EDI 3rd Open Call for Startups

Deadline: Jun 17, 2020  
CALL EXPIRED

1. Introduction

This document provides a full set of information regarding the third open call for proposals for the European Data Incubator (EDI - https://edincubator.eu/). In addition to these guidelines, the applicants are invited to get acquainted with the Sub-Grant Agreement template. The Sub-Grant Agreement template is available here.

1.1 Background information on Big Data Value PPP (BDV-PPP)

EDI is an Innovation Action project co-funded by the European Union. The project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 779790.

Furthermore, EDI is part of the Big Data Value PPP [1] within a group of projects known as the Big Data Value PPP projects [2].

The Big Data Value PPP signature on 13th October 2014 was the first step towards building a thriving data community in the EU. This signature marks the commitment by the European Commission, industry and academia partners to build a data-driven economy across Europe, mastering the generation of value from Big Data and creating a significant competitive advantage for European industry, boosting economic growth and jobs.

The Big Data Value PPP commenced in 2015, starting with first projects in 2016 and it will run until 2020. Covering the multidimensional character of Big Data, the PPP activities will address technology and applications development, business model discovery, ecosystem validation, skills profiling, regulatory and IPR environment and social aspects.

The Big Data Value PPP will lead to a comprehensive innovation ecosystem for achieving and sustaining European leadership on Big Data, and for delivering maximum economic and societal benefit to Europe – its business and its citizens.

1.2 EDI General Requirements and Tracks

The objective of the EDI programme is to facilitate the uptake of Big Data tools by the start-ups whilst increasing the technical and business skills of the selected start-ups/SMEs. The final aim is to foster sustainable business incubation around Big Data.

Any project selected by EDI must be executed by a start-up or an SME and it is obliged to make use of a set of data assets for experimentation as defined in any of the tracks of this Open Call for proposals.

EDI wants to encourage the participation of companies who having an expertise in a given industrial sector/domain, still have low/medium acquaintance with AI & Big Data tools. Companies will be able to take advantage of EDI’s training and support in this area to add Big Data and AI capabilities to their services’ portfolio. Indeed, EDI incubator has room for both highly skilled companies in the AI & Big Data domain and those that have an ample knowledge on a given industrial sector but need to still mature their skills in AI & Big Data domain.

The open call will be divided in three tracks. Applicants will select one of them:

• ▪  READY-MADE (Track 1 - Domain specific): challenges have been defined by the EDI data providers according to the needs detected. These challenges and associated datasets are defined in the Challenge Catalogue [5]. Applicants will select the challenge to be solved from the EDI Catalogue at application stage.

• ▪  HALF AND HALF (Track 2 - Data combination): there is not a predefined challenge to be sorted out. This track is devoted to the discovery of new opportunities proposed by the applicants, where the use of at least two different datasets is compulsory. At least one dataset must be from EDI Data Catalogue.

• o Data set 1: One dataset provided by EDI data catalogue [3] (http://data.edincubator.eu).
• o Dataset2:Anotherdatasetordatasets,whichcanbeexternaltoEDIdatasource/s,aslongasthe applicant has access and processing rights to the data in compliance with data protection regulations, and has legal permission to include them in a commercial solution.

The applicant must select Data set 1 from EDI data catalogue and will describe the Data set 2 and the proposed solution in the Application Form. Importantly, the applicant could also choose two or more datasets from EDI data catalogue and devise a data-driven solution around them.

The use of datasets from different sectors or fields is encouraged.
Some already half-and-half challenges are proposed by EDI as inspiration and are available at

https://edincubator.eu/half-and-half-challenges/.

▪ FREE CHOICE (Track 3 - Bring your own data provider): teams will be allowed to bring their own data provider with a specific challenge to be solved and specific datasets to be used for that purpose. The challenge and the datasets will be described within the submission stage.
The data provider will have to comply with the country eligibility rules (section 3.3) and follow the same rules of current EDI data providers. To sum up:

o to register in the Data Providers application call form, a sindicated in the Application Form to be filled in by the Applicant (see 1.4)

o to sign a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the University of Deusto at the time of the application and before 28 June 2020. The MoU model is available here.

o tosigntheSub-GrantAgreementincaseofselectionoftheApplicant,beforethebeginningofthe incubation in September 2020

o Provide access to the data and assistance to the Sub-grantee if selected
o Participate in the meetings with the Sub-grantee organised by the project and in the evaluations

in the corresponding pitches and events, if selected.

