EBAN Partnership

When it comes to building a robust startup ecosystem, we know it’s all about deals.

And in our quest to promote the growth of startups and scaleups across the world, Mind the Bridge has been doing some deal making of its own. Today, we are thrilled to announce a partnership with EBAN (website), the pan-European representative for the early stage investor community, at the Mobile World Congress’ 4YFN event in Barcelona.

Our two organizations share the same vision and goals for promoting entrepreneurship in Europe, helping Europe’s startups to become scaleups. We both recognize the deficit of these scaleups across Europe – and in doing so seek to unify our efforts to support the continent’s next generation of could-be unicorns.

We believe EBAN is the perfect partner to collaborate with to grow the Startup Europe Partnership (SEP). While we have had tremendous success in establishing dialogue between Europe’s top scaleups and the continent’s leading corporations, we have yet to truly leverage the EU’s vast investor network on a large scale. And that’s where EBAN comes in.

EBAN is unparalleled in Europe in its ability to foster strategic relationships between EU investors, facilitating co-investing opportunities. It boasts the membership of 170 organisations across 59 countries, representing an increasingly integral component of the European (and beyond) startup ecosystem. It estimates Europe’s angel network invests approximately €7.5 billion euros a year in SMEs. Through its e-Xcelerator program EBAN aims to facilitate meetings between corporates and business angels and startups – a program designed to benefit both stakeholders, in a similar manner to SEP.

Specifically, Mind the Bridge and EBAN plan to collaborate closely on the following initiatives:

–       Integrating EBAN’s e-Xcelerator in the SEP platform

–       Facilitate the participation of existing e-Xcelerator corporate members into SEP’s matching programs and events

–       EBAN’s continued support in the SEP Investors Forum, with direct involvement in vetting startups

–       Education and training for EBAN companies through Mind the Bridge’s Startup School

–       Education and training for EBAN investors through Mind the Bridge’s Angel Investing Program

EBAN will also host a SEP matching event at its annual congress in Porto, Portugal, on May 26-27. It will be a great opportunity for EBAN’s existing community to get a closer look at the potential investment opportunities our matching events present for corporates, and for our own community to gain access to EBAN’s network. (You can also catch our Chairman Alberto Onetti, speaking at the conference)

We look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration with EBAN in our joint effort to support Europe’s future scaleups.