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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EDI (European Data Incubator)

Teaser

EDI is targeted to Big Data innovators and entrepreneurs in order to help and support them solving real industry challenges provided by various EU corporates and data providers across a wide range of sectors, or to develop independent data solutions utilizing the available...

Summary

EDI is targeted to Big Data innovators and entrepreneurs in order to help and support them solving real industry challenges provided by various EU corporates and data providers across a wide range of sectors, or to develop independent data solutions utilizing the available datasets, in key industrial domains, e.g. a) Cross Sector; b) Energy & Environment; c) Industry 4.0; d) Internet & Media; e) Retail and f) Smart Cities.

EDI is devised to aid European startups in Big Data to overcome the usual barriers they face when innovating in this area, e.g. a) lack of access to private corporative datasets; b) access to the actual needs of the corporations having those datasets; c) access to VC and investors willing to bring forward their solutions or d) seed equity-free funding (up to 100K €) to help these innovative startups to materialize their innovative and marketable data-driven solutions.

European Data Incubator – EDI project aims to leverage the technology and knowledge on Big Data across countries and sectors thanks to the incubation of SMEs and start-ups who use Big Data open source tools oriented to sort out major challenges in different business which facilitate their data assets.

EDI boosts the European Data Economy by fostering a community bringing together stakeholders, such as data providers, innovators, tech/business experts, investors, universities, corporations, with an end goal of connecting the European startups and SMEs to a vibrant network, and positioning EDI as a network builder and confluence point to boost innovation in Big Data.

EDI provides an incubation programme and up to €100k equity free for EU Big Data startups sorting out data challenges from companies in a myriad of sectors, or to propose their own concepts/ ideas making use of our data catalogue. EDI supports startups or SMEs by providing training on the most advanced solutions, previous experience in incubators and connection with the network for startups. EDI supports Data Providers by selecting and incubating the most suitable startups to address their data associated challenges that could be solved by applying Big Data analysis.

The main specific objectives of the EDI project are:
● Objective 1 - Experiment: to incubate around 45 start-ups per call on a funnel approach programme to develop a Minimum Viable Product based on existing data provided by consortium Big Data providers and using some of the most extended Big Data tools and a dedicated free infrastructure. This objective is mainly addressed in WP3.
● Objective 2 - Business generation: to facilitate the business generation of the best companies per call focusing on the development of skills (such as: business planning and modelling, marketing & communication, technology, crowd and public funding, fundraising, human resources, product design/user interface, corporate and legalese or pitch). This objective is mainly addressed in WP4.

Derived from those above some complimentary objectives are identified:
● Objective 3 - Open Calls: to launch three open calls to select around 140 top-leading Big Data start-ups/SMEs out of a pool of above 1,200 start-ups applying to the open calls. This objective is tackled in WP2.
● Objective 4 - Ecosystem and exploitation: to build a solid ecosystem around Big Data stakeholders with over 3,000 participants (including start-ups, SMEs, data providers, investors and Big Data experts) leveraging the results of sub-granted projects. At the same time, the consortium will launch new incubation programmes and continue with the services offered to the SMEs/start-ups on a commercial basis. We estimate an accumulated income of over €5.4M by 2024 only among the core-consortium partners. This objective is addressed mainly in WP5.
● Objective 5 - Coordination: to adequately manage and coordinate the EDI project according to the rules of the H2020 and the coordination with other Big Data PPP initiatives. The consortium will be initially comprised b

Work performed

The most significant results obtained by EDI in the 1st reporting period can be summarized as follows:
• Definition of a total of 13 challenges by 11 Data Providers in five specific domains for the 1st Open Call for Startups and 22 challenges in 8 specific domains by 6 Data Providers (5 were New Data Providers) for the ongoing 2nd Open Call for Startups.
• During RP1, an Open Call for Startups and another one for Data Providers have been completed
• Successful execution of the incubation funnel: Explore 30 start-ups, Experiment 16 start-ups, Evolve 6 start-ups
• Engagement of 5 new Data Providers and reinforcement of the relationships with the partner Data Providers
• Successful execution of training and evaluation events in Berlin & Bilbao
• Development of 16 MVP solutions in the Experiment phase
• Successful execution of remote training via webinars, mentoring and coaching
• Full distribution of funding to 29 startups, coordinated by successfully implemented milestone and KPI process, i.e. 1,421,756.67 € among the third parties have been released to promote Data Economy
• Implementation of communication activities, achieving already: 35,000 visits to the website; 9,500+ visits to the project pages on F6S; 1,587+ social media followers and members of the EDI community; 35 blog posts; 22 press and articles online (including being hosted on 12 national and regional publications); 2 scientific papers;
• Unlocked external investment by the supported startups of the Experiment phase, raising additional 2,306,000 EUR, further evidence that the WP5 strategy is facilitating the recruitment of high-potential Big Data startups.

Final results

EDI has been promoting during the execution of the first iteration of the incubator the following new market opportunities:
• Promotion of new start-ups which explore, experiment and generate sustainable Big Data products addressing the foreseen (based on data provider driven challenges) or unforeseen (cross-sector challenges) by Corporates in Europe.
• Services offered in the technical and business coaching of companies is already being applied to other projects and customers of the 5 members assembling the core consortium (DEUSTO, ZABALA, ENG, ESH, F6S).

EDI as an incubator not taking equity from the startups is an effective way to generate high-skilled jobs and growth (In M15, 75% of the start-ups had increased their teams. In total, 26.5 new jobs were created by the start-ups, tracked by a feedback survey, sent out to the top 16 startups). Besides, EDI is facilitating access to new funding (both public and private) to our companies. In M15, according to the feedback survey, 50% of the Experiment startups gained additional public/private funding, from public as well as investment sources, in total adding up to 2,306,000 €. Additional raised funds are expected from the top 16 teams after the conclusion of the full incubation round.

EDI’s main innovations are its Funnel Incubation Process and the data-driven MVPs produced by the 16 companies that took part in the 1st round of incubation.

Website & more info

More info: https://edincubator.eu/.