Taavi Madiberk joins first meeting of European Innovation Council Board

Today was held the first meeting of the European Innovation Council Board. Our CEO and co-founder Taavi Madiberk joined remotely from Tallinn and had the opportunity to introduce his and Skeleton’s journey and explain the priorities he would like to work on as a Board Member.

Ten women and ten men have been appointed by the European Commission to the board of its new innovation agency, the European Innovation Council (EIC). The board is made up of leading innovators, entrepreneurs, investors and venture capitalists, corporate leaders, researchers and academics of 18 nationalities. In addition to Taavi Madiberk, the new board includes some well-known figures in the world of European innovation such as Ireland’s chief scientific adviser Mark Ferguson; the president of Academia Europaea, Marja Makarow; former CEO of Innovation Norway, Anita Krohn Traaseth; Hermann Hauser, the co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, Kat Borlongan, founding member of Scale-Up Europe and ex-Managing Director of la French; and Ana Barjasic, CEO of Connectology, an international entrepreneurship agency, to name a few.

The board members are appointed for a two-year term and will advise on EIC’s strategy and work programme, and on broader innovation policy matters.

What is the European Innovation Council?

The European Innovation Council is Europe’s flagship innovation programme to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and game changing innovations. Each year, the EIC attracts thousands of start-ups and research teams from across Europe to compete for highly selective funding, investments and business acceleration services. It draws on the expertise of hundreds of leading entrepreneurs, investors and scientific experts to select the most promising projects; and partners with investors, corporates, venture capitalists, coaches and mentors, and other ecosystem players to accelerate innovations to the market.

In March 2021, the fully-fledged European Innovation Council was launched with a budget of over €10 billion as part of the Horizon Europe programme. It involved the creation of a new Brussels-based executive agency (European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency – EISMEA), a ramping up of the EIC Fund, the appointment of an independent EIC Board and President, and the launch of three main funding schemes:

• EIC Pathfinder: for advanced high-risk research on breakthrough technologies,
• EIC Transition: for transforming the most promising research results into high-impact innovation opportunities,
• EIC Accelerator: for ambitious and innovative companies to develop and scale up cutting-edge innovations with high economic and social impacts.

Since 2014, the EIC and its predecessors have supported a portfolio of around 5500 start-ups and SMEs with €3.8 billion of support to develop breakthrough technologies and innovations.

How does the EIC measure its success?

• Crowding in private investment: EIC Accelerator companies have raised a cumulative €9.6 billion in follow on investments. This represents close to three times the amount of public funding invested (€3.8 billion) and is in line with the target set by the EIC Board for a multiple of 3-5. Furthermore, the first set of 24 direct equity investments by the EIC Fund in 2020 attracted co-investments by Venture Capital funds and others of € 395.1 million representing 2.7 times the EIC Fund investment.
• Scaling up: The EIC Accelerator portfolio of companies now includes 91 “centaurs” (valuation over €100m) and 2 “unicorns” (valuation over € 1 billion). The total valuation of the EIC portfolio of companies is now around € 50 billion.
• Women leaders: In 2019 the EIC Advisory Board set an annual target of 35% of women-led start-ups to be funded by the EIC Accelerator. In 2020 it reached a total of 22% of start-ups with a female CEO which marks a significant improvement on 2019 but with further progress needed.

The EIC also supports the development of novel technologies as the basis of future breakthrough innovations. Since 2014, the EIC Pathfinder has supported over 400 trans-national research teams involving over 3000 partners to develop future and emerging technologies across a huge range of disciplines.