23 European incubators help European start-ups to international expansion

Imagine you are a small start-up, and you get the chance to meet 23 European incubators and R&D clusters who want to support your company’s international expansion! That was the envious situation of the start-up CEO:s participating in the final match-making meeting of the Bridgehead programme, held in Stockholm at Karolinska Institute campus on 18-19 June.

Incubators, accelerators and R&D clusters from Germany, France, UK, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Belgium, are engaging in the EIT Health programme to offer European start-ups with individualised support in expanding beyond their home markets:

“The programme is a great opportunity for start-ups with international expansion in mind - we truly provide a bridge to European markets. And this year’s engagement from leading incubators from all over Europe in the Bridgehead programme has been impressive”, says Christos Vaitsis and Zara Pons-Vila, the Scandinavian EIT Health Business Creation team.”

“We also see that the satisfaction is very high – 100% of both the start-ups and the incubators would recommend the programme to others.”

The European Bridgehead programme provides European start-ups and scale-ups with support in expanding beyond their home market, specifically adapted to the individual start-up. The programme follows an individualized approach, based on the needs of each start-up, by matching promising start-ups and SMEs to suitable clusters, accelerators and incubators all over Europe. The programme also offers mentoring, services, resources and vacant physical spaces to start-ups that need them. Beside this, EIT Health grants between €25.000 and €30.000 to the selected startups for this purpose.

In the match-making meeting at Karolinska Institute campus, representatives from the incubators, accelerators and clusters met the second round of selected European startups and started discussions on how to support their expansion plans.

Four Scandinavian incubators are participating and offer soft landing into their respective countries:

• KI Innovations, Stockholm

• Sting, Stockholm

• Health Tech HUB, Copenhagen.

• SmiLe Incubator in Lund

 The full list of participating incubators, accelerators and clusters are:

• IMEC, Belgium

• Yes!Delft, Netherlands

• Brightlands, Netherlands

• JLabs, Belgium

• CapDigital, France

• iPEPS, France

• Neighborhood , France

• MedicAlps, France

• Medicen, France

• EuraSante, France

• Medical Valley, Germany

• Life Science Factory Gottingen, Germany

• BioRN, Germany

• Centre for Innovation and Technolgy Transfer Medical University of Lodz, Poland

• IPN Incubadora, Portugal

• PACT, Portugal

• Biocant, Portugal

• Campania New Steel, Italy

• Lifescience Krakow Klaster, Poland

• BGI, Portugal

• Teclabs, Portugal

• SMILE Incubator, Sweden

• KI Innovation, Sweden

• STING, Sweden

• Health Tech Hub, Denmark

• IBV, Spain

• IESE Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC) Incubator, Spain

• UPF Ventures, Spain

• Ideas UPV, Spain

• Fundacion Parque Cientifico Madrid, Spain

• Parc Cientific de Barcelona, Spain

• BioCAT, Spain

• Innovation Agency NWCAHSN, United Kingdom

• The Hill, United Kingdom