In collaboration with the EPO’ Observatory on Patents and Technology, EPO has just published the new report ‘‘Mapping investors for European innovators’ . Recognizing the strategic importance of investors and funders for the success and the launch on the market of new and disruptive technologies by startups and new entrepreneurs, the study aims to highlight the challenges that deep tech startups face in access to public and private funds at the European level and for comparison at the US level.
Introducing the indicator Technology Investor Score – defined as the percentage of financed firms owning patents, inside the target investor’s portfolio – , the study maps and ranks different investors entities, such as European Innovation Council-EIC, European Investment Bank-EIB, national and regional innovation agencies. Among the results:
- in Europe the public early-stage investors are not followed by late stage private investors that have a major presence in the US;
- Significant funding gaps exist between Europe and the US for private investors heavily involved in technology, particularly in late-stage rounds.
- Among the top 100 private investors in Europe, 62% focus on early-stage funding, while only 22% specialise in late-stage funding, underscoring the limited capital available for scaling up technologies and bringing inventions to market.
In concomitance with the report, EPO Deep Tech finder tool was updated with a new filter related to investors, according to the selected country, startup maturity stage and technology focus.
Finally, on the EPO’ Observatory website, a new section entitled ‘ Financing Innovation Programme’ was published collecting initiatives, publications and activities developed by EPO to support the protection of new inventions and innovations by SMEs and startups.