The Pandemic inspired an unprecedented amount of new ideas to be submitted to the InnoStars Awards. The number of teams eager to tackle some of the most critical healthcare concerns, as well as improve patient wellbeing and comfort, climbed by 47 percent year over year in this year’s edition. Three Romanian teams are among the 15 finalists, as are two from Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Hungary, as well as one each from Greece, Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania. One of EIT Health’s most competitive accelerator programs, the InnoStars Awards, is aimed at early-stage companies with a prototype or Minimum Viable Product. The semi-finalists will be awarded €25,000 in smart money to help them with business training and coaching from world-class specialists. The top ten teams will advance to the finals, where they will pitch to an international judging panel for a chance to earn up to €25,000 to help launch their product or service.
“Every edition of InnoStars Awards entices cutting-edge medtech, biotech or digital health solutions that try to respond to some of the most pressing healthcare challenges as well as improving the quality of life of patients. This year we observe it on an even larger scale. The pandemic has stimulated new ideas popping up and motivated innovators to do the next step. The key to success very often is to equip the ambitious teams with the business skills, and access to network and support them in building international recognition. This is exactly what we do” – underlined Tamas Bekasi, RIS Business Creation Manager at EIT Health InnoStars. “For the last five years, InnoStars Awards has moved dozens of teams from the prototype stage to the market level. The best teams got external funding, VCs interest and managed to scale out” – added Tamas Bekasi.
Read more at Innostars Press Release.
List of InnoStars Awards semi-finalists 2021:
DotLumen (Romania),
AidPlex (Greece),
Nanoker (Spain),
JEMTech (Italy),
PolTiss (Poland),
RuPharma (Portugal),
AIMED (Romania),
Rethink Medical (Spain),
Navolab Diagnostics (Hungary),
Endobios (Portugal),
Deed (Italy),
Liverinn (Lithuania),
Neurosalience (Estonia),
Tully (Romania),
APPERCELL (Hungary).
The winners, besides the financial awards, will have access to the support and potential investor connections available from EIT Health’s Investor Network and EIT Health’s Living Labs and Test Beds network. Besides the listed teams, EIT Health will provide mentoring support for further 20 runner-up start-ups with €4,000 value. More about InnoStars Awards: https://eithealth.eu/project/innostars-awards/
