Two years and four months, five partners, six open calls, 700 applicants from across Europe, 157 startups and scaleups supported, 500+ mentoring sessions, 500+ investors and corporates, six flagship events, 230+ new jobs created, over €125.8 million investment raised, 60+ consortium online meetings later. We’ve just reached the end of our project, what a ride.
Connecting and building stronger bridges across Europe to help the deeptech ecosystem grow was our challenge, and we tried our best to accomplish it. It was not always easy: we had a programme created for an in-person environment full of events, and the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. Three months in and like the rest of the world, everything we had planned suddenly needed to be restructured. So we rolled up our sleeves and faced the challenge with motivation and determination, developing the X-Europe that we all know.
Between January 2020 and April 2022, our programme supported startups in six cohorts: HealthTech & BioTech, AgriTech, AI/ML, Smart Cities & Sustainability, SpaceTech, and FinTech, with a 6-month equity-free acceleration programme that offered:
Training and skills services, including growth hack training, business development workshops, and one-on-one mentoring sessions, as well as incubation opportunities in Amsterdam & Riga, and intense acceleration weeks.
Matchmaking services, to connect our startups with potential corporate partners, investors and talent.
Promotion services, with opportunities to attend, pitch and showcase at major tech events: TNW 2020 & 2021, TechChill 2021 & 2022, DesignTerminal’s The Future of Agritech, and Space Terminal online summits, Web Summit and 4YFN. We put our startups in the spotlight with TNW media and within our social media community of 5k+ followers and members.
We provided number summaries and ecosystem landscapes on our focus regions (The Baltics, Visegrad and BENELUX), developed ecosystem toolkits, and published market scans. Browse through our content for more resources.
We also created the X-Europe Founder’s Journey - Podcast Series, that’s right! We always had in mind to contribute to the startup and tech ecosystems by connecting actors, helping startups grow, and create a strong community. You can still engage with our alumni.
Here’s what some of our startups say about X-Europe:
“X-Europe is a perfect blend of everything a startup needs to accelerate their growth: business advice, mentorship, connections, investment, marketing... It's a unique accelerator which will take your company to the next level.” – Vitor Crespo and Filipe Quinaz, Co-founders, CRIAM
“Despite lockdowns and social distancing, the X-Europe programme offered us the opportunity to stay engaged with the European innovation ecosystem, sharing useful insights and refining our project based on meaningful feedback and mentorships.” – Valentino Megale, CEO, Softcare Studios
“Excellent program! Great engagement by the team - and a very strong network connecting us with potential partners throughout Europe. I recommend the X-Europe program to all companies looking to expand rapidly.” - Richard Bundsgaard, CEO, Adent Health
“Through X-Europe, we have gained valuable knowledge and a great network of both industry experts and other fantastic startups that have faced or are facing many of the same challenges that we have. The team has created a very well-rounded accelerator program that allows you to take what you need and expand your network with other dedicated entrepreneurs as well as potential corporate partners and investors from around the world.” - Chayan Asli, CEO, Vestun
“X-Europe is an incredible pool of talent, support and visibility that really drives European startups to get where they want to go.” – Elena Vélaz de Medrano Serrano, Marketing and Sales Manager, FOSSA Systems
“A very interesting program for us as a growing company. We have gained some valuable coaching, sparked some great ideas as well as expanded our network. I would love to do it again, ideally without the covid restrictions in place - some great people there.” – Jan Baksa Lesjak, 42DBS GmbH
“A great opportunity to meet startups, investors, corporates and business coaches with a common tech-understanding, and interest in the airspace sector. The business coaching was the best I ever had!” – Elof Winroth, Nordluft Automation AB
X-Europe has an 88% recommendation rate from its participants and we are really proud of it. It was an amazing experience, led by F6S with key partners TNW, TechChill, Growth Tribe, and Design Terminal, and co-funding from the EC. A young and motivated team that worked very well together to deliver a unique programme.
Help us celebrate by checking our final wrap-up video below and follow us on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram) to engage in future activities.
See you soon, maybe at a tech event in Europe?
X-team