1.3 EDI Approach

EDI has been conceived as a 3-phase incubation/acceleration programme: EXPLORE > EXPERIMENT > EVOLVE, in which the selected start-ups/SMEs will be offered a set of technical and business services to develop an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and reach commercial and/or investment agreements with data providers, corporates and/or private investors.

The figure below shows the overall scheme of the incubation process:

FIGURE 1. OVERALL SCHEME OF THE INCUBATION PROCESS

(PICTURE NOT AVAILABLE)

 

EDI uses a funnel approach for project selection across three stages. Notice that funding is results-driven, depending on specific metrics of success (KPIs and commercial deliverables) described for each incubation phase/stage:

• ▪  Explore: up to 35 projects will enter this phase (maximum 20% of these projects will belong to the 3rd Track “bring your own data provider). This phase will help the start-ups to clearly specify their concept of experiment with the data providers. Initial trainings on Big Data technologies and on the data available will be organised. At the end of the phase, a Datathon event will be organised to show the first mock-ups of the applications. During the Datathon and together with a technical analysis, start- ups/SMEs participating at Explore phase will engage in a final “demolition pitch” contest, which will select the top projects that will access the following phase (up to 18 projects).

• ▪  Experiment: the objective, for the proper experimentation phase, is to develop an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to be introduced into the market. To that aim, the up to 18 start-ups/SMEs that are invited to this phase will have access to dedicated coaches and mentors, a technical infrastructure with a set of tools ready to be used, a different set of training modules on Big Data and personalized business development support. At the end of this phase, the start-ups/SMEs will participate in a pitch contest, after which the projects with a major market potential will be invited to enter the last phase of the incubation.

• ▪ Evolve: up to 8 start-ups/SMEs with a solid MVP and market potential will access the last step. This phase is dedicated to building solid partnerships and detecting real investment opportunities for the top companies in the call. The projects will be encouraged to gain enough traction for next investment phase in terms of sales, prospects, users, markets and customers. Participants will pitch their developed solution and business model in front of data providers, selected investors and the press in a Final demo day.

Each project funded will receive up to €100k depending on the stage reached in the incubation process under a lump sum scheme, based on the approval of different milestones or KPIs and along the funnel approach.

A graph summarizing the process is shown below:

FIGURE 2. OVERALL FUNNEL APPROACH FOLLOWED DURING THE SECOND CALL INCUBATION PROCESS.

(PICTURE NOT AVAILABLE)

 

1.4 Data Offering

The data offered by project Data Providers is available at EDI Data Catalogue [3] for those participants applying to “Track 1 - domain specific” or “Track 2 - data combination”.

Applicants of “Track 3 - bring your own data provider” will be requested to complete a specific form at application stage to evaluate the appropriateness of the data provider, the challenge and the dataset proposed according to the evaluation process defined in Section 6.

 

 

1.5 Data Challenges

EDI data challenges are defined in the Challenge catalogue [5] for those participants applying to “Track 1 - domain specific”.

Applicants of “Track 2 - data combination” and “Track 3 - bring your own data provider” will be requested to complete specific information to evaluate the appropriateness of the challenge proposed.

