The Impact Growth start-up accelerator programme, which spans a two-year period and an investment of over 6 million Euros, aims to design a programme to identify and accelerate 28 start-ups working on the field of the Internet of the Future. Ferrovial Services leads the Smart Infrastructures sector of the start-up accelerator programme. The call for participants closes on 9 May 2017.
Impact Growth is a European project within the Horizon 2020 framework programme, led by the innovation consultancy FundingBox. Partners in the initiative are a number of companies and institutions at the cutting edge of innovation, including ISDI, Mobile Word Capital Barcelona, Danone, Kibo Ventures, Fiware Foundation, DOCOMO Digital, Invesdor o Accelerace, amongst others.
Ferrovial Services leads the Smart Infrastructures sector of the Impact Growth start-up accelerator programme. This initiative is managed through the Centre of Excellence for Energy and Facility Management, together with Ferrovial’s Innovation and Processes Department and the Centre for Innovation of Smart Infrastructures (CI3). The aim is to design a programme to identify and accelerate 28 start-ups working on the Internet of the Future. It spans a two-year period and an investment of over 6 million Euros. The call for participants closes on 9 May 2017.
Open innovation through an accelerator programme
Ferrovial is committed to a strategy of open innovation within the company and working together with start-ups in order to provide solutions to specific business challenges. To date, a significant part of the innovative solutions applied within Ferrovial Services contracts stem from cooperation between the company and newly-emerging enterprises. In this type of cooperation, both parties offer their experience, their knowledge and their specific added value to achieve an innovative solution which improves efficiency and the quality of services provided to clients.
Impact Growth: cooperation between Ferrovial and start-ups
The ‘Impact Growth‘ European programme is an initiative for selecting 28 start-ups with the aim of finding newly-created businesses working in the following strategic sectors: Smart Infrastructures & Cities, Smart Content, Smart Manufacturing and Smart Agrifood. Ferrovial leads the Smart Infrastructures sector, where it is responsible for the selection of 14 projects currently at a growth phase and which can help to improve efficiency of operations. As a requirement for taking part in the programme, start-ups must use Fiware technology for creating a European ecosystem of smart cities.
The launch of the Impact Growth programme – in which participants con register until 9 May 2017 – took place within the 4YFN event at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a unique opportunity for start-ups and investors to exchange ideas and inputs and set the stage for possible future cooperation. For the fourth year running, more than 600 start-ups and close to 700 investors took part in the largest gathering for mobile technology entrepreneurs on an international level.
What value does it bring to start-ups?
Participating start-ups will have the chance to take part in an acceleration programme, as well as the possibility of receiving up to 250,000 Euros of equity-free cash: 100,000 Euros for the 14 projects selected, and up to 150,000 Euros for the best two projects. The two winning projects will additionally have the chance to receive up to 1.5 million Euros of private investment from the hedge funds participating in the consortium, Kibo Ventures and Accelerace Invest.
Moreover, Ferrovial provides a premium acceleration service with leading mentors, training, special offers from our providers, support for internationalisation, and a chance to try out solution developed within a real city environment.
How can start-ups take part?
All start-ups wishing to participate in the programme must register through the corporate web pages of Impact Growth or FundingBox.
