S3E Charge 2024 | Meet the startup: MOVEN
MOVEN is one of the 17 startups selected to participate in the 2024 edition of S3E Charge, the EU-funded accelerator program fostering deep tech innovation and entrepreneurship in Southern Europe.
We spoke with Sergio Diez, CEO of MOVEN, to learn more about how this Spanish startup is helping cities achieve their sustainable mobility goals thanks to their AI-powered data platform, and hear why they've decided to join our accelerator program.
https://youtu.be/SGTMdPwTs1c
Hi Sergio! Tell us about MOVEN, the mission behind the business and the technology you’ve developed.
We launched MOVEN in 2020 after having spent several years working in different ecosystems focused on innovation for sustainable mobility. During that time, we realised there was an interesting gap in the market for a new technology to access private data in a secure way, paired with AI-based algorithms to better understand what is happening in different cities and how local administrations and companies can use that data to improve local infrastructures.
Our mission is to provide access to data to accelerate the shift towards more sustainable mobility in cities.
What has your entrepreneurship journey been like so far?
I haven't followed the typical entrepreneurial path. I've always worked in the corporate sector and it wasn't until 5 years ago that I decided to launch my own startup.
I'm an industrial engineer and I've always had a big passion for innovation and R&D. I wanted to be involved in the development a piece of technology that would be more focused on people rather than the product itself, so after a long career working with big companies like Renault, IBM and Airbus, I decided it was time to pursue a new venture. That's what led me to start MOVEN.
Why have you decided to enrol in the S3E Charge accelerator?
One of the main goals we want to achieve through this program is to finally establish our business model in order to commercialise our data platform. We're also very interested in accessing other ecosystems, because MOVEN is mainly based in Spain, so we'd like to understand the needs and requirements to enter other markets in Europe. And, of course, we're looking forward to meeting potential investors and learning what options we have for financing our startup.
What are the key ambitions for MOVEN? Where would you like to see the business in 5 years?
Once we consolidate our business model, which is our top priority right now, we'd like to scale up our platform and see how we can impact other cities in Europe and South America to help them achieve their sustainable mobility plans.
Drawing from your own experience, what piece of advice would you give to an entrepreneur who’d like to launch their own startup?
It's very important to have a lot of energy and time. You're going to come across many challenges along the way, so from the start you have to be really confident in what you want to do. Be persistent and persevere until you reach your objective.
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S3E Charge 2024 | Meet the startup: ivoluntry
ivoluntry is one of the 17 startups selected to participate in the 2024 edition of S3E Charge, the EU-funded accelerator program fostering deep tech innovation and entrepreneurship in Southern Europe.
We spoke with Andreas Kountouras, CEO and Co-founder of ivoluntry, to learn more about how this Greek startup is building an online community platform for volunteering activities, their reasons for joining S3E Charge and their ambitions to grow the business in the next 5 years.
https://youtu.be/9mt18jPItmc
Hi Andreas! Tell us about ivoluntry, the mission behind the business and the technology you've developed.
Antypas Azoidis and I co-founded ivoluntry in January 2023 with the aim to digitally organise and maximise volunteering activities around the world. The idea came from my personal experience volunteering as a lifeguard.
We've created a digital platform that connects volunteers with opportunities provided by NGOs and non-profit organisations, creating an online space where they can explore available activities and people interested in contributing to them. It also helps to digitally capture and maximise the volunteer footprint of companies, maximises the sample of scientific research in this area, and contributes to develop voluntourism.
We are currently in the development stage of our website and we are looking for volunteers and NGOs who would be interested in connecting through our platform.
How would you define your entrepreneurship journey so far?
Being an entrepreneur is an exciting adventure. It constantly forces you to get out of your comfort zone which, in turns, make you grow professionally and personally.
In our case, we're always willing to learn and collaborate from other professionals and fellow entrepreneurs, and we're constantly evolving to get the business to the stage where we'd like it to be.
Why have you decided to enrol in the S3E Charge accelerator?
We'd like to introduce our platform to volunteers and NGOs based in many different countries, and we believe this accelerator can help us achieve that goal. Through the help of our mentor, we hope to get feedback on our plans of expansion and start growing an international network; we're also very interested in improving our pitch presentation for when we're ready to introduce ivoluntry to investors and new audiences.
What are the key ambitions for your DataFruit IIoT? Where would you like to see the business in 5 years?
In the next 5 year, we want to achieve our set financial goals and reach European citizens and organisations looking to develop their volunteering activities. We also plant to integrate educational interaction features within the platform to continue spreading the ivoluntry philosophy.
Drawing from your experience, what piece of advice would you give to an entrepreneur who'd like to launch their own startup?
