EU-Israel innovation hub taps 13 startups for growth program

The EIT Hub Israel, an organization set up in 2019 to bridge the Israeli and European tech ecosystems, has selected 13 startups to take part in its scale-up program dubbed Calling2Scale, a project that helps firms with working products to reach global markets through grants and industry connections.

The EIT Hub Israel is the Israeli branch of the European Union’s Innovation and Technology Arm (EIT). The organization also runs local hubs in Silicon Valley and the UK.

The three-month “post-acceleration” program launched in Israel this week and will run into the summer, focusing on guiding the growth process of startups entering new markets.

The selected startups were chosen from over 70 applicants working in medical tech, climate tech, and smart cities. The program works with the support of a number of multinationals including Israeli renewable energy company Doral Energy; Alperia, a leading energy supplier in northern Italy; US medical device company Integer; IMED TLV, a health tech hub that includes the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center – Ichilov; and Bazan Group, an Israeli oil refining and petrochemicals conglomerate.

Among the 13 startups are six Israeli companies, two Spanish firms, and one each from the UK, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Poland.

The Israeli startups are Carmel Diagnostics, the developer of a medical system that selects the most viable embryos for successful IVF pregnancy; Iluria, a maker of monitoring software that provides support to caregivers and families for ADHD management and treatment decisions; Solutum, the developer of a novel plastic material that the company says dissolves in water at ambient temperature and then biodegrades with no microplastic residue; Boson Energy, a startup that developed a system to recycle waste into carbon-negative hydrogen; ACiiST Smart Networks, which says it offers secure ethernet networking infrastructure technology for smart cities; and Synvertec, the developer of algorithm-based software that improves the stability of electricity grids.

The selected companies will have access to mentors from Israeli and European industries and will benefit from marketing efforts by the EIT innovation community, according to the announcement.

The launch of the program comes five months after Israel officially joined the Horizon Europe program, the European Union’s largest research and innovation program in December, opening the way for Israeli academics and companies to bid for billions of euros in research funding.

Israel’s ambassador to the EU and NATO, Haim Regev, signs the Horizon Europe research agreement with EU Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, December 6, 2021 (EU)

The program allocates 95.5 billion euros ($111 billion) in grants through 2027.

Israel has been a partner in the EU’s research and innovation framework programs since 1996, when it joined the EU’s fourth research program — the first non-European country to do so.

According to a report co-compiled by EIT Hub Israel last year, there were over 900 Israeli startups operating in the 27 countries of the European Union plus the UK, employing close to 25,000 European residents.

An examination of the activity of Israeli companies in Europe shows that more than a third of them come from the information and software technology sector, and the others from internet, telecommunications, biomedical, and cleantech.