“The project triggered huge interest when it was launched a few months back. Out of 30 eligible companies, 10 were selected. These have been coupled with some of the top industrial leaders and entrepreneurs our region has to offer. The result is a group that includes some very promising ideas, of which I, of course, cannot tell you anything more,” grins Magne Dåstøl, Project Manager for GCE NODE.
The companies and their entrepreneur mentors have already had their first of several one-to-one meetings to discuss how to scale up. Last week saw the first of three additional meetings in which all companies come together to learn about and discuss common issues. The main topic was Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). And as an assignment, the companies were asked to outline how to secure their IPR. The next meeting is scheduled for June, when the companies will meet larger corporate finance institutions in Oslo.
Norway has a good track record for establishing new businesses, but seldom succeed well in developing new global growth companies. This collaborative project from GCE NODE and Eyde Cluster, supported by Innovation Norway, aims to contribute to change this.
Inspiration for the business accelerator came from MIT’s Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP). Central in the project are MIT observations on which parts of the entrepreneurial ecosystem help promote new knowledge-based companies and create new jobs.
“We want to test and develop growth strategies inspired by MIT REAP, where focus has shifted from ‘number of startups’ to ‘businesses with growth potential’, so-called scale-ups, “says Gunnar Kulia, Project Manager at Eyde Cluster.
Scale-up companies in this project are:
- Trilobite
- Smart Inspection
- Effera
- Urdal Services
- Panterra
- GSG Offshore
- Castor Drilling Solution
- Red Rock
- Diinef
- Høst verdien i avfall
