Elevating the scalability potential of green and sustainable deep tech solutions
FINEST SCALEUP project – funded under the Horizon Europe Programme – brings together leading research and innovation actors to establish the Baltic Sea Region countries – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Poland – as a cross-border, inclusive and gender equal deep tech innovation ecosystem with the main goal to support companies, startups and entrepreneurs to showcase innovative technologies, attract investment and reach global markets.
FINEST SCALEUP addresses the lack of scale-up funding for startups from “Less Connected and Developing Innovation Ecosystems”, particularly women-led, and from the deep tech sector.
Objective
This project marks the FinEst Centre´s commitment to bring together and scale up the innovation ecosystem for smart cities green and sustainable deep tech solutions, supporting companies, start-ups and entrepreneurs to showcase innovative solutions, technologies, in order to attract investment and reach global markets.
Following 3 key objectives are presented:
- Improve the capacity and strength of “Less Connected and Developing Innovation Ecosystems” by enhancing their gender-inclusiveness, openness, competitiveness, and global potential, targeting in particular the green and sustainable deep tech based innovations.
- Attracting foreign investors into the FINEST SCALEUP ecosystem by raising awareness of local innovation ecosystems and deep tech startups, as well as the potential of the whole region, to capital providers from across Europe and beyond (also giving special attention to women-led investments).
- Help emerging deep tech innovators and startups to secure foreign investments in order to accelerate their growth, competitiveness and access international markets.
Duration and partners
Duration: March 15, 2024 – September 14, 2026 (30 months)
Partners:
- FinEst Centre for Smart Cities, TalTech (EE)
- EIT Digital (BE)
- Latvian Startup Association “Startin.LV” (LV)
- Digital Knowledge Observatory Foundation (PL)
- Krakow Technology Park (PL)
- Startup.LT (under the Innovation Agency Lithuania) (LT)
- Lithuanian Innovation Centre (LT)
- Estonian Business Angels Network (EE)
Funding
Funding source: Horizon Europe Support Action, European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA), grant agreement No. 101114356
Budget: total budget is 999 968,76 EUR (TalTech’s part is 176 484,38 EUR).
Sustainability and responsibility
The project is initiated for building deep tech innovation ecosystem around the Baltic Sea Region with special focus on green and sustainable technologies, gender equality and ensuring sufficient and sustainable financing for deep tech solutions.
The role of FinEst Centre for Smart Cities
FinEst Centre coordinates the project, utilises its well-working links with business support organizations and investors, and builds new collaborations as it is an innovation ecosystem development project and targets business-acceleration providers (incubators, accelerators, company-builders, innovation agencies, business clubs and networks), public and private VCs and their networks, national and regional promotional banks.
In FINEST SCALEUP project, the FinEst Centre capitalises on the Finnish-Estonian macro region’s scientific and empirical knowledge to build and strengthen the innovation potential of gender-neutral deep tech entrepreneurship across the Baltic Sea Region countries.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
