Apply for Rural ClimAccelerator Iberian Program (Spain)

Rural areas within Europe are fundamental to their way of living. However, the vulnerabilities of these areas have been exacerbated during the last few years. Issues related to the decline of rural infrastructure and services, internet access, and transportation also loom large, and have reduced the population in these areas.

The Rural ClimAccelerator Iberian is part of a partnership with EIT Climate KIC and its ClimAccelerator program. Europe’s leading climate innovation agency and community, supporting cities, regions, countries and industries to meet their climate ambitions through systems innovation and place-based transformations.

Themes

• Service of Nature
  • Sustainable and regenerative land use
  • Preserving and restoring biodiversity
  • Preserving and restoring Ecosystem services
  • Nature Carbon Capture
  • Resource management footprint indicators – Bioindicators
• Rural Connectivity
  • Access to emerging technologies
  • Opportunities to acquire digital advanced skills.
  • Widespread digital literacy
  • Digitalization as a tool for the evolution of rural areas.
  • Rural areas as Smart City Pilots, sandbox, living labs, tech testing areas
• Rural as a service
  • Bio-based materials and bio solutions for goods and services
  • Community based high-quality products
  • Energetic communities
  • From farm-to-fork solutions
  • Valorization of Rural Good and Services byproducts.
• Wellbeing & growth
  • Biophilic design, biomimicry, and naturalization
  • Valorization of cultural heritage for tourist attractiveness
  • Enhancing the quality of outdoor environments
  • Rural innovative village
  • Harmonious territorial development

Benefits

• Mentoring
  • Their personalized guidance and support, combined with an international network of world-class mentors and experts, will ensure your success. You will have an assigned mentor who together will develop the outcomes and milestones you need to improve your business.
• Workshops
  • You will be exposed to actionable insights from their pool of international and national experts, that will lead you with Workshops to valuable insights, and actionable recommendations, that help you move forward to your business’s next level.
• Experts FeedBack
  • The duration will be 16 weeks, with the opportunity to receive stakeholder’s experienced feedback that will guide you to validate your product, study your scaling strategy, improve your fundraising approach, sharpen your go-to-market strategy.
• Support network
  • They will ensure to provide you with the opportunity to meet a wide range of potential partners, stakeholders, and investors to build a strong network and receive valuable and relevant feedback.
• Visibility and Networking
  • Marketing, brand promotion, and visibility on their web and their partner’s social media. Entrance and participation in worldwide startup events, like 4YfN, this edition, participants will be part of the launch of the Green Tech Space.
• EIT Climate KIC Support
  • Possibility to access to the EIT Climate-KIC ecosystem to boost your start-up Access to EIT Climate-KIC financial sustainability tool: Climate SAFE (Special Consideration)

Program Structure

• Stage 1. Business Model Development
  • Duration: 8 weeks. They will be reviewing, validating, and improving your business model proposition, with 1 o 1 mentoring and masterclass and we will be talking about sustainable business models, and how you create and measure the impact you are creating.
• Stage 2. Customer Traction
  • During 6 weeks. They will be improving your product development, your prototype, making validations of your demo with user experience
• Step 3. Investment Readiness
  • Duration: 8 weeks. They are focused on increasing the financial strategy, public and private funding, gaining investment knowledge, and creating startup scalability plan

Eligibility Criteria

• Rural ClimAccelerator Iberian is for aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators from diverse backgrounds in the fields of greentech, cleanteach, agrotech and climatech with answers and solutions to the current environmental and societal-related wicked problems
  • Business stage
    • SMEs and start-ups with advanced business models, MVP / prototype, and at least TRL 6 will have preference
  • Registration Status
    • SME’s or startups that are already registered will be prioritised. You must at least be in the process of registration at the time of application.
  • Base of operation
    • The startups must be located in Spain
  • Activity
    • They will consider SME’s and startups incorporated with less than 5 years.
  • Team
    • Dedicated teams with at least 2 members will be prioritised
  • Fit with theme topics
    • Prefeible, your business solution fix one or more of a their four topics, close to a commercial and technological scale up stage

Evaluation Criteria

• Business Model
  • Applicants should demonstrate the viability of their business model, how they intend to achieve a sustainable business, pricing, and financial model, and knowledge of the market and sales channels.
• Innovation Level
  • The degree to which it was a new or significantly improved approach or practice to the sector, applicants should be able to show how their solution and business model are innovative while being technically suitable and viable.
• Market & Scalability
  • A realistic assessment of revenue streams; your business solution has the potential for scalability and monetization.
• Team
  • Applicants should be able to demonstrate having a diverse and inclusive organization, with leadership and entrepreneurial mindset. Teams that have a minimum of 2 founders committed full-time on their venture.
• Traction
  • Applicants should be able to present evidence of feasibility and adoption by the target audience.
• Impact
  • Startups that generate a meaningful impact alongside positive financial returns. Their goal is not only economic returns but also to create jobs and reduce regional disparities.

For more information, visit Innobound Innovation Agency.