€130,000 were given to 8 startups through the 3rd edition of the EIT Digital Venture Program

The third edition of the EIT Digital Venture Program, an acceleration program implemented in Greece and the Eastern Balkans region by Found.ation with the support of EIT Digital (part of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology) has been completed.

In 2020, an amount of €130,000 in total (€15,000 to each team) was invested in 8 startups, raising the total amount for the three years of the program to €360,000 (in 24 startups from Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania). Additionally, one of the teams participating in the 2020 program, OMNIO, was among the 7 winners of the final pan-European prize, receiving an extra €10,000 from EIT Digital, after managing to raise additional funding in the 3-month period after the program was concluded. In the last 3 years, the EIT Digital Venture Program has invested in the creation of 66 deep tech startups in 20 EU countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Malta, Portugal, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia).

Structure of the EIT Digital Venture Program

The EIT Digital Venture Program, which started in May and ended in September, was implemented exclusively online, in response to the special circumstances created by the pandemic restrictions. This year, eight teams from Greece, Romania and Bulgaria participated in the program. To help the teams better understand the required procedures, but also assist them overcome their first challenges, Found.ation organised a two-day Virtual Bootcamp with workshops and talks, while, for the following period, the startups had regular and substantial support from the mentors assigned to them, as well as networking opportunities with experienced market executives and the ability to attend webinars on a variety of topics related to their activities. The program culminated with Virtual Demo Day, where the teams made their final pitches in a virtual audience of investors, journalists and business executives interested in innovative solutions. The final evaluation of their progress and the legal establishment of the companies took place in September.

The eight teams and their ideas are the following:

Arkris (Romania) – an artificial intelligence assistant that simplifies communication with a company’s employees by automating repetitive operations.

Captain Coach (Greece) – an assistant for the elderly people with mobility or memory problems that works with voice commands and gestures and helps them in their daily activities.

Loopcv (Greece) – a service that collects job postings from external platforms and sends notifications or makes a direct application to them on behalf of the interested party.

Oliveex (Greece) – an IoT platform for monitoring food storage and fermentation conditions.

Omnio  (Bulgaria) – a solution supported by ML and AI for compliance checks, automation of customer checks, anti-money laundering efforts and fraud checks.

Ozzie (Greece) – a robotic assistant for patients with mild cognitive impairment and early stage Alzheimer’s disease, who monitors whether they are taking their medications and facilitates their communication with relatives.

RevApp (Greece) – a dynamic pricing application supported by ML, which helps hotel and rental property managers increase their revenue and reduce their fixed costs.

RoofRate (Greece) – a service that allows interested tenants to seek reviews and advice on a property from locals.

The next edition of the program is expected to launch in February 2021. Stay tuned for the announcement!