Keywords: funding, innovation

Main users: Resident companies or institutions

Innoinvest is a H2020 funded project dedicated to upgrading schemes in the field of SME financial support led by innovation agencies. Four members of IASP developed new approaches to support SMEs in the access to capital for innovative projects.

The goal of INNOINVEST is to develop a new approach to the investment process to help innovative SMEs to find business and/or financial partners, and to increase the agencies’ efficiency in capital investment management and financial support. The main emphasis was on facilitating SME cooperation with corporates and a validation process to ensure the SMEs receive feedback from potential business partners. A high-quality professional investment process can increase SMEs’ chances of short and long-term capital to enhance growth, competitiveness and facilitate their focusing on the profitability of innovative solutions. This approach limits the risk involved in investing in highly innovative SME solutions, and strengthens the position of innovation centres in the national and international arena.

The partners identified problems in SMEs and startups when looking for business and financial partners for funding, where collaboration attempts failed due to the different mindsets between entrepreneurial SMEs and the process-oriented corporations that avoid risk. Another challenge was obtaining both Venture Capital short-term support as well as long-term equity financing that gives SMEs time to achieve profitability.
The project the sought to improve on an existing concept by applying the recommended TWINNING+ methodology of peer learning for innovation agencies to enhance their capacity to deliver focused, effective support and bring the macroeconomic effect. Peer reviews allowed the project partners to receive hands-on feedback and advice from each other on the implementation of their investing programmes. Experience exchanging with other innovation agencies, especially practitioners from the other EU regions, can help to receive new inspiration and solutions from different perspectives.

Having different starting points into the project the partners translated the overall investment process improvements and the results of feedback reports into their practical activities. PPNT runs a whole programme, and Malaga TechPark and Tehnopol plan to initiate them in near future. WISTA runs an acceleration programme matching startups and industrial partners to access capital. From Malaga TechPark one of the main impacts of the INNOINVEST project is an action plan which includes a set of programs to promote the creation and growth of new tech-based companies. Ten STPs, including Málaga TechPark, will participate in a first pilot edition to detect over 100 technology-based business ideas and accelerate 32 future startups.

The main users are SMEs, startups, innovation agencies, and investors.

Poznan Science and Technology Park (Poland), Malaga TechPark (Spain), Wista-Management GMBH (Germany), and Tallinn Science Park (Estonia).