My advice would be to observe the national ecosystem to be aware of what's happening at a social, economical or even cultural level and see how it all ties in with your business idea, and to take part in entrepreneurship programs which can help develop your startup. And don't be afraid of failing — it's all part of the journey!
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The S3E Open Call #2 has officially launched!
The wait is finally over! The S3E – Southern European Entrepreneurship Engine consortium is excited to announce the official launch of the second Open Call for the three tracks of the : Start, Charge & Reverse.
S3E is the ultimate program of support for entrepreneurs in Southern Europe developing Deep Tech solutions with social and sustainable impact at their core. Each track is dedicated to three main groups operating within the innovation ecosystem: researchers and TTOs working on a project as a team, startups at their growth stage, and corporates interested in joining forces with scaleups/SMEs.
The S3E Charge program has been an invaluable experience. The theoretical sessions and mentorship have greatly supported our growth and have improved the key strategies to effectively communicate our value proposition. We highly recommend this program to other entrepreneurs, as it provides the necessary tools and connections for success in the Deep Tech industry.
Naeria Navarro Navarro CTO, Fresh Water Nature SL - Charge Startup
What's the difference between the 3 tracks?
- S3E Start: helps research teams and tech transfer officers to explore the commercial viability of their deep tech projects. Through an 18-week online training & mentorship program, the selected research teams will learn first-hand about the processes required to develop a business case for science-based products or services.
- S3E Charge: supports deep tech startups in their growing phase that want to improve their business model and learn how to access dilutive and non-dilutive funding. Over 14 weeks, the selected startups will receive tailored mentorship to guide them through the validation process of their product or service, and the creation of an investment-ready business plan.
- S3E Reverse: connects corporate challenges with solutions developed by scaleups and SMEs thanks to our Brokerage Program, based on a successful open innovation methodology. To access the first phase of this track, large companies and public organisations have to submit a deep tech challenge.
You can find all the relevant information about each track on the section on our website.
How to apply
Those interested in joining the S3E Program need to follow these steps:
- Read all information about the S3E Program to decide which track best suits you
- Once you know which track you want to apply to, download the relevant track Guidelines for Applicants and the Open Call Text via Zenodo: +
- After carefully reading the mandatory documents, you can now complete your application via the F6S online platform: S3E Charge application for Startups + S3E Start application for Researchers + S3E Start application for Tech Transfer Offices
The S3E Open Call #2 welcomes applications from the following countries:
- South European countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.
- Associated countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo and Turkey.
The S3E Start program has a comprehensive curriculum that provided us with the necessary information on deep-tech commercialization. With the TEC sessions, webinars and mentor meetings, we had the chance to learn from experts. The S3E team has been very supportive and answered all the questions we had. We strongly recommend this program.
Elif Begum Elcioglu NANO INK - Start Researcher
Key dates to keep in mind
- 18 September 2023 (12pm CET): The S3E Open call officially launches for the 3 tracks: S3E Start, S3E Charge and S3E Reverse
- 15 December 2023 (5pm CET): Deadline for applying to S3E Charge (startups) and S3E Reverse (large organisations acting as ‘Challengers’)
- 12 January 2024 (5pm CET): Deadline for applying to S3E Start (research teams & tech transfer officers)
Join our upcoming S3E Info Webinars!
To help this year's applicants prepare for their submissions, the teams behind S3E Start & S3E Charge will be hosting a series of Q&A Webinars. These sessions provide an open space to everyone interested in applying to ask any questions they may have about the S3E Program — we highly encourage future participants to come along!
Check the available dates for S3E Start and S3E Charge and book your preferred session via Eventbrite. The earlier you join one of our Info Webinars, the more time you and your team will have to prepare before submitting your application.
Got any questions?
Check the FAQs section on our website, where you fill find an extensive list of answers regarding the S3E Program. If you would like to speak directly to someone from the S3E team, you can email us at info@south3e.eu
We look forward to creating long-lasting collaborations!
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Press release: The Engine for South European Deep Tech launches the second Open Call for the S3E Program
The S3E – Southern European Entrepreneurship Engine consortium is excited to announce the launch of its second Open Call for the S3E program — the EU-funded initiative fostering Deep Tech entrepreneurship in South European countries.
After launching the first Open Call in 2022, the S3E Program is coming back this year to keep supporting startups, researchers, tech transfer offices, corporates and SMEs in Southern Europe developing innovative deep tech solutions with social and sustainable impact at their core.
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Who can join the S3E Program?
The S3E Accelerator Program is built around 3 tracks of bespoke services, tailored to the needs of different groups operating within the deep tech innovation ecosystem.
- S3E Start: helps research teams and tech transfer offices to explore the commercial viability of their deep tech projects.
- S3E Charge: supports deep tech startups in their growing phase that want to improve their business model and learn how to access dilutive and non-dilutive funding.
