EIT Digital, the European digital innovation organisation, has opened the 2020 competition for the European Digital Deep Technology Challenge. Fast-growing start-ups can compete in one of five categories: Digital Tech, Digital Cities, Digital Industry, Digital Wellbeing and Digital Finance. A prize package with a total value of 350,000 euros is available for winners. Registration is possible until June 7, 2020.
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The EIT Digital Challenge focuses on ‘deep tech’ scaleups from all over Europe. These are technology companies with distinctive product offerings using protected or hard-to-reproduce advanced technology. Since the first edition of the European Deep Tech competition in 2014, the competition has already attracted more than 2,000 applications from across Europe. Most of the winners have since experienced successful international expansion.
An example is the Dutch company Wonderflow, market leader in feedback analysis based on Artificial Intelligence. Last year, this company was one of the prize winners. “It’s great to get recognition for what we do through this competition. Since then, we have received a lot of media attention, have grown internationally and started new collaborations with various market leaders. In addition, we have expanded our offering to include employee feedback analysis in addition to customer feedback”.
In 2018 the Dutch company Active Cues, known from the Magic Table, won the European scaleup competition.
The EIT Digital Accelerator will select twenty companies from all applications to pitch in the finals in November before a jury of investors and business people. Dolf Wittkamper, head of the EIT Digital Accelerator: “During the finals five winners, one Challenge winner and four runner-ups will be selected. These five will receive one year’s tailor-made support from the EIT Digital Accelerator worth 50,000 euros. The Challenge winner will also receive a cash prize of 100,000 euros.
Criteria
To take part in the EIT Digital Challenge, companies must be established in one of the Member States of the European Union, in the UK or in one of the Horizon 2020 countries. They must be in a growth phase, i.e. have an annual turnover of at least €300,000 or at least €2 million in funding; and be no older than ten years. The deadline is June 7, 2020.
According to Chahab Naster, Chief Innovation Officer of EIT Digital, the objective of the EIT Digital Challenge is to find the best European deep tech scaleups. “To overcome the current crisis, we need the imagination and execution of the best entrepreneurs. We want to help them grow into big companies that can tackle the challenges the world is facing”.
EIT Digital Accelerator
The EIT Digital Accelerator consists of a pan-European team of business developers and financial experts operating from seventeen European cities and a hub in Silicon Valley. Since 2012, the EIT Digital Accelerator has helped more than 300 high-growth start-ups to grow internationally and/or raise capital. In 2019, the UBI Global recognized the EIT Digital Accelerator as one of the top 5 best Public Business Accelerators and according to the European Startup Initiative it is one of the best accelerators in Europe.
About EIT Digital
EIT Digital is a European organisation for education, innovation and scaleup acceleration. Its aim is to improve economic growth and quality of life in Europe through digital technological innovation and education. This is done through the integration of education, research and entrepreneurship and pan-European cooperation with 280 European companies, SMEs, start-ups, universities and research institutes. This will enable EIT Digital to bring breakthrough digital innovations to the market and train new leaders of tomorrow. EIT Digital is a Knowledge and Innovation Community of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.
