EY Consulting GmbH

Their core work

EY Consulting GmbH (a Berlin-based SME, registered separately from the global EY network) operates as a professional advisor in European startup ecosystem development, with a focus on helping startups and scale-ups grow across EU borders. Their H2020 work centered on building pan-European entrepreneurship infrastructure — connecting early-stage web and mobile ventures with investors, corporates, and media, and later guiding deep tech scale-ups through soft landing and international expansion programs. They act as a bridge between the startup world and institutional actors, contributing matchmaking methodologies, ecosystem exchange frameworks, and acceleration know-how. Their value to EU consortia is a commercial, market-facing perspective that complements technical or academic partners.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their earliest H2020 work (WELCOME, 2015-2016) was squarely focused on web, app, and mobile startups — a broad digital entrepreneurship push with emphasis on launches, EU-wide scaling, and visibility through investors and media events. By 2018-2019 (Startup Lighthouse), the language had matured considerably: web and app references disappeared entirely, replaced by scale-ups, deep tech, soft landing, ecosystem exchange, and international expansion. This shift mirrors the broader EU startup policy transition of that era — from celebrating early-stage hustle toward structured support for companies already past proof-of-concept that need to cross borders and access serious capital.

They were moving from broad startup promotion toward targeted support for deep tech scale-ups pursuing cross-border growth — a more specialized and commercially valuable niche for any future consortium needing that bridge.

How they like to work

EY Consulting GmbH has participated in both H2020 projects as a consortium member, never as coordinator — a pattern consistent with a firm that contributes defined consulting or facilitation deliverables rather than driving project strategy. With 16 unique partners across just 2 projects, they operate in medium-sized consortia (roughly 8 partners per project) and show no sign of returning to the same partners repeatedly, suggesting broad network engagement rather than a tight inner circle. This profile suits organizations that want an active, commercially-oriented partner without the overhead of a consulting firm trying to lead the project.

EY Consulting GmbH has built connections with 16 distinct partners across 8 countries through only 2 projects, reflecting a genuinely pan-European collaboration footprint consistent with their startup ecosystem mandate. No geographic clustering is evident — their network appears deliberately diverse by design.

What sets them apart

What sets this organization apart within Digital H2020 participants is the combination of professional consulting credentials with direct operational involvement in startup ecosystem programming — they are not a university studying entrepreneurship, but a firm doing it. Their experience spans both the early promotional phase of the European Startup Initiative and the more mature scale-up support agenda that followed, giving them rare longitudinal perspective on how EU startup policy and programming has evolved. For a consortium building an innovation support or acceleration project, they bring market credibility and practitioner networks that purely academic or research-institute partners cannot replicate.

Highlights from their portfolio

• Startup Lighthouse
  Their largest funded project (EUR 163,588) and the most sophisticated in scope — targeting scale-ups rather than early-stage startups, with a focus on deep tech and structured international soft landing programs.
• WELCOME
  An early pan-European web entrepreneurship initiative that established EY Consulting GmbH's credentials in EU-level startup ecosystem work, including manifesto development and cross-EU launch programming.