UIH: Support for Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program – Uruguay

The Uruguay Innovation Hub program has the objective of promoting projects in science, technology and innovation that allow the country to advance towards an economy and society based on knowledge, becoming a world-class innovation center that attracts international investments; allows to increase the potential economic growth rate of the country and generate quality jobs for the country’s inhabitants.

Benefits of the Instrument

The selected organization will have access to two types of benefits:

• Operating Cost Benefit
  • The benefit of Operating Costs will consist of the disbursement of non-refundable financing to finance part of its operation, covering the expenses necessary to help fulfill the purposes of the organization under this instrument.
  • Office space will also be provided for the operation, during the 3 years of the contract.
  • The support will be granted for a maximum execution period of 3 years, with annual stages whose renewal will be subject to compliance with indicators and results proposed at the beginning of each year. It will have a maximum annual amount of up to USD 300,000, while the organization must make equivalent contributions of at least 40% of the total cost of the project.
• Benefit in Joint Investment
  • The organization is expected to co-invest with the UIH in selected ventures after passing through the acceleration program, making monetary contributions with its own funds or from third parties that have been contributed to the selected organization.
  • This will be done in the following way:
    • UIH support will have a minimum limit of USD 50,000 and a maximum of up to USD 150,000 per venture.
    • UIH contributions will be delivered as advances, subject to meeting milestones against which disbursements will be made, according to the schedule of each project.
    • To access this benefit, the organization will present to the program the ventures proposed to be co-invested, which must be analyzed together with the organization.

Beneficiaries

• Beneficiaries may be those organizations, both national and foreign, with a demonstrable history of having supported ventures in stages of growth and acceleration, with proven financial, managerial and technical capacity to follow up on ventures under these conditions.
• The organization of the consortium must have:
  • The ability to support ventures effectively and have at least:
    • an executive team with prior experience in managing venture acceleration processes;
    • access to a network of mentors, made up of experts from different vertical;
    • linkage networks and/or alliances within the national and international ecosystem;
    • demonstrable success stories associated with acceleration processes with entrepreneurship;
    • legal status in Uruguay at the time of signing the contract;
    • executive team in Uruguay at the beginning of the project, with the possibility of being hired locally; and
    • representatives of the central organization in acceleration instances.
  • A clear support methodology, its differential characteristics, the services that comprise it, the conditions of the ventures to go through the stages of the process and their results.
  • An income model that ensures financial sustainability after program financing ends. It is expected to understand how their processes operate to achieve achievements and generate future income.
  • A schedule of linking activities with the national entrepreneurial ecosystem, with the objective of generating synergies.
  • A proposal that demonstrates having a significant impact on the ecosystem national entrepreneur.

For more information, visit National Research and Innovation Agency.