosted by Wilco — an innovation accelerator dedicated to creating value for both startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The ‘Startup Bridge’ welcomed more than 30 representatives of EaP startups as well as EaP and French ecosystem builders and investors. During the event, startups had an opportunity to introduce their value propositions, exchange experiences and get a better understanding of the EU markets and expectations of venture investors.
The representatives of EU innovation investors and ecosystems that expressed interest in meeting Eastern partner countries’ startups included: Crosspring, Heritage Holdings, Omnes Capital, Techmind, Bpifrance – EuroQuity, Kerys.co, Schoolab, Agoranov Incubator and Wilco Accelerator. Many registered organisations specifically support Ukraine in reconstruction of its innovation ecosystem: La French Tech Kyiv/ CCI France-Ukraine, Ukraine-Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, Ensemble Ukraine, and Business France Ukraine.
Before and during the event, senior ICT Innovation expert Jesus Lozano shared tips and tricks for startups to successfully pitch to investors. EU4Digital Team Leader Arturas Piliponis invited the participants to explore and exploit the powerful tools of the EaP Startups ecosystem platform that was launched by EU4Digital Facility in 2022 in partnership with Dealroom. This platform helps in seeing the whole palette of startups investment opportunities and mapping particular ecosystem landscapes.
The EU4Digital ICT Innovation stream organises networking events to facilitate the establishment of communities and networks in the EaP region. The events build bilateral and multilateral bridges between EaP organisations and EU stakeholders to enable deeper understanding of relevant EU best practices by stakeholders in the EaP region, as well as the transfer of those practices to Eastern partner countries via joint activities and projects. The events target topic-specific audiences, selected from ministerial level representatives and agencies, associations and networks of relevant policy areas, ICT infrastructure organisations as well as other ICT innovation ecosystem actors.
Previous ICT Innovation networking events have bridged EaP stakeholders (during Phase I, 2019-2022) with: European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP), European Business Angels Network (EBAN), Business Angels Europe (BAE), European Business & Innovation Centre Network (EBN), European Crowdfunding Network (ECN), European IP Office (EUIPO), European IP Helpdesk, Digital Innovation Hubs Network (DIHNET), I4MS, European Digital SME Alliance, Startup Europe Regions Network (SERN); and (during Phase II 2022-2025) with Women Go Tech, WEgate,Women Business Angels, WINGATE, Female founders, International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) and EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum.