EIT FAN Nordic Hub established by VTT and its partner University of Helsinki kicked-off on 9.6.2021 with ten startups from mostly Finland and Sweden but also one startup from Belgium and one from Austria. The number of applications to the EIT FAN Nordic Hub increased from last year and the countries varied from all around Europe. The goal for startups in this programme is to gain knowledge from experts and connect with possible clients, partners and investors from all over Europe. Each startup team will be assigned their own mentor who will support the team all through the programme.
The selected startups have now started their four-month journey where they will get through various lectures, workshops, and mentoring sessions and everything will culminate in the Demo Day event on the 7th of October. After this all start-ups from each accelerator programme hubs will be welcomed to participate in the European EIT Food Expo to celebrate the end of the programme and results achieved. Like last year, the programme is planned to be executed in hybrid format due to COVID-19 restrictions with online sessions in the first months and then hopefully we can all gather and see face-to-face for the first time on September in workshops, mentoring sessions and events.
The topics covered in programme are ranging from product development and service design to sales, marketing and fundraising. This year EIT FAN will also provide two different sidetracks: Sustainable Agritech and Healthy Nutrition. Startups will be selected to these sidetracks from all six EIT FAN hubs across Europe located in Helsinki, Munich, Haifa, Lausanne, Cambridge and Bilbao.
This year we are happy to have Valio, HKScan, Pauling-PINC, Tetra Pack, Nordic Foodtech VC, Nordea and Business Tampere as our local partners. Partners will be providing lectures, mentoring and experts to the program and startups. Partners will get visibility and networking from the program and, of course, get to be part of the journey of these innovative startups. Whole EIT FAN network has altogether more than 40 partners including Nestlé and PepsiCo.
Selected start-ups:
- Grönovation (Sustainable agriculture): High-tech automated indoor growing facility where plants will be grown with precision, without any pesticides and with a guaranteed yield of highly nutritious greens.
- Hooked Foods (Alternative proteins): Leading the transition to a healthier seafood ecosystem by delivering delicious and nutritious plant-based seafood (Toonish & Salmoonish) to restaurants and grocery stores.
- Kamupak (Digital traceability): General platform for third parties that enables the reuse of packages and products through a deposit scheme. Currently providing packages as a service to restaurants, events and grocery stores.
- NORBITE (Alternative proteins): We transform plastic waste into sustainable goods by means of an insect-based biorefinery. Developed a patented technology to enable insects to perform at an industrial scale, received an LOI.
- Planticus (Sustainable agriculture): Artificial Intelligence solution to detect pests and diseases on food crops incorporated in a mobile application.
- Revo Foods (Alternative proteins): We develop plant-based seafoods with 3D Food Printing.
- Tracegrow (Sustainable agriculture): We provide micronutrient fertilizers from suitable trace nutrients recycled from nutrient-rich industrial waste streams and aim to develop a recovery process for their recycling and reuse.
- Volare (Circular food systems): Our technology solves the challenge of large-scale protein and lipid ingredient production from food industry sidestreams. The protein ingredient has unique features, including extremely high digestibility, high protein content, and balanced amino acids.
- Whywaste (Circular food systems): Reduce food waste at your store through data driven solutions.
- Yield Systems (Sustainable agriculture): AI company with a strong science background. We develop advanced machine learning and video analytics for digital phenotyping and for the agri-food value chain.
To learn more about the EIT FAN Helsinki program, visit
https://www.eitfan.eu/helsinki
Written by Noora Rinkinen