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Techcelerator brings the pre-acceleration program of EIT Digital to Southern Europe

Roberta Kostadinova17. March 2022, 11:06

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Techcelerator, one of Romania’s leading tech startups accelerators, now brings the Venture Program to Southern Europe. The Venture Program is the pre-acceleration program by EIT Digital, developed to support early-stage entrepreneurial teams on their journey to market. The program is open to teams from 19 countries from the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and Southern Europe. Entrepreneurial, non-incorporated teams with digital deep tech business plans are encouraged to apply by April 8^th.

“We strongly believe in the impact Romania and Bulgaria can have on the European innovation system, therefore we seek to enhance their contribution by opening a path for the young entrepreneurs in the region to start their venture and be successful. It’s always together that we are stronger, more knowledgeable, more efficient. ROTSA is constantly promoting Romanian start-ups, and is always at work to consolidate Europe’s start-up ecosystem”, states Tudor Pasc, Incubation Director, ROTSA.

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What is the Venture Program all about?

The Venture Program takes young entrepreneurs from idea to investment in less than a year. The selected teams will receive an intense 8 week knowledge training, they will get support to build their MVP, as well as financial support from investors, to navigate efficiently through the first year of building their business. The pre-accelerator program starts on May 10^th, it lasts for 2 months and will be organized online. The full program lasts until November 30^th, 2022. At the final “Pitch Days”, teams get the chance to validate their business solution by presenting it in front of early-stage investors, potential clients, and experts from the tech community.

The program will select non-incorporated multidisciplinary teams, with the best innovative business ideas, PoC, or prototypes in one of the EIT Digital 5 market verticals:

Digital Industry
Digital Cities
Digital Wellbeing
Digital Tech
Digital Finance

Among other selection criteria are: addressed market or business challenge, the technology underlying the product/service, product innovativeness, global market, and risks associated with the business model. The interested founders can find more information or apply until April 8^th here. Teams from the following countries will be accepted in the program: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, North Macedonia, Greece, Malta, Montenegro, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine, Turkey.

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All accepted teams will receive a €5.000 grant funding upon the selection in the program. Winning teams will receive a grant of up to 25,000 EUR.

“In addition to our focus on pre-seed technology start-ups, Techcelerator is keen to support grassroots ventures. This year, we are happy to do so with the Venture Program, as members of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. There is a great need to work with founders, even from the idea stage, and support the best ones to grow and become the next unicorns in the region. What it takes is the urge and commitment to building a viable venture”, states Cristina Țoncu, Co-Founder Techcelerator.

In the past four years, the EIT Digital Venture Program has supported more than 93 teams and over 200 entrepreneurs in an early stage of their development. Many of these teams have attracted investors during or shortly after the pre-acceleration program.

Who is behind the Venture Program?

Techcelerator is the first accelerator in Romania to allocate funds for the development of high-tech companies in the acceleration and post-acceleration phase. The accelerator designs and implements accelerator programs and events targeting technology start-ups in Romania and South-East Europe. Focuss is on FinTech, B2B SaaS, eHealth, PropTech, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and digital transformation.

ROTSA, the Romanian Tech Startups Association, is a non-governmental organization that aims to promote, support, and represent the interests of technology start-ups in Romania. ROTSA carries out the national mapping of the tech start-ups in Romania, to generate data related to the status and evolution of the tech start-up companies.

EIT Digital believes in making and shaping a competitive digital Europe that is inclusive, fair, and sustainable, and aims at global impact through European innovation fuelled by entrepreneurial talent and digital technology. The organization mobilizes a pan-European multi-stakeholder open-innovation ecosystem of top European corporations, SMEs, start-ups, universities, and research institutes, where students, researchers, engineers, business developers, and investors.