- S3E Reverse: connects corporate challenges with solutions developed by scaleups and SMEs thanks to our Brokerage Program, based on a successful open innovation methodology.
The S3E Program welcomes applications from the following countries:
- South European countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, and Spain.
- Associated countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo and Turkey.
Applications for the S3E Open Call #2 will officially open for the three tracks on 18 September 2023. We encourage those interested in applying to — you will receive a reminder on the day so you won’t miss out!
We look forward to creating long-lasting collaborations!
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IIO: the ideal VaaS solution for new applications and voice services deployment
IIO is one of the supported startups in the first S3E Charge Accelerator Programme.
IIO is a Voice-as-a-Service (VaaS) platform for Customer Experience Management, equipped with human voice and emotion recognition for B2B and B2B2C markets, ideal for different business needs of different departments, such as Marketing, Sales, HR and Customer Care.
IIO is based on the revolutionary combination of three key elements to offer an unprecedented Customer Experience, Engagement & Relationship Management experience:
- Adaptive Conversational Engine (ACE): At the heart of IIO is the proprietary ACE conversational platform, a patented technology that uses emotion recognition and generative AI to create natural and engaging speech interactions.
- Recognition of human emotions: The emotion recognition technology integrated in IIO allows the platform to perceive the customer's mood and adapt to her mood.
- Generative AI: IIO leverages advanced generative AI engines, such as OpenAI, Bard, and Jasper, to quickly learn and generate relevant responses in any language.
IIO emerges as an innovative solution in the customer relationship management landscape, distinguishing itself from traditional solutions and allowing companies to reduce operating costs, increase sales opportunities and optimize customer engagement strategies.
Learn more about IIO by watching the pitch done by their Founder and CEO, Pasquale Bombino, during the Charge Open Day on 6th July 2023.
https://youtu.be/IX6ogAmg-lQ
Would you like to get in touch with them? Let us know! Email us at info@south3e.eu
Looking forward to exploring synergies and creating a long-lasting collaboration.
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Grawindy: the Turkish wind-agrotech startup shaping the future of energy industry
Grawindy is one of the supported startups in the first S3E Charge Accelerator Programme.
Grawindy is a core wind technology designed on the principle of regulating the unpredictable and variable power values of moving parts (sails). What is particularly unique about Grawindy, is its ability to operate in low wind speeds (3 m/s) in any wind speed/direction. This is an important distinction from wind turbine technology as it means the unit does not need to be oriented towards ‘prevailing winds’ or ‘seek wind’ to function at optimum capacity. Further, flexibility of location is heightened by its ability to be assembled and disassembled easily.
Learn more about Grawindy by watching the pitch done by their CEO, Atilla Öztürk, during the Charge Open Day on 6th July 2023.
https://youtu.be/UgWRB3sICl4
Would you like to get in touch with them? Let us know! Email us at info@south3e.eu
Looking forward to exploring synergies and creating a long-lasting collaboration.
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Distinkt: smart security inks using nanotechnology
Distinkt is one of the supported startups in the first S3E Charge Accelerator Programme.
Distinkt has created a revolutionary smart, dynamic ink based on nanotechnology to prevent counterfeiting. The inks change their color or fluorescence when irradiated with Near Infrared light (NIR). The ink can be programmed to interact with the light source in a unique and personalised way. They're made of tiny particles (of a tuneable size from 200 nm to 10 µm) with different components (confidential recipe, patent protected) that react to the NIR light in a cascade effect generating a color or an emission change. Moreover, the inks can be easily customised and different parameters can be adapted.
With Distinkt inks, companies can create unique identifiers for banknotes, ID documents, Tax Stamps and luxury goods. Their QR Codes, Bar Codes or Sequence Numbers cannot be detected or read by third parties. Distinkt can pair its physical uniqueness with a blockchain supported software which is specifically designed to detect and read our inks. By working in both the physical and virtual world, they provide customers with best in class end-to-end authentication solutions.
Learn more about Distinkt by watching the pitch done by their Founder and CEO, Luca Venza, during the Charge Open Day on 6th July 2023.
https://youtu.be/erItiR0f-BE
Would you like to get in touch with them? Let us know! Email us at info@south3e.eu
Looking forward to exploring synergies and creating a long-lasting collaboration.
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Digital Bites: the startup that conducts product and consumer research with Virtual Reality
Digital Bites is one of the supported startups in the first S3E Charge Accelerator Programme.
Digital Bites is a B2B platform that allows the developers of physical products to test their concepts on their target audience before having to build them. This is possible with the use of our Virtual Reality based consumer experiments that can test, capture, and analise the conscious and unconscious behaviour of a product’s real target audience in a fast and accurate way.
Consumer insights experts, marketing departments or NPD teams can validate new product concepts easily and rapidly, measure the attraction of designs or predict the performance of their product against its competition.
