CEED Bulgaria launches a new initiative – Innovative Accelerator, together with Cluster Sofia Knowledge City (CSKC) and Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club (KISMC). On 5.03.2021 the three organisations signed a Memorandum of collaboration on launching an Innovation Accelerator. The initiative aims at transforming the mentor program developed under the MME project, into an Innovation Accelerator which will ensure funding for startups and scaleups developing high-tech products and projects, mostly focusing on smart cities. The Accelerator will officially start its activity in the middle of 2021. Currently the initiative is in process of coordination and expanding the partners’ network.

What makes the Innovation Accelerator different than the numerous similar ones in Bulgaria and Europe?

1. On first place, the new Innovation Accelerator is based on the principle of the so-called corporative accelerators working on the open-innovations principle, thus ensuring the best use of internal and external ideas.
2. The strong and active network of professional mentors from all around Europe (Bulgaria, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, and Norway) is not dominated by the idea of fast and big profit at the expense of the entrepreneur.
3. The new Innovation Accelerator builds on the already developed network of four Innovation Hubs working on the territory of Sofia, Thessaloniki, Brussels and Bergen, driven by the common goal of becoming "distribution counters" for their regions, providing services to high-tech companies in the creative and media industries for Europe.
4. The accelerator will select and invite investors to support the companies which have successfully passed the training. Money will follow innovation, not the other way around. The accelerator will also have a fund, which will be created through the Accelerator’s wide network of partners and mentors.