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Concrete funding opportunities that are available to space tech start-ups were in focus at the MyGalileoApp competition, held at the European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) headquarters in Prague on 7 November. At an investors panel discussion held as part of the event, start-ups heard about some of the concrete funding opportunities that are available to them.

Kicking-off the panel discussion, Marta Krywanis-Brzostowska, Head of Downstream R&D in the GSA Market Development Department, noted that the Agency currently has a portfolio of over 60 projects worth a total of over EUR 120 million. She said that, through Horizon 2020, the GSA is supporting the development of applications, while the Fundamental Elements mechanism targets the development of hardware, such as chipsets and receivers.

Noting that funding is also made available through aviation grants and smaller initiatives like MyGalileoApp and other prizes such as the Galileo Masters and Farming by Satellite, Krywanis-Brzostowska said that start-ups stand to receive more dedicated support in the future.

Dedicated start-up programme

“We are aware that there is a need to support start-ups, this is why in the new financial framework after 2020 we are planning, along with the European Commission, to define a dedicated programme that will support start-ups,” she said.

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Thierry Chapuis, space applications expert at CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) in France spoke about some of the support available through his organisation, in particular the Connect by CNES initiative, which was set up to help private and public actors to develop their applications. CNES is also participating in and funding the ESA Business Incubation Centres at the French national level. CNES is also working at the aviation level and organising hackathons such as Act in Space, the next edition of which will be in April 2020, he said.

Like Krywanis-Brzostowska, Chapuis also noted that start-ups stood to benefit from some dedicated support. “The French government has decided to develop start-ups and a big budget of EUR 400 million has been approved. CNES is responsible for selecting start-ups related to space activities within this programme,” he said.

Advancing to the next stage

João Duarte, responsible for early stage venture capital at Lighthouse Ventures, a EUR 23-million fund based in Prague, said that his company supports early stage start-ups with between 50,000 to 700,000 euros per start-up, with EUR 300,000 being the most typical amount. “We also have an acceleration programme where we invest EUR 20,000 for a couple of months to help a start-up go from the idea stage to having a business plan and some early customers. If they successfully complete the acceleration, then they will be eligible for larger investment to take them to the next stage,” he said.

And this: GSA, EIB sign agreement on investment in space

Representing UP21, an incubator and seed fund based in Prague, Anna Efros informed the participants that, so far her company had carried out 16 investments in two strategies: incubation with up to EUR 30,000 for 3-6 months, and larger investments of up to EUR 500,000 euros. “We are currently setting up a venture capital fund called START21 which will hopefully amount to EUR 25 million, and also we are co-organiser of the Start-up World Cup and Summit, which will be held in April 2020,” she said.

Money to disperse

Unlike other similar agencies, the Italian Space Agency doesn’t have its own research labs. However, Anilkumar Dave, Head of Innovation and Transfer of Technologies at the Agency, said that it has a lot of government money to disburse. “We will launch the first venture capital fund on space in Italy at the end of this year, where we are the cornerstone investor - but we will not invest in early-stage and seed, but rather in SMEs,” he said. 

Marketa Filipenska, International Funding Specialist at the South Moravian Innovation Centre (JIC) noted that her centre had recently opened a European Space Agency BIC where it is helping people with ideas related to space upstream and downstream. “We are providing them with EUR 50,000 and business mentoring, in addition to connecting them to big players in the sector,” she said.

Wrapping up the discussion, Fiammetta Diani, Head of Market Development at the GSA, spoke about a Memorandum of Understanding that the GSA signed with the European Investment Bank (EIB) in September this year, dealing with cooperation on supporting investment in the European space-based service economy. “The MoU aims to give space start-ups a greater portfolio of opportunities and tools to help them to grow,” she said.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

The MyGalileoApp competition has contributed to the creation of an ecosystem that helps start-ups and other innovators to build innovative applications and grow while enabling both private and public investors to find and invest in projects of interest to them. At the MyGalileoApp finals, which took place at the European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) Prague headquarters at the start of November, start-ups heard about some of the key elements that they will need to succeed in a highly-competitive marketplace.

