Klimatic Cities program funds demonstration pilots across Europe; €50K per project non-dilutive funding
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Term of Validity: 8 September 2026 - 8 September 2027
Summary - Profile Type - Business request - POD Reference - BRDE20260908004 - Term of Validity - 8 September 2026 - 8 September 2027 - Company’s Country - Germany - Type of partnership - Commercial agreement - Targeted Countries - All countries General information - Short Summary - European cities are missing climate targets not because solutions are lacking, but because industry adoption is slow. Klimatic Cities funds demonstration pilots through catalytic grants and creates pathways for commercial uptake. Inspired by proven US models, Klimatic Group seeks a consortium including:(1) an experienced EU-funded lead partner, (2) city governments eager to host scaleups, and (3) innovation hubs to manage projects, corporates and investors. Goal: A Pan-European multi-city pilot - Full Description - There is little support from the ecosystem to help mature technologies commercialize and scale. Due to our own survey data of 80 global Hubs that offer entrepreneur support in the green tech sector, most Hubs are staffed by project managers, academics, or consultants, many of whom have not founded companies themselves. Hubs often lack technical knowledge in supporting scaleups. There are also more investor readiness training materials available for programs than commercialization and venture clienting curriculum. Capitalization is an easy market: investors are easily identifiable, the demo day model is well established. Customer traction, which does not have a similar templatized format, is not easy to design for. Furthermore, most funding for Hubs, which impacts their program design, are also designed for early-stage prototyping and investment readiness instead of commercial readiness. This is a policy failing, public funding needs to also be deployed in helping TRL 6+ green tech to be de-risked and to commercialize faster. Klimatic Cities is a program for Hubs (city programs, universities, investors, industry programs, Entrepreneur Support Organisations), that serves the following purposes: 1. Drive funding for Hubs to implement a Klimatic City. As stated, there is limited funding for ecosystem actions to create the conditions for tech solutions to scale. Klimatic Cities remedies this problem by ensuring funding is the first KPI of success, that hubs are funded to conduct commercialization programs. 2. Expert programming for Hubs to learn how to implement Klimatic Cities as a program. As stated, Hubs have limited expertise in implementing a commercialization program. Klimatic Cities is a “Train the Trainer” approach in helping Hubs learn how to support scaleups in achieving commercial success with expert support on B2B business development, sales, customer success, and marketing. Hubs are also responsible for building the local ecosystem, such as industry, investors, and government stakeholders. 3. Introduce the best global green tech scaleups1 to access the European market. This is to select the best in class de-risked TRL 6+ technologies to demonstrate in different cities as new markets, and secure commercial contracts. Through a cohort approach, Hubs support the same scaleup companies and collaborate in supporting them. 4. Project KPI and Milestone tracking. The heart of Klimatic Cities is the demonstration pilots themselves. Scaleups receive €50K per project as non-dilutive funding to enable them to demonstrate their technologies to industry customers. Hubs serve as project managers to the industry customer partners and scaleups and hold both sides accountable for project success. The core impact of Klimatic Cities is what projects convert from being publicly funded to commercially funded. This is the core test of piloting Klimatic Cities under this call. 5. Storytelling Most communications around the startup ecosystem pertain to investment raised or a brand new untested, but interesting solution, and not from the true impact of implementing climate solutions at scale. A final vital part of the program to report on results, not just intent. - Advantages and Innovations - ● Furthering the commercialization of TRL 6+ green technologies moving from pilots to recurring revenue. The programme ensures that companies participating not only are able to obtain market access opportunities in meeting potential customers and investors, but are able to unlock commercial growth. ● Strengthening European ecosystems for commercialization: The programme will create quadruple helix ecosystems comprising hubs (entrepreneur support organizations), industry (corporates, startups, and investors), public sector, and media to ensure commercialization goals are being met. ● Supporting sustainability and green transformation: By focusing on sectors like GreenTech, CleanTech, Climate Tech, Urban Tech the project contributes to Europe’s green transition and sustainable development goals. ● Internationalization: Through international hub partners, the best in class startups can easily expand to the European market. These impacts align strongly with the objectives of the call I3, fostering interregional collaboration, piloting and scaling green technologies, and strengthening market access in Europe. - Technical Specification or Expertise Sought - The Klimatic Cities pilot aims to be in 3 European countries in 3 different European countries. At least one of the countries should ideally be from Central & Eastern Europe. The cities identified in the pilot should offer attractive market access for companies to soft land and expand, versus one-offsmall projects. Furthermore, the city governments should also be supportive of the program and create incentives for the selected companies to register locally and
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