 

2. CALENDAR

2.1 Proposals

• ▪  Call opening on F6S platform [8] on 17/03/2020

• ▪  Deadline for submission via FS6 Platform 17/06/2020, 12:00 (noon) CEST

• ▪  Evaluation from 17/06/2020 to 22/07/2020

• ▪  Communication of results to applicants from 22/07/2020 to 31/07/2020

• ▪  Preparation and Signature of Sub-Grant Agreements (by sub-grantees, University of Deusto, and Data Providers if applicable) from 31/07/2020 to 07/09/2020

2.2 Phase 1 – Explore

• ▪  Execution from 08/09/2020 to 22/10/2020

• ▪  Evaluation to access Experiment: a Datathon will be organised to evaluate the first mock-ups of the

  applications. During the Datathon and together with a technical analysis, start-ups/SMEs participating at Explore phase will engage in a final “demolition pitch” contest which will be the basis for the evaluation

• ▪  Notification of selected applicants 21 & 22/10/2020 (tentative date)

• ▪  Communication of results to applicants will be done from 26/10/2020 to 30/10/2020 2.3 Phase 2 – Experiment

• ▪  Execution from 02/11/2020 to 28/02/2021

• ▪  Evaluation to access Evolve from 15/02/2021 to 19/02/2021

• ▪  Notification of selected applicants 19/02/2021 (tentative date)

• ▪  Communication of results from 22/02/2021 to 26/02/2021 2.4 Phase 3 – Evolve

• ▪  Execution from 03/03/2021 to 30/04/2021

• ▪  Final evaluation event Evolve stage from 26/04/2021 to 30/04/2021

  Dates are an initial estimation and might slightly change if agreed by EDI consortium for the benefit of the sub-grantees.

 

3. Beneficiaries

3.1 Types of Beneficiaries

The accepted applicants for EDI open calls are start-ups in the form of SMEs or group of individuals (that is, a start-up may be legally incorporated or not):

• ▪  SME: Individual projects (1 SME) of an SME/start-up legally established in an eligible country according to section 3.3.

• ▪  Group of individuals: When there is not a constituted SME, the applicants could be a group between 2 to 4 individuals legally established in an eligible country according to section 3.3 and with a written commitment to have set up a legally registered SME if reaching “Experiment” phase.

3.2 Definition of SME

A SME will be considered as such if accomplishing with the Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC [6] and the SME user guide [7]. As a summary, the criteria which define a SME are:

• ▪  Headcount in Annual Work Unit (AWU) less than 250.

• ▪  Annual turnover less or equal to €50 million or annual balance sheet total, less or equal to €43 million.

3.3 Eligible Countries

Only applicants legally established, and working, in the case of the individuals, in any of the following countries will be eligible:

• ▪  The Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU), including their outermost regions;

• ▪  The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States1;

• ▪  H2020 Associated countries: according to the updated list published by the EC at

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/3cpart/h2020-hi-list-ac_en.pdf

• ▪  The UK applicants are eligible under the conditions set by the EC for H2020 participation at the time of the deadline of the call.

EDI 3rd Open Call - Guidelines for Applicants

1 Entities from Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) are eligible for funding under the same conditions as entities from the Member States to which the OCT in question is linked.

 

 

4. GENERAL INFORMATION

4.1 Means of Submission

The F6S platform will be the entry point for all proposals in Proposal Phase [8] (accessible at https://www.f6s.com/edincubator) Submissions received by any other channel will be automatically discarded.

Documents required in subsequent phases will be submitted via dedicated channel, which will be indicated by EDI consortium during the sub-granted projects execution.

4.2 Language

English is the official language for EDI open calls. Submissions done in any other language will not be evaluated. English is also the only official language during the whole execution of the incubation process. This means any requested submission of deliverables will be done in English in order to be eligible.

4.3 Documentation Formats

Any document requested in any of the phases must be submitted electronically in PDF format without restrictions for printing.

4.4 Origin of the Funds

Any selected applicant will sign a dedicated Sub-Grant Agreement with the EDI project coordinator (on behalf of EDI Consortium) and the corresponding Data Provider. The funds attached to the Sub-Grant Agreement come directly from the funds of the European Project EDI, and the EDI consortium is managing the funds according to the Grant Agreement Number 779790 signed with the European Commission.

As can be seen in the Sub-Grant Agreement template [9], this relation between the sub-grantees and the European Commission through EDI project carries a set of obligations to the sub-grantees with the European Commission. It is the task of the sub-grantees to accomplish them, and of the EDI consortium partners to inform about them.