Galileo has been available to users around the globe since the launch of initial services back in December 2016 and the challenge generally, and for the MyGalileoApp competition specifically, is to make use of the Galileo services to develop systems and applications and to drive innovation based on the technology that Galileo makes available. The competition took nine months in total, during which the competitors progressed from the idea stage to creating a working app with 100% functionality.

Engines of innovation

Francesco Perticarari from Silicon Roundabout, who was a mentor at this year’s competition, noted that the approach of the GSA has been to leverage start-ups as engines of innovation. “The GSA did not just set up a competition to award money to successful developers, it set out to create an ecosystem of tech innovators, from start-ups to mentors and investors and the GSA itself, which also provides support,” he said, adding that the power of the MyGalileoApp competition is the ecosystem it creates that enables start-ups to deliver. 

 “Whether or not you win a prize today, this is not the end of the story. The connections you have made with mentors, investors and other start-ups are what you should really treasure,” he told the finalists in this year’s competition. 

Watch this: Meet Argeo: #MyGalileoApp Competition Winner

Another mentor, Piotr Bucki from Bucki PRO, outlined some of the forces that can drive a start-up forward, including social demographics in the form of a trend that an app can follow. It is also possible to ride a regulatory wave. “If rules from the European Commission or some other authority call for improvements in a service, then companies have no choice but to up their game, he said.

Growth mind-set

“In addition to timing, financing, strategy and riding the aforementioned waves, one more thing that makes start-ups successful is having a growth mind-set. A growth mind-set is the opposite of a fixed mind-set, in which intelligence is static, while in a growth mind-set intelligence and skills can be developed and iterated,” Bucki said.

Maaike Dokter from Xablu noted that location services can improve our quality of life, and that this was true for all of the sectors addressed by the MyGalileoApp finalists’ apps. As a designer with a focus on healthcare, she outlined how location-based services can improve things in this industry by optimising processes and reducing admin, allowing providers to focus on healthcare provision and reducing the amount of time a person has to spend in hospital. 

“By increasing outdoor and indoor accuracy, we can take advantage of these opportunities. The MyGalileoApp competitors are finding solutions in which Galileo plays an important role, turning ideas into reality,” she said. 

Ensuring sustainability

At a panel discussion held later in the day, start-ups heard from investors about the key qualities that would ensure their sustainability. Marketa Filipenska, International Funding Specialist at the South Moravian Innovation Centre (JIC) said that, in addition to mentoring, complementary services are also important, closely linked to the ecosystem in the region. 

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 “We connect venture capital funds, business angels, universities, local stakeholders and corporates - all of these meet with our start-ups and clients to identify opportunities on the market. Investor matching is important, not only to make the business sustainable, but to scale up the company,” she said.

Marta Krywanis-Brzostowska, Head of Downstream R&D in the GSA Market Development Department, noted that when reviewing projects for funding, one thing at the forefront of the GSA’s mind is that it does not want another prototype to put on the shelf. 

“We always highlight that it is important to have a link between the proposed solution and needs on the market. Knowledge of the market is critical, so we ask applicants to include a business plan along with their proposals,” she said, adding that an important tool in understanding the market is the GSA’s GNSS Market Report. 

“To be sustainable, you have to follow trends, be creative, understand the technology, be enthusiastic about what you are doing and be open to any support,” she said.

Thanks to MyGalileoApp, the GSA has built a network where business partners, public players and investors can connect with start-ups and young innovators, thereby contributing to the development of innovative applications leveraging the advantages of Galileo.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

Once again, the Galileo Masters – and its sister award programme the Copernicus Masters – was the glittering highlight of EU Space Week 2019 that took place in Helsinki on 3 to 5 December. In its 15th year the Galileo Masters continues to attract the attention of some of the brightest and best minds. Topics submitted to the competition this year ranged through digitisation, big data, the sharing economy and artificial intelligence (AI), amongst others, but all with a common theme: the use of European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS) Galileo and/or EGNOS to benefit society.

The 2019 Galileo Masters attracted some 203 participants reaching entrepreneurs from over 41 countries in Europe and around the world. Since its inception in 2004 the competition has seen a cumulative participation by just under 12,000 individuals submitting 4,587 individual business cases.