Through the Digital Bites platform, any physical product, building facility or experience can be tested or validated for different aspects (e.g. attraction, usability, feedback, etc) very easily. The major competitive advantage over their competitors is that product and consumer experiments conducted with the Digital Bites platform require no trade-offs; they are fast to conduct, extremely accurate in their results and require less resources to design and execute. This is achieved by:
1) Enabling the testing of product prototypes that have not yet been developed physically,
2) Gathering more data from a 90% smaller than normal consumer sample, and using AI models to create “virtual consumers”,
3) Having a controlled “closed-system” experiment in which zero-party data are collected extremely accurately.
Learn more about Digital Bites by watching the pitch done by their Co-founder and CTO, Loukas Kakalis, during the Charge Open Day on 6th July 2023.
https://youtu.be/H-IQqk3Oe4w
Would you like to get in touch with them? Let us know! Email us at info@south3e.eu
Looking forward to exploring synergies and creating a long-lasting collaboration.
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Bluana Foods: the Romanian startup that has developed a chef-made plant-based sashimi
Bluana Foods is one of the supported startups in the first S3E Charge Accelerator Programme.
Bluana is a pioneering startup that is revolutionising the plant-based food industry by offering a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional fish-based seafood products. Their unique and proprietary technology allows them to develop a new type of fish substitute that addresses several pressing challenges in the seafood industry.
Firstly, Bluana tackles the significant environmental impact of the fishing industry, including overfishing and the destruction of ecosystems. By utilising their innovative approach, they can reduce the reliance on wild-caught fish and help preserve marine biodiversity.
Secondly, it address the negative consequences of intensive fish farming, such as the overuse of antibiotics, antibiotics resistance, and the use of processed feedstock. Bluana's plant-based seafood substitute offers a healthier and more sustainable alternative, free from these concerns.
Moreover, its solution significantly reduces GHG emissions associated with global seafood transportation and cold chain management. By enabling local production with minimal setup costs, Bluana products contribute to a more efficient and eco-friendly supply chain.
In addition to these environmental benefits, Bluana offers an exceptional customer experience. Their plant-based seafood substitute, initially focusing on salmon, provides a shelf-stable product that can be stored at room temperature. This eliminates the need for extensive cold chain logistics and reduces food waste due to the short shelf life of fresh seafood.
Bluana's commitment to quality extends to taste and nutritional value. Their product has been rigorously tested through blind tastings, confirming its superior taste compared to other plant-based seafood substitutes and achieving the same or even better taste compared to fish meat.
From a business perspective, Bluana offers a substantial advantage to value chain stakeholders. With higher margins compared to both traditional seafood and existing seafood substitutes, Bluana presents an attractive opportunity for retailers, distributors, and foodservice providers.
Overall, Bluana is poised to disrupt the seafood market by providing a sustainable, high-quality, and delicious plant-based alternative that addresses environmental and social concerns, meets customer expectations, and offers attractive business opportunities.
Learn more about Bluana Foods by watching the pitch done by their CEO, Florin Irimescu, during the Charge Open Day on 6th July 2023.
https://youtu.be/zLNENEv2l-k
Would you like to get in touch with them? Let us know! Email us at info@south3e.eu
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ARCAN: the Italian startup that helps you decide when and how much to invest in software quality thanks to AI
Arcan is one of the supported startups in the first S3E Charge Accelerator Programme.
Estimating software development costs is difficult because there are so many factors to consider. One crucial factor that is always overlooked is technical debt, which indicates the quick and dirty solutions put together by (usually) software developers when they are in a hurry. Technical debt impacts software quality, such as reliability, security, and also sustainability, since poor quality software wastes more energy than good quality one. All around the world, technical debt costs 500 billion dollars.
Software companies still struggle to tackle the problem because they cannot project the benefit they can get in "repaying" the debt (fixing the software). Thus, they tend to avoid acting until it's too late and experience project delays, enormous maintenance costs, and frustration. Arcan wants to give companies the necessary forecasting data to push investment in improving their software sustainability and let them save thousands of dollars in software development. Specifically, Arcan is a SaaS B2B platform that can be deployed on-premise and in the cloud.
Arcan scans the source code of a software application, automatically detects technical debt and finally projects the costs of future maintenance. Software houses can use Arcan continuously to save development time and money; non-software companies can use Arcan to assess the sustainability and maintenance costs of software assets, for instance during M&A processes.
Learn more about Arcan by watching the Pitch done by their Founder and CEO, Ilaria Pigazzini, during the Charge Open Day on 6th July 2023.
https://youtu.be/tGtYbm7dCuA
Would you like to get in touch with them? Let us know! Email us at info@south3e.eu
Looking forward to exploring synergies and creating a long-lasting collaboration.
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