SuperNova growth programme offers European tech scale-ups chance to pitch for investment

Scale-Ups.eu is inviting up-and-coming European tech companies to pitch their ideas and earn extra investment as part of a growth event it will stage in Belgium later this year.

The company, which aims to drive the success of scale-ups with talent and funding, has co-organised its SuperNova programme with Flanders DC, which takes place in Antwerp from 27-30 September. The event seeks to bring together personnel, companies and investors to drive innovation.

Scale-ups have until 4 May to apply for a 10-minute slot to explain their ideas to investors during the first two days of the event. More than 100 funding companies will attend, including the likes of ID Invest Partners, HPE Growth Capital and JVP.

Businesses interested in applying must have generated at least €3m in recurring revenue, already raised between €1m and €40m in funding and achieved 20% annual growth across the last three years.

Scale-Ups.eu founder Jurgen Ingels said SuperNova will help participants scale up more quickly and fend off competition from overseas.

“European ICT scale-ups are facing international competitors that are able to conquer the market quickly with big series B-rounds of venture capital funds,” he said.

“As scale-ups are becoming increasingly important in job creation and economic growth, there is a strong need to build a strong ecosystem in Europe where expertise, knowledge and resources are shared to foster time reduction and the faster acceleration of scale-ups.”

Ingels said the initiative should enable companies to grow their business without relying on overseas funding and investment.

“The establishment of Scale-Ups.eu is beneficial for European scale-ups and entrepreneurs at large, as ecosystems that have a high concentration of scale-ups are able to leverage big investments,” he said.

“This means entrepreneurs do not necessarily have to get funding from outside Europe to be able to grow further, and do not have to move their companies to the US to scale.

“As a result, we keep the talent and jobs inside Europe. The more established an ecosystem is, the more opportunities there are locally for growth and investment.”

Scale-Ups.eu already works with a community of about 40 businesses, which include specialists in artificial intelligence and big data.

“These scale-ups saw the benefits and applications of using these new technologies to disrupt seemingly old and traditional industries, such as accounting, health, manufacturing and financial services,” said Ingels. “Although technologies will not change in the near future, industries as we know them today will.”