In addition to the overall Galileo Masters winner and regional awards, a range of special prizes are also given, including ‘Idea of the Year’ and ‘Start-up of the Year’ and a new prize for 2019 responding to an emerging trend: The Galileo-Copernicus Synergy Challenge.

Special prizes

The Gala event took place at the Helsinki Congress Paasitorni centre in central Helsinki on the evening of 4 December. In all, some 31 awards were handed out on the night under the Galileo Masters categories. Master of ceremonies, Bavarian broadcaster and celebrity Claus Kruesken, described the Masters awards ceremony as the “festive highlight of EU Space Week.” 

Read this: Performance Cockpit takes overall prize at Galileo Masters 2019

This year’s new prize, the GSA Galileo-Copernicus Synergy Challenge was presented by GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides. Commenting on the event, he highlighted the links that the competition inspired between the GSA and the space applications community by “providing the GSA with a first-hand experience of emerging needs and solutions.” The first ever winner of the synergy prize was the Xylene concept from Giuseppe Benenati and his team. Read more here.

Other Galileo special prizes this year included the DLR Artificial Intelligence Navigation Challenge awarded to Pieter Bastiaan Ober of INTEGRICOM for a proposal to analyse the Galileo Signal in Space using AI. The BMVI PRS Applications Challenge was presented to Brandon Bradford of tissEU for his Odin’s Eye idea – a Galileo-enabled PRS tactical drone – that was also the winner of the Bavaria regional Challenge prize. 

The University Challenge was announced by Paul Bhatia from the University of Nottingham with the winner, Freewheel – a platform that allows people with reduced mobility to increase their accessibility and inclusion – awarded to Lotfi Massarweh, Deimos Engenharia and their Elecnor team. 

The SAWCER concept won the GNSS Living Lab Prize with an idea inspired by a move to a new city, Barcelona, for winner Adrienne Fanning. Her app makes local shops as easy to search as online stores by creating and sharing crowdsourced, geo-localised catalogues.

The internet of Things (IoT) is building to be one of Galileo’s largest markets for applications and the Galileo 5G IoT Challenge award was presented to another idea to help inclusivity by making outdoor sports more accessible to blind or partially sighted people: the WAIBRO belt developed by Katrina Sedlackova and her team at WAIBRO sports.

New ideas and accelerators

Fiammetta Diani, Deputy Head of Market Development at the GSA presented the Idea of the Year and Start-up of the Year prizes; both of which target entrepreneurship. Idea of the Year went to the CX-GEODRONE project and a joint team from the Universities of Vigo and Oviedo, who also won the Galicia regional prize, for a radar-based drone payload that promised the inspection of underground utilities infrastructure without the need to dig up the road.

And this: uMaze takes Accuracy Matters prize in Galileo Innovation Challenge

The Start-up of the Year is awarded to a project that is already being implemented in a start-up that is not older than three years and this year was awarded to PODIS - Post Distress Signal. The winning team led by Andreas Alamanos also won the Greek regional prize for this IoT solution-as-a-service concept for automatic crash notification system.

The prestigious EGNSS Accelerator Winners were announced by Pierre Delsaux, Deputy Director-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs at the European Commission. Three winners were announced for the valuable incubation prize. First up was MEDeus, aka the drone doctors, represented by Hammad Jeilani and his UK regional winning team that is looking to improve the efficiency of delivering healthcare supplies using drones. 

Another double winner was second: Dronetag also won the Czech regional prize for Lukaz Brchl. The Dronetag concept will provide real-time identification for UAVs by leveraging Galileo and IoT technologies.

The third Incubation winner was in fact a triple success for the German Tocsen GmbH team. Tocsen won the Baden-Wurttemberg regional prize, took this Incubation Accelerator win and was on stage again as the single winner of the EGNSS crowdfunding campaign accelerator! Tocsen is a smart crash detection and automatic emergency call system designed to be incorporated in cyclists’ crash helmets.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

Once again, the Galileo Masters – and its sister award programme the Copernicus Masters – was the glittering highlight of EU Space Week 2019 that took place in Helsinki on 3 to 5 December. In its 15th year the Galileo Masters continues to attract the attention of some of the brightest and best minds. Topics submitted to the competition this year ranged through digitisation, big data, the sharing economy and artificial intelligence (AI), amongst others, but all with a common theme: the use of European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS) Galileo and/or EGNOS to benefit society.

