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 | IPO exit route!!! Biogenera startup will merge with Life Care Capital
META, as a cornerstone investor, in partnership with Italian Angels for Growth, Emilia-Romagna Region, Andrea Pession and Roberto Tonelli, have just signed a framework agreement with Life Care Capital SpA, leading to a merger by incorporation of LCC into BIOGENERA SpA.
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| Equity/based financial instruments
Our CEO Luigi Amati is featured in the latest edition of the European Commission's Panorama magazine, speaking about how public-private co-investment funds can support high-risk companies during the early seed stages, and why managing authorities should embrace them. Read the latest edition of Panorama Magazine
here!! (Luigi´s article on page 27)
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| First Business Angels Network created in Malta
Business Angels Malta is now up and running! The first BA network in the country has been created with the help of the Early Stage Investing Launchpad and it was officially launched last Monday 2nd of December.
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 | Turning Ypsonas into a smart city
Thanks to the Innovation Platform, the second largest industrialised municipality of Cyprus found a solution to improve the public transport service and parking accessibility. An Italian SME developed LIVE Ypsonas, an open data platform using low-cost microcontroller boards equipped with sensors, which are installed in the city. With such infrastructure, it is possible to collect data and information for designing advanced services for citizens.
Through the
Innovation Platform, you can solve your city's social goals while simultaneously boosting the entrepreneurial potential of the region.
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 | Reducing European food waste in a smart way thanks to the Innovation Platform
Feeding Coventry was looking for an innovative technological solution to enable real-time identification of surplus food. By way of the Social Challenges Innovation Platform, they connected with Aslogic, a Spanish SME which had an innovative idea to solve this issue. As a result of this collaboration, the FECET tool was co-developed and have been implemented since the summer of 2019.
Discover more about this story and how
challenge-based innovation works!
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 | Find your way through the eHealth market!
The eHealth Hub Smart Guides are now available! After 2 years of activities of the eHealth Hub project, including 6 editions of the lean startup Academy that involved +50 eHealth entrepreneurs from all over Europe; and 6 editions of the eHealth Hub’s investment readiness training and pitch events; all the know-how is now is condensate in these two guides.
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 | Investors and founders should share the same vision and expectations
As managing partner of META Ventures, Francesca Natali was interviewed in the eHealth HUB Smart Guides on how to effectively seek funding. This report will be published soon on the eHealth Hub website, in the meantime,
you can read some of her tips as an appetizer!
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 | META amongst top 10 innovation managers under H2020
META Group has been ranked amongst the top 10 performers for managing innovation for SMEs under the Horizon 2020 funding programme. Want to find out more? Read the story
here, to contact us about our services, mail us
here.
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 | More than half of the EU's population will be >65 by 2070
Have you heard of the
Active Assisted Living Programme? Every year they fund innovative projects that promote a better quality of life for the elderly. META has taken on the challenge to help them drive those projects to market - read more
here!
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 | 30 June Next Deadline for IP Booster!
Get your applications for IP Booster in NOW. If you're a public research organisation or a European university looking to improve your IP strategy, you need to apply this month to have the best chance of securing a service from our experts. IP Booster is free for all universities and PROs that are recipients of EU funding up to a total of 25k. Register on the website and apply now!
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 | Cava De'Tirreni is the most entrepreneurial city in Italy
Cava De'Tirreni won first place in META Group's Cities Challenges contest, which pits Italian cities against each other to compete for the coveted title of the most entrepreneurial city. Second place went to the city of Novara, and third place to the city of Ferrara. The week after the final pitch event we accompanied the winner at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Bahrain!
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 | What is the most entrepreneurial Italian city in 2019?
Cities Challenge Italy is the first competition to reward the entrepreneurial capacity of a city and its ecosystem. Coordinated by META, it focuses specifically on encouraging midsized cities (50,000-250,000 inhabitants) to cultivate an innovation-friendly environment which will generate new business ideas.
Cagliari was the winner of the first edition back in 2017, while last year Reggio Emilia took home the trophy. The Cities Challenge Italy 2019 contest is now facing its decisive phase. The final pitch session is on 5 April. What will be the most entrepreneurial Italian city in 2019?
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Anita speaks about the innovation gap to Science Business and META invests in the Batteries
This month, META’s innovation expert Anita Tregner Mlinaric spoke to Science Business about the brain drain from the newer Member States and META Ventures invested in a new start-up that is creating a new battery for mobile devices that is less than hundred micrometers thick and has twice the capacity of current Li-ion batteries. Check out our multimedia content too from the Social Challenges Innovation Platform and RECONFIRM.
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 | La creatività è alla base dell'innovazione, le idee sono alla base del business
We hope you had a relaxing break, and that the New Year is off to a good start! META Group is kicking off the New Year with two innovative contests: Culture and Creativity Club, an initiative of Università di Macerata,
META Group and
Fondazione Symbola, will transform 11 outstanding ideas into business opportunities; The third edition of Cities Challenge will present awards to small and medium cities that display the best entrepreneurial ability.
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Examining Europe's early-stage investment scene & key findings from SCHIP report
This month, META has been working a lot on two of our EU-funded projects -
ESIL, the Early-Stage Investing Launchpad, and
SCHIP, the Social Challenges Innovation Platform. ESIL held its first
Local Leader Summit in Brussels on 5-6 November, while SCHIP launched an
analysis of its results to date, which showed that cities and regions can use challenge-based innovation effectively to meet social challenges and simultaneously support SME growth.
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Launching META Innovation Platform & discussing SCHIP at #EUregionsweek
(11 October, 2018) Yesterday
at the #EUregionsweek conference we launched a new product - META Innovation Platform - along with first analyses of results from the Social Challenges Innovation Platform. Plus 5 good #metareads from Alessia, Andrea, Luigi and Francesco.
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