Are you next? These 5 award winning scale-ups took full advantage of EIT Digital Challenge

A new EIT Digital Challenge is coming up. If you are a deep tech scale-up and are serious about expanding your business and accelerate your growth, this challenge is made for you. The pitching competition offers the opportunity to win a massive international growth package, which will help to push your company to the next level. Don’t take our word for it. These 5 scale-ups took the challenge and won in the past three years. Can you do better?

Enerbrain: turning old buildings smart

This Italian scale-up turns wasteful buildings into efficient ones at the snap of a finger. Their solution can plug into any HVAC-system a building is using and will monitor ventilation, heating, and cooling. A custom algorithm developed by Enerbrain (pictured above) optimizes the ventilation system, cutting energy usage dramatically.

In 2018 Enerbrain installed their product in 89 city council buildings in the city of Turin. This turned the old buildings into smart ones. After only two days of installation, the energy consumption was cut by 30 percent. The scale-up was awarded in the EIT Digital Challenge of last year for their technology that improves the financial productivity and comfort of buildings without any major modifications. Winning the challenge allowed them to boost their international growth.

Active Cues: putting magic on the table

Another winner in the year 2018 was startup Active Cues. They believe everyone has the right to play, so they’ve developed a way to turn tables into magic. A smart projector turns any surface in a ‘Tovertafel‘ on which people with cognitive challenges, ranging from children with autism to older people with dementia, can play games. These are aimed to stimulate physical, mental and social activities. Projected objects on the magic table react to human interaction, making an everyday object into an interactive playground. This innovative solution won them a first prize in the Digital Wellbeing category of the EIT Digital Challenge of 2018.

Cleverciti: being smart about parking

Searching endlessly for a free parking space in a city is dumb. A clever city will point you to a free spot straight away. Or in this case, German scale-up Cleverciti will. Their solution combines sensors and software to detect available on-street parking spots and is able to guide users there. This dramatically decreases search time, and thus decreases traffic in an already crowded inner city. Added bonuses are less pollution and increased parking revenue because empty parking spaces will fill up faster. No wonder that, after winning EIT Digital 2017, Cleverciti bagged a substantial investment from one of the Tesla investors.

ApiOmat: getting companies to innovate

Winner in the Digital Infrastructure category of EIT Digital Challenge of 2017, ApiOmat offers an easy way for companies to roll out digital solutions. Their product enables companies to integrate their enterprise IT systems with mobile devices and wearables, allowing them to rapidly create apps that innovate their business. The scale-up from Leipzig reduces the time needed for digital services to reach the market, enables rapid prototyping and helps companies to digitally transform their business processes. By now over 10,000 developers and 30 enterprise customers use ApiOmat to quickly roll out their apps. After winning the Challenge and receiving a year’s worth of support from EIT, ApiOmat enrolled in EIT’s leading European Accelerator to further boost their growth.

Galgus: providing wifi to the masses

Better wifi? Yes please! Especially if it is four times better, while cutting energy consumption and interference in half. Galgus from Spain has developed Cognitive Hotspot Technology (CHT) to make this possible. CHT allow places that struggle to get proper connection to go online without any problem. This is especially important in places with lots of connected users, such as transport, business or educational areas. Their quest for better wifi won them the EIT Digital Challenge of 2016, back when their scale-up was still called AIOFES. After receiving support from EIT and stepping into the spotlight on the world stage, they joined EIT Digital Accelerator. Because the world can never have enough good wifi.

Apply now for the next EIT Digital Challenge

All these mentioned winners of the EIT Digital Challenge got the chance to scale up their business and they took it with both hands. If you think your business has got what it takes, you can still sign up for the EIT Digital Challenge 2019. Deep tech startups from all over Europe will compete in different categories and pitch their business to win money and a years’ worth of support from Europe’s leading accelerator. Sounds good? Check out the application criteria and apply now, registration closes on June 14th.

This article is produced in a collaboration with EIT Digital. Read more about our partnering opportunities.