No Criterion
A1 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
A1.1 Very Clear definition of product or service (problem statement, solution benchmark) A1.2 Feasibility of proposed solution for product or service
A1.3 Innovativeness of proposed solution
A1.4 Business case opportunity assessment (market analysis, competitive analysis, value proposition for customers, ...)
A1.5 Soundness of IP analysis (background, freedom to operate, protections, etc.)
A2 RISK ANALYSIS
A2.1 Availability of required knowledge in the consortium
A2.2 Risks (technical, regulatory, market, consortium) identified and mitigation plan
A3 FINANCIAL VIABILITY
A3.1 Business case of the opportunity A3.2 Justification of requested KIC investment A3.3 Assessment of plan for KIC investment return
A4 OPERATIONAL VIABILITY
A4.1 Soundness of project plan (milestones, deliverables, availability of resources, etc.) A4.2 Soundness of consortium vs. value chain
A4.3 Quality of project management
2.5.7. EIT Climate-KIC
The long-term objective of EIT Climate-KIC is to develop a fertile and self-sustaining ecosystem for climate-relevant start-ups in Europe. This goal is pursued by nurturing a pool of climate-relevant and viable business ideas by empowering, connecting, and inspiring entrepreneurs, and by fostering a support infrastructure that enables market entry and scale-up. In the area of entrepreneurship, EIT Climate-KIC focuses mainly on the Climate Launchpad Programme, Accelerator Programme, Investor Marketplace and the Community Link.
2.5.7.1. Climathon
The Climathon is a year-round programme, with a powerful solutions-hackathon at its core, creating climate action in the form of tangible projects, supporting climate positive businesses, and addressing local policy challenges. The programme revolves around a 12-72 hour hackathon event, which takes place on the Global Climathon Day in hundreds of major cities across six continents. During the hackathon, a diverse group of participants, ranging from entrepreneurs to policymakers, get together to develop solutions to local climate challenges in their city in an engaging format. The solutions developed during the core hackathon event can be taken forward and implemented by the cities with the support of local organisers and EIT Climate-KIC. The city challenges and resulting solutions are categorised into common themes in order to provide collaboration possibilities.
The programme’s main outcome is a strengthened engagement among citizens, city officials, and businesses who share a positive common vision to transform hundreds of cities worldwide to be greener and more liveable.
After the hackathon is delivered, local organisers are coaching and incubating selected solutions who have the opportunity to participate in a Global Awards celebration hosted by EIT Climate-KIC. For the finalists of Global Awards competition a €20 000 prize money is awarded.
2.5.7.2. Climate Launchpad
This activity is about the organisation and delivery of the world’s largest green business ideas competition.
It attracts hundreds of early stage ideas from all over the world and pitches them against each other in a competitive process. The programme consists of a two-day business training boot camp, follow-up coaching sessions over a period of approximately six weeks, ending with a national final. At national finals the top three ideas are selected to attend the grand final which is the closing event where the national winners from all participating countries go head-to-head and compete to be crowned as the winner of Climate Launchpad.
The coaching sessions at national level are aimed at providing the start-up teams with mentoring and support through local expertise of certified trainers. The coaching sessions are designed as the follow-up programme after the boot camp and give time for the teams to work on and develop their initial ideas and to go out there and validate their ideas by talking to their potential customers, and/or suppliers.
An external and competent review board consisting of relevant experts from the field does the selection of the top 2-3 teams at national level, to go through to the grand final. The grand final is the closing event of the Climate Launchpad competition and the moment where all top 2-3 teams from all participating countries come together and present their ideas in front of a global audience and international experts that have relevance to such a start-up event.
The Climate Launchpad competition is open for anyone with a feasible green business idea. Building on the overall selection process of Climate Launchpad competitions, the thematic prizes are eligible only for national winners of the Climate Launchpad competitions who won a chance to present their idea at the global grand final. All national finalists are invited to participate in one of the thematic awards. One winning team per theme competition is selected and receives the award.
All prizes use the same six criteria formats for ranking and selecting the teams:
1. Business or Market Potential
a. Does the proposition address a real pain?
b. Is there a clearly identified customer segment?
c. Is there an opportunity to expand in other markets?
2. Job Potential or Social Impact
a. Does this business have the potential for strong growth and create jobs doing so?
b. Does it address an important environmental or social issue?
3. Innovation or Technology Potential a. Is there strong new technology?
b. Is there a strong new business model?
c. Or an idea with existing technology/business model 4. Climate Impact
a. Is there a significant climate impact?
b. Is the climate impact significant in this business sector?
