Clean Cities ClimAccelerator kicks off second year of scaling urban solutions
To fight global warming we have to aim for carbon-neutrality by 2030. Cities are facing an enormous challenge in becoming resilient, healthy places to live, while reaching net-zero-emissions in a very short period of time.
Start-ups in the sustainability sector are playing a vital role in propelling change with their smart technologies and climate positive solutions, yet overcoming the obstacle of implementing them at scale is another challenge to overcome.
Support comes along with the second edition of the Clean Cities ClimAccelerator – an EU wide acceleration programme – which aims to support up to 30 climate-focused start-ups with over 400K EUR in grants and a state-of-the-art methodology. The programme is backed by EIT Climate-KIC and delivered by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Impact Hub Vienna along with an international consortium of partners.
Designed for start-ups developing solutions focused on the transformation towards climate neutrality across all city systems, the focus of the ClimAccelerator lies on challenges like “Community retrofit – District renewal systems”, “Green spaces, climate resilience & urban adaptation systems”, “Information & data systems”, “Mobility, logistics, & public space systems” and “Renewable energy systems”.
The programme looks for start-ups with the capability to contribute with their solutions and services to the systemic change much needed in our cities. The accelerator offers an extensive 9-month mentoring and coaching programme with international experts, and up to 25.000 EUR in grants per start-up.
The programme is designed in 3 stages:
Explore: Stage 1 focuses on diagnostic, training and networking. This stage will be two months long with a funding grant of up to 5.000 EUR. Participants will have the opportunity to take part at the Smart City Summit (May 30-31), Impact Days ‘22 (CEs leading conference on impact investment – June 2-3), ViennaUP ’22 and the South Summit (June 8-10) in Madrid. At these events they will have the opportunity to get connected with other ventures, city representatives and investors.
Validate & Collaborate: Stage 2 focuses on the collaboration between start-ups with matching potential partners (challenge owners) in order to validate their solution-problem fit. The aim is to develop a proof of concept work plan by focusing on solving a real problem presented by one of the challenge owners. Ideally this collaboration will continue beyond Stage 2 and this programme. This stage will last approximately five months with a funding grant of up to 20.000 EUR.
Scale: In the third and final stage the selected start-ups will be supported individually in their approach to get in touch with investors and new markets. Therefore they will receive access to a network of investors and municipalities as well as to the EIT Climate-KIC Investment Programme and ClimAccelerator marketplace. The start-ups will get the opportunity to pitch and discuss their business cases with key stakeholders within the consortium’s network.
Of 33 inspiring participants that had been accepted in last year’s programme, 15 moved on to the second stage, and ultimately six promising start-ups entered the final stage: A piece of lemon cake, Baqme, Lumio, Peafowl Solar Power, Purcity and Upfarming.
From across the continent, start-ups will get to solve and have impact on challenges proposed by the strategic partners of the programme from the Spanish side: City Hall of Valladolid, City Hall of Zaragoza, Zaragoza City of Knowledge Foundation, City Hall of Madrid, Ferrovial, La Pinada, Acciona Energía, DCN, Repsol and Banco Santander; and from the Austrian side: Wien Energie, Wiener Linien, Wiener Lokalbahnen, Wiener Wohnen AWS and Vienna Business Agency
The Clean Cities ClimAccelerator is now open again for application and invites EU start-ups on the journey towards healthy, clean cities with a carbon neutral future. Applications are open until 12 April 12 2022 (12:00 CET) on: www.cleancities.network.