In order to navigate investment risks and opportunities in the high-risk, high-reward deep-tech sector, European SMEs need simultaneous access to market and technical & industrial expertise and capability unique to deep-tech commercialisation. STRATUP3 aims to offer exactly this type of access to startups/SMEs by harnessing the potential of ‘corporate open innovation’ and through a systemic approach geared towards viable commercialisation of high-potential deep-tech products and services.

In our overall concept, the following main dimensions play a major role.

1. UPTAKEis about finding and engaging innovation, i.e. high-potential startups/SMEs from deep-tech fields; through our ‘hub of hubs’ we leverage cluster/DIH-built synergies to foster the sharing of obstacles and best practices in startup-corporate collaboration and exchange of knowledge on ecosystem specific conditions/challenges (via Ecosystem Discovery Missions);
2. UPGRADE here we unveil a dedicated growth support framework called ‘Ideation2Market’; the goal is to fine-tune and polish innovations with excellent growth potential and make them more attractive for commercialization in Europe and beyond;
3. UPSCALE is designed tobring growth-stage startups/SMEs right into the VCs/CVCs community to showcase/ pilot their products, get feedback and gain access to capital, new customers and future partners; with the common goal being to enhance deep-tech innovators’ access to real market demands and providing them with an opportunity refine their products accordingly.

STARTUP3 will allow innovative deep-tech startups and scaleups to explore different incentives, tools/platforms and resources along its intensive growth support programme. The underlying aim is to facilitate deeper understanding of the latest trends and dynamics behind deep-tech commercialisation, and how startups and corporates can (soft) land successful business partnerships.

Along the UPSCALE Pillar, we leverage the community built in the UPTAKE Stage and launch an open call through which startups/SMEs are selected to go through the Ideation2Market programme exploiting all the services prepared/fine-tuned under the UPGRADE Pillar. We have designed the UPSCALE pillar keeping in mind that the key roadblocks for deep-tech startups/SMEs are the lack of funding, market access and business knowledge. We offer a full suite of services where participants can benefit and understand their potential early enough to make any necessary adjustments or pivots.

For the successful Innovators, STARTUP3 offers the three-stage growth support programme described in the table below. Clearly, we begin from measuring the disruption potential, proceed with MVP development/optimisation and finally with market penetration, i.e. piloting.

For more information, please refer to the document provided under the Call website.