5. Strength Management Team
a. Is there entrepreneurial spirit in the team?
b. How complete is the team for the task at hand?
c. Does the team have prior start-up experience?
6. Quality of Pitch
The main prizes are awarded during the grand final:
• Winner: €10 000
• Runner-up (2nd): €5 000
• 3rd Place: €2 500
The prize money for the overall grand final winners is purposely modest as the main reward for winning/
participating in Climate Launchpad is the international exposure, along with the direct access granted to the top 10 winning teams to the EIT Climate-KIC Acceleration program. For winners outside Europe, specifically EIT Climate-KIC Accelerator locations, an alternative award is found that is of similar value.
2.5.7.3. Accelerator
The Accelerator programme is designed around three stages aimed at progressing start-ups through each stage. Advancing through the process is predicated on successfully complying with each programme step.
Each stage requires that the start-ups have a break through idea related to new technology or service with substantial climate impact, a motivated team with at least two founders and the start-up must be a legal entity not older than five years. The distinguishing features of each stage are:
• Stage 1: a basic business model is defined;
• Stage 2: a solid business model is defined;
• Stage 3: a validated business model is defined and early users/ customers/ partners have been identified.
The accelerator programme provides financial support to start-ups via grants at each stage of the programme:
• Stage 1: up to €20 000;
• Stage 2: up to €25 000;
• Stage 3: up to €50 000.
Individual start-ups can receive a maximum total amount of €75 000 if they go through all the three stages in the time span of 18 months, though not necessarily within a single year.
The goal of Stage 1 is to help entrepreneurs translating pro-climate inventions into viable business models. Start-ups work on developing and testing a business model, using an appropriate business model assessment framework, and on presenting a plan for validating that business model by real-world customers. To achieve this goal, start-ups at this stage receive support services and grants up to
€20 000. All teams have access to the local coaching pool and a bootcamp is organised centrally. Each location complements this offer with a variety of trainings, mentoring sessions, networking events, peer-to-peer exchanges whose frequency can vary per location.
For Stage 1, EIT Climate-KIC is looking for start-ups that comply with the following criteria:
• Have a breakthrough business model, exponential technology or solution with substantial climate impact (mitigation, adaptation or both). The programme is open to non-traditional entrepreneurship solutions and approaches addressing climate change with significant climate impact potential (e.g.
advocacy and policy, organisational and behavioural change, civic engagement, etc.);
• Proposed solution fits with one of the defined thematic challenges in the call. Those who do not fit with any of the thematic challenges, they shall apply to the wild-card access-track;
• For technology companies entry is open from early-stage proposals with technologies successfully validated in lab environment (equal or higher than technical readiness level 5 as reference) to fully operational models ready to expand;
• Core value proposition can be based on digital as well as non-digital solutions;
• A business model is already defined;
• The start-up has already a legal entity to operate or is in an advanced stage to set-up one. The
programme is open not only to classical clean-tech ventures based on regular for-profit legal structures, but also open to non-profits or hybrid legal structures;
• The start-up is composed by a motivated team with at least two founders;
• The team is committed to participate in the programme activities;
• The team is capable of working in an English-speaking environment.
The goal of Stage 2 is to help entrepreneurs translating business plans into concrete value propositions, provide evidence of the validation of the business model by real-world customers and develop and present a plan for developing products/services to market-readiness and achieving market entry. Start-ups at this stage receive support services and grants up to €25 000.
In addition to the conditions defined in stage 1, start-up candidates for stage 2 require:
• Successfully absolved stage 1 or coming directly to stage 2;
• The proposed solution has an elaborated case to show the potential climate impact;
• The business model has a solid case to address the sustainability and replicability / scalability of the proposed solution;
• Technology solutions are ready for product demonstration and validation;
• The start-up has a legal entity to operate.
The goal of Stage 3 is to help entrepreneurs to translate validated business models into first transactions with first customers, beneficiaries and/or investors. Start-ups pursue market entry with core product or service and achieve a meaningful number of commercial transactions that validate the core value proposition and/or attract capital to progress into the next stage in the business development. Start-ups at this stage receive support services and grants up to €50 000.
In addition to the conditions defined in stage 1 and 2, start-up candidates for stage 3 require:
• Successfully absolved stage 2 or coming directly to stage 3;
• Early users/ customers/ partners have been already identified;
• Start-up is looking to address main initial barrier to impact, e.g. first substantial funding, address a policy barrier, generate first customer traction, etc.