Europe INNOVA - Partnerships for better innovation support

Print this article

On 19 January, the MOBICAP Consortium met in Brussels at the offices of Banca Intesa San Paolo for its kick-off meeting. MOBICAP is an “access to finance” action under the European Mobile and Mobility Industries Alliance (EMMIA).

MOBICAP’s general aim is to tackle the funding gap for early-stage Mobile/Mobility Service Industries (MMSI) by facilitating access to finance for MMSI, in particular for young innovative start-ups, and by addressing key challenges such as poor investment readiness in the sector. It will also establish a new pan-European risk capital investment facility with a view to leveraging 50+  million Euros in favour of MMSI. At the same time, MOBICAP will provide policy lessons and operational insights to the EMMIA Policy Learning Platform by involving policy agencies from MMSI industry clusters across Europe.

Specifically, MOBICAP will:

i)                   create an online and on-field coaching community to speed up the selection of investment-ready SMEs and train those chosen for the initial approach to investors;

ii)                 develop a tailored seed fund and identify co-investment best practices;

iii)               stimulate the participation of private and public capital; and

iv)              connect to markets and eco-systems.

First steps towards achieving the project goals include surveying and categorising existing MMSI, organising matchmaking road shows in several European cities, building up the online coaching platform, and engaging with potential investors and actors in the funding chain.

The MOBICAP consortium is led by SpaceTec Capital Partners of Munich (Germany), who have a long track record in early-stage investment and coaching. The other partners are:  Banca Intesa San Paolo - one of the top ten banking groups in Europe, with long experience in start-up initiatives and venture funds; the European Alliance for Innovation (EAI) which is based in Brussels and has an excellent background in interdisciplinary innovation; FILAS which manages regional early-stage funds in the Lazio Region of Italy and the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP) of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), which are renowned experts on the mobile development scene. As such, the consortium combines complementary competences along the funding chain.