Commercialization Reactor 2020 review

From 3-4 April, we planned to have the Ignition event at Deep Tech Atelier (DTA) organized by the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA). We still didn`t have a clear picture of the situation in the world, so we thought that nothing will be canceled. Few weeks before DTA, due to the COVID pandemic in the country, the event was canceled, as well as the Ignition event.

After DTA was canceled, we started thinking about running our first ONLINE Ignition event in summer 2020.

Like every year, this year also we had DemoDay. This May, for the first time we had a Demo day online. 12 teams were pitching to profiled VCs and were challenged by a panel of investors afterward.

More than 40 people were in the ZOOM, and more than 100 people were watching LIVE on FACEBOOK

Start-ups who took a part in May Demo Day: RixOpticum, Hyrevision, Vigo, 2AM, Soberly, Artusystem, and Correcty.

Before our next Ignition event, we came up with the idea to create the position of Venture entrepreneurial partner (VEP). Many of our residents liked the idea and became VEP`s, and now they are helping new-formed teams to achieve results much faster. The main roles of the VEP in start-ups is:

• Help teams to get pre-seed investment readiness;
• Advisory and non-executive;
• Sharing experience – both positive and negative;
• Advice, not directions;
• Assistance in communication with scientists.

Due to COVID restrictions in a country, we were not allowed to organize an Ignition event offline, as we did it 14 times before, so for the first time, we organized an Online Ignition event together with the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA). We had more than 120 participants, 15 technologies were presented and from them, 12 teams were created. Also, Info sessions were organized online, so potential entrepreneurs could get more information about us, about an Ignition event, and about our Acceleration program as well.

It was something different and something new for us!! But it worked out and our first Ignition event ONLINE was a success!

We ran the first online mini-Ignition event with a collaboration of European Institue of Innovation & Technology (EIT) and six EIT Communities in the framework of the EIT Jumpstarter programme. In order to support the creation of new businesses, the first online mini-Ignition event took place on 11–12 September 2020.

During the two days, scientific teams worked together with a pool of young entrepreneurs to find partners for a joint venture.

We are planning to organize more Ignition events in 2021 with a collaboration of EIT.

Also, we had an online DemoDay in September, where 7 teams were pitching as well. More than 40 people were in the ZOOM, and more than 100 people were watching LIVE on FACEBOOK.

Teams, who were pitching: ChemCode, HyMet, PurOceans, Tremo, and Coaltech. All these teams were born in our 14th Ignition event in November 2019.

If you are interested to watch the DemoDay recording, it`s available on our Facebook page.

For the first time, we organized Masterclasses together with the Investment and development agency of Latvia (LIAA) and Riga Business School (RBS): Roadmap to your Smart business!

We had 5 Masterclass sessions with more than 90 participants. Various speakers took a part in this Masterclass: prof. Shailendra Vyakarnam, Claudio A. Rivera, Lauma Muizniece, Ilona Gulchaka, our Residents, and Nikolai Adamovitch. In these 5 Masterclasses, we talked about different topics in the Deep tech start-up field. We also did practical tasks, where participants had a chance to work together in teams on different case studies. In the last session they had to pitch their “project”, explaining technology, potential applications, potential customers, etc. At the end each participant received a certificate. 

If you don`t want to miss information about our next Masterclasses, register here: ej.uz/feb2021mc

For the first time, the HYBRID Ignition Event was organized online and offline together with the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) on 16-17th October. More than 100 people attended. 12 scientific technologies were presented at the Ignition Event. We had Scientists from Asia, Italy, Russia, UK, Belarus, Armenia & Croatia.

During the 16th Ignition Event, 9 science-based proto-companies were established, which will develop promising technologies in medicine, artificial intelligence, bioelectronics, and other fields, building the basis for the creation of valuable startups.

If you don`t want to miss the newest information about our next Ignition event, register here: ej.uz/17ie