4.5 Use of the financial contribution and recovery

Each team (beneficiary) commits to a proper use of the funding received, for the purposes of carrying out the project in compliance with the KPIs.

While no reporting will be requested within the incubation, teams must ensure that funds are properly spent. See section 4.4. of the Sub-Grant Agreement for further details.

 

 

4.6 EDI and the H2020-Data Pitch Incubator

SMEs or teams that have previously been beneficiaries in Data Pitch are allowed to apply to EDI 3rd open call. However, double funding for the same proposal is not acceptable.

The basic information about a proposal (summary and participants) will be shared with the H2020-ICT DATA PITCH incubator project to check compatibility. It is possible to submit a proposal to EDI if you have taken part in Data Pitch previously, as long as the data challenge solved is different.

4.7 Number of Proposals per Applicant

Only one proposal will be accepted for funding per SME or team of individuals.

Given the fact this call is a competitive one, and the teams will focus in a specific challenge or project, only one proposal per SME or team will be evaluated. In the case of a multiple submission by a SME or team, only the last one received (timestamp of the system) will enter into our evaluation process, the rest being declared as non-eligible.

If the last submitted proposal is declared, then non-eligible or fails to reach the thresholds of the evaluation, the other proposals submitted earlier will not be considered for evaluation in any case.

In the case of individuals:

• ▪  The same individuals forming a team will be selected for funding only once, as in the case of an SME.

• ▪  Only the last submitted proposal by the same individuals forming a team will be evaluated, as in the case of an SME.

• ▪  If an individual is taking part in several teams:

  • o The members of the other teams will be informed about the participation of an individual in multiple teams.

  • o The individuals participating in multiple teams will be requested to select only one proposal and will be removed from the others. This may affect the eligibility condition of the proposal, if the number of individuals goes under 2.

4.8 Funding Principle

The incubator will be based on a 3-phase process EXPLORE > EXPERIMENT > EVOLVE. Each phase comprises a set of activities that qualify for financial support. All the funds disbursed will be based on concrete results and KPIs assessment. No costs reporting will be requested by EDI consortium.

• ▪  Open call: This is the submission of proposals. No funding attached.

• ▪  Explore: €5,000 attached to the successful participation in the respective call Datathon in Berlin,

  elaboration of a mock-up of the future solution making use of the data catalogue provided by the

  consortium and presentation of the overall solution in the pitch contest.

• ▪  Experiment: up to €80,000 subject to the degree of accomplishment of the KPIs defined among each

  SME and its coach at the beginning of this phase using a set of common objective criteria, i.e. those that ensure equal opportunities for funding to all participants. The selected participants are also required to attend 2 internal events organized by the consortium in this phase in Bilbao, and to

develop an MVP.
▪ Evolve: up to €15,000 attached to the accomplishment of the KPIs defined between each SME and its

coach at the beginning of this phase using a set of common objective criteria, i.e. those that ensure equal opportunities for funding to all participants. The selected participants are required to attend the final event organised by the consortium in Berlin.

Therefore, a participant could receive as maximum €100,000 for a project.

 

5. SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

The submission will be done through the F6S platform [8] which is directly linked from EDI website [4]. This means the proposers are required to register a profile at FS6 to be able to submit a proposal.

The documents that will be submitted are:

1. Proposal form: an online form divided in different sections: (1) EDI Challenge, (2) Technical approach, (3) Business, (4) Team and (5) Administrative information.

   For those applicants to Track 3 “bring your own data provider”, an additional online form to describe the challenge, the datasets, and legal aspects will be also required.

   The project proposals have to strictly adhere to the forms provided by EDI consortium via F6S platform, which defines sections and the overall length. Participants are requested to carefully read and follow the instructions in the form. Evaluators will be instructed not to consider extra material in the evaluation.

2. Declaration of Honour: a tick box clicked by the SME or the individuals confirming they have read the conditions and agree with the conditions defined in this document.

   If the applicant discovers an error in the proposal, and provided the call deadline has not passed, the applicant may submit a new version (for this purpose, the applicant must request it to F6S team through opencall@edincubator.eu). Only the last version received before the call deadline will be considered in the evaluation.

