Southern European Entrepreneurship Engine

S3E project ambition is to develop an engine of growth that will contribute to improve the connectedness and efficiency of the Southern European countries innovation ecosystems.

S3E focus is on the acceleration of deep tech projects / start-ups that, by providing solutions to a more sustainable society, can impact the economic growth in these countries and contribute for the timely achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.The focus on Southern European countries relates to the fact that all these countries are Moderate or Emerging innovators, according to European Innovation Scoreboard 2021, and thus, S3E will contribute to close the innovation gap between the targeted countries and more advanced innovation ecosystems.

To achieve this we will design and deliver a set of services that: (i) support the uncovering of research projects with market potential, helping them develop into Deep Tech start-ups and supporting them to procure funding for the early stages of development; (ii) help growth stage start-ups to develop investment ready business plans and procure VC funding in the broader VC ecosystem or in national or European funding agencies and (iii) help scaling start-ups connect to larger companies, to gain market traction, throughout Europe.

Our strategic objective is supported by the following sub-objectives: (i)uncover entrepreneurial research teams with ground-breaking science and support them to commercialize the technology through the development of a start-up, (iii) increase the connectedness among members of deep-tech start-up ecosystems and their start-ups (regardless of their stage of development) and to the European business ecosystem seeking maximum synergies, (iii) stimulate investments in sectors addressing sustainability issues through increasing the number of cross-border investments and empower accelerators in the targeted countries with the skills and processes that will ensure the future sustainability of the project.