Startup Europe Partnership

The Problem

In 2013 the Startup Manifesto was published, and one of the most critical points that came out of was that “Continental Europe currently does not create new business destined for growth as well as other parts of the world, Silicon Valley in particular”. This summarizes the problem pretty clearly.
High Tech giants do not live in Europe and even when they are born here, they grow elsewhere.
In recent years, Europe has made a lot of progress in producing more startups but the number of scaleups is still too low. And the number of scaleups that are able to become scalers or unicorns is even lower. Europe needs more scaleups that are able to grow rapidly and go international while producing revenue, employment, and innovation on an increasingly larger stage.

The Solution

Startup Europe Partnership (SEP) aims at offering an integrated pan-European platform to help the best startups emerge from these local ecosystems and scale-up.
How? Connecting top European startups to established Corporates and Stock Markets/Investors to provide them with financing to encourage growth and business development, and expose them early to concrete strategic options.

Who We Are

Established by the European Commission in January 2014 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, SEP is the first pan-European platform dedicated to transforming European startups into scaleups by linking them with global corporations and stock exchanges.
SEP is led by Mind the Bridge, an organization based in Italy and United States connecting European entrepreneurial ecosystems to Silicon Valley, with ELITE – London Stock Exchange, Nesta, European Startup Network, Scaleup Institute, and Bisite Accelerator.

SEP Founding Partners

Startup Europe Partnership has been developed in partnership with leading corporations (Telefonica, Orange, BBVA), education institutions (Cambridge University, IE Business School, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society) and the European Investment Fund.