The 2019 Galileo Masters attracted some 203 participants reaching entrepreneurs from over 41 countries in Europe and around the world. Since its inception in 2004 the competition has seen a cumulative participation by just under 12,000 individuals submitting 4,587 individual business cases.

In addition to the overall Galileo Masters winner and regional awards, a range of special prizes are also given, including ‘Idea of the Year’ and ‘Start-up of the Year’ and a new prize for 2019 responding to an emerging trend: The Galileo-Copernicus Synergy Challenge.

Special prizes

The Gala event took place at the Helsinki Congress Paasitorni centre in central Helsinki on the evening of 4 December. In all, some 31 awards were handed out on the night under the Galileo Masters categories. Master of ceremonies, Bavarian broadcaster and celebrity Claus Kruesken, described the Masters awards ceremony as the “festive highlight of EU Space Week.” 

Read this: Performance Cockpit takes overall prize at Galileo Masters 2019

This year’s new prize, the GSA Galileo-Copernicus Synergy Challenge was presented by GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides. Commenting on the event, he highlighted the links that the competition inspired between the GSA and the space applications community by “providing the GSA with a first-hand experience of emerging needs and solutions.” The first ever winner of the synergy prize was the Xylene concept from Giuseppe Benenati and his team. Read more here.

Other Galileo special prizes this year included the DLR Artificial Intelligence Navigation Challenge awarded to Pieter Bastiaan Ober of INTEGRICOM for a proposal to analyse the Galileo Signal in Space using AI. The BMVI PRS Applications Challenge was presented to Brandon Bradford of tissEU for his Odin’s Eye idea – a Galileo-enabled PRS tactical drone – that was also the winner of the Bavaria regional Challenge prize. 

The University Challenge was announced by Paul Bhatia from the University of Nottingham with the winner, Freewheel – a platform that allows people with reduced mobility to increase their accessibility and inclusion – awarded to Lotfi Massarweh, Deimos Engenharia and their Elecnor team. 

The SAWCER concept won the GNSS Living Lab Prize with an idea inspired by a move to a new city, Barcelona, for winner Adrienne Fanning. Her app makes local shops as easy to search as online stores by creating and sharing crowdsourced, geo-localised catalogues.

The internet of Things (IoT) is building to be one of Galileo’s largest markets for applications and the Galileo 5G IoT Challenge award was presented to another idea to help inclusivity by making outdoor sports more accessible to blind or partially sighted people: the WAIBRO belt developed by Katrina Sedlackova and her team at WAIBRO sports.

New ideas and accelerators

Fiammetta Diani, Head of Market Development at the GSA presented the Idea of the Year and Start-up of the Year prizes; both of which target entrepreneurship. Idea of the Year went to the CX-GEODRONE project and a joint team from the Universities of Vigo and Oviedo, who also won the Galicia regional prize, for a radar-based drone payload that promised the inspection of underground utilities infrastructure without the need to dig up the road.

And this: uMaze takes Accuracy Matters prize in Galileo Innovation Challenge

The Start-up of the Year is awarded to a project that is already being implemented in a start-up that is not older than three years and this year was awarded to PODIS - Post Distress Signal. The winning team led by Andreas Alamanos also won the Greek regional prize for this IoT solution-as-a-service concept for automatic crash notification system.

The prestigious EGNSS Accelerator Winners were announced by Pierre Delsaux, Deputy Director-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs at the European Commission. Three winners were announced for the valuable incubation prize. First up was MEDeus, aka the drone doctors, represented by Hammad Jeilani and his UK regional winning team that is looking to improve the efficiency of delivering healthcare supplies using drones. 

Another double winner was second: Dronetag also won the Czech regional prize for Lukaz Brchl. The Dronetag concept will provide real-time identification for UAVs by leveraging Galileo and IoT technologies.

The third Incubation winner was in fact a triple success for the German Tocsen GmbH team. Tocsen won the Baden-Wurttemberg regional prize, took this Incubation Accelerator win and was on stage again as the single winner of the EGNSS crowdfunding campaign accelerator! Tocsen is a smart crash detection and automatic emergency call system designed to be incorporated in cyclists’ crash helmets.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).