Imagine you run a promising tech startup in Estonia, but all the big customers and investors are in Spain or Denmark. You're stuck in your local bubble with no easy way to break out. Scale-up Champions built a network of incubators across 5 European countries so startups can "soft land" in new markets — getting introductions, office space, and investor access in cities they've never set foot in. Think of it like an Erasmus exchange program, but for startups trying to go global.
European startups, especially in deep-tech digital sectors, consistently fail to scale beyond their home market. Local incubators provide early-stage support but lack the international connections needed to help companies find foreign customers, investors, and talent. This leaves promising technology stuck in small domestic markets while competitors in larger ecosystems race ahead.
The project delivered 7 outputs including an experience-sharing methodology for cross-border incubator collaboration and a catalogue of existing scaling services and programs across 5 European countries. These tools enable incubators to jointly support startups through investment readiness programs, corporate cooperation matchmaking, and soft-landing services in foreign markets.
If you are a startup incubator struggling to help your portfolio companies find customers and investors beyond your local market — this project developed an experience-sharing methodology and a catalogue of existing services that lets incubators across 5 countries collaborate. Your startups get direct access to foreign ecosystems instead of navigating them alone.
If you are a corporate innovation team looking for deep-tech startups to solve specific technical challenges — this project built active startup-corporate cooperation programs across 6 partner organizations in 5 countries. Instead of scouting startups one by one, you tap into a curated pipeline of investment-ready companies already vetted by incubators.
If you are an investor who only sees deals from your own region — this project created working networks between investors and startups across Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Lithuania, and Poland. The investment readiness program means startups come to you better prepared, reducing your due diligence burden and increasing cross-border deal flow.
The project itself was publicly funded and has now closed (ended May 2022). The methodologies and service catalogues developed are available as project deliverables. Individual incubator partners may offer ongoing services at their own rates — contact the coordinator for current options.
The project connected ecosystems across Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Lithuania, and Poland through 6 partner organizations. The experience-sharing methodology was designed to be replicable. Any incubator could adopt the approach, though the established network relationships are strongest in those 5 countries.
As an EU-funded Innovation Action, the deliverables — including the experience-sharing methodology and catalogue of existing services — are typically available through CORDIS or the project website. Specific licensing terms should be confirmed with the coordinator at Fundacja Uniwersytetu im Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu.
Scale-up Champions specifically targeted the gap where incubators fail to help startups go international. Rather than creating new incubators, it connected existing ones across less and more developed ecosystems, equalizing access to customers, employees, and finance for deep-tech digital companies.
The project produced 7 deliverables in total, including an experience-sharing methodology for incubator collaboration and a catalogue of existing services and programs. These are practical tools that incubators can use to build cross-border partnerships.
Based on available project data, the deliverables focus on methodology and service catalogues rather than individual startup outcomes. The project ran for about 2.5 years (December 2019 to May 2022) as a completed Innovation Action, suggesting implementation did occur, but specific startup success metrics are not available in the dataset.
The consortium of 6 partners across 5 countries (Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Lithuania, Poland) is deliberately balanced between Western and Eastern European ecosystems — which is exactly the point of the project. With 2 universities, 2 research organizations, and 2 other entities, there are no industrial or SME partners, which means the network was built through academic and research-oriented incubators rather than private accelerators. The coordinator is a Polish university foundation, suggesting strong ties to academic entrepreneurship. For a business looking to engage, this means the network is rooted in deep-tech and university spinouts rather than consumer startups.
Fundacja Uniwersytetu im Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu (Poland) — reach out through the project website or university foundation contact page
Want to connect your incubator or corporate innovation team with this cross-border startup scaling network? SciTransfer can facilitate introductions to the consortium partners and help you evaluate fit.
