ZABALA to start three new projects supporting digital entrepreneurship across Europe

Good news for entrepreneurs! ZABALA will be part of new initiatives supporting digital entrepreneurship in the coming years. The initiatives have been supported by the European Commission’s H2020 framework programme on research and innovation and will be active from now up to 3 years. The new initiatives will offer a mix of funding and free support services in areas like data-driven innovation, next generation internet and blockchain.

The new projects are:

• Data Market Services: Providing free support services for data-based companies across Europe. Services are provided by an outstanding set of partners in areas like acceleration, fundraising, legal and IPR, marketing and technical skills. The project has started in January 2019 and is part of the Big Data Value PPP. ZABALA acts as coordinator of this initiative. 2,000 potential candidates will be evaluated and 150 will be chosen through three cohorts between 2019 and 2021.
• NGI Godfathers: a fellowship programme for researchers and deep-tech startups willing to spend several months in reference entities in the US. This project is part of the Next Generation Internet initiative by the EC. ZABALA will be in charge of the call management for the selection of the fellows. The project has started in January 2019.
• Blockchers: an accelerator for SMEs working with blockchain technologies. We will manage a fund of 750,000€ aimed at financing real world use cases of blockchain technologies in traditional sectors. The project will start in February 2019 and ZABALA will coordinate it.

ZABALA is already part of two running programmes supporting startups across Europe:

• IRSUS : Supporting innovators within the Innovation Radar tool by the EC, through the provision of free services like mentoring, individual coaching, investment opportunities discovery, training, etc. ZABALA is the coordinator of this initiative since December 2017.
• EDI: €5 million fund to invest on startups and SMEs sorting out real data challenges provided by a set of EU organisations across different domains such as logistics, environment, energy, industry 4.0…

Startup Olé 2019 and Zabala

The five initiatives will open calls during the spring 2019. In order to announce them, ZABALA will count with a dedicated booth at Startup Olé 2019. This event will take place in Salamanca (Spain) from 26-29 of March and it will gather +30,000 attendees from 120 countries; +850 startups, scaleups and spin-offs; +500 speakers; +250 corporates and investors with an investment portfolio of over €50k M.

So, stay tuned for our open calls, and contact us if you have any doubt! See you at Startup Olé 2019!