   It is strongly recommended not to wait until the last minute to submit the proposal. Failure of the proposal to arrive in time for any reason, including communications delays, automatically leads to rejection of the submission. The time of receipt of the message as recorded by the submission system will be definitive.

   EDI offers a dedicated support channel available for proposers at opencall@edincubator.eu Requests or inquiries about the submission system or the call itself, received AFTER the closure time of the call will neither be considered nor answered.

 

 

6. Evaluation Process

6.1 Proposal Stage

6.1.1 Proposal Reception

Submissions will be done ONLY through F6S platform in the space enabled for EDI project [8]. A full list of applicants will be drafted containing their basic information for statistical purposes and clarity (which will be also shared with EC for transparency).

The application reception will close at 12:00 (noon) CEST on 17th June 2020. There will not be deadline extensions unless a major problem, caused by EDI and not by the applicants, makes the system unavailable.

6.1.2 Eligibility

An automatic filtering to discard non-eligible proposals will follow the shortlist below. Eligibility criteria check will verify:

1. the existence of a legal SME/start-up in an eligible country, or, in the case of a group of individuals, their legal residence in an eligible country,

2. the uniqueness of the proposal,

3. the non-existence of the same proposal selected by Data Pitch,

4. the verification of not having participated in any of the previous editions of the EDI programme,

5. the use of data proposed by EDI (except for Track 3),

6. the usage of Big Data tools to tackle a challenge,

7. the correct fulfilment of the submission form on F6S,

8. the link to any of the domain challenges or the data combination challenge (except for Track 3) and

9. the issues of multiple participation described in section 4.6.

For those proposals applying to Track 3 “bring your own data provider”, a prior evaluation to evaluate the eligibility of the data provider will be carried out. For this, your data provider will need to fill in a specific questionnaire as explained in the F6S Application Form. Eligibility criteria will verify:

1. Challenge description

2. Sample datasets description

3. Datasets compliance with GDPR

4. Anonymisation of the personal data

5. Inferring personal data

6. Informed consent

7. Ownership of data

8. Right of use

9. GDPR awareness

10. Infrastructure used to store the datasets at Data Provider premises.

 

Proposals marked as non-eligible will get a rejection letter including the reasons (a to s) for being declared as non-eligible. No further feedback on the process will be given.

6.1.3 Automatic Sorting

On a second step, the evaluation process will automatically sort the proposals according to a set of indicators monitoring their previous traction and data about the proposal. The proposals will be categorised in two groups for this purpose:

1. Early stage: SMEs with 3 or less financial years closed or groups of individuals.

2. Established teams: SMEs with more than 3 financial years closed.

The concrete criteria for this automatic sorting will be made public AFTER the three calls for proposals are closed. These criteria will not be public before the calls to avoid proposers sending fit-for-the-call submissions.

Proposals not passing the automatic sorting will be sent a rejection letter indicating that the proposal does not reach the internal traction indicators needed for accessing the incubator. No further feedback on the process will be given.

6.1.4 Remote Evaluation

After the automatic sorting, one shortlist will be populated. The evaluation is then split in two paths:

• ▪  Track 1 -Domain specific: the data providers of each challenge, an external expert on Big Data and a market expert will evaluate each of the applications based on four criteria (1) challenge fit, (2) technical approach, (3) business potential and (4) team composition.

• ▪  Track 2-Data combination and Track 3-Bring your own data provider: an internal member of the project, an external Big Data expert and a business expert will review each proposal, scoring them based on the (1) technical approach, (2) business potential and (3) team composition.

Evaluators

Every proposal will be assessed by at least 3 people with different profiles (technical, business). External evaluators will be part of the evaluations and, in any case, will have to sign a declaration that they have no conflict of interest. In the case of the domain specific challenges, feedback will be also gathered from the corresponding data providers.

Scoring

Reviewers will evaluate the proposals considering the above-mentioned 3 or 4 criteria. Each criterion (except for the challenge fit criterion of the domain-specific challenge which is a yes/no flag) will have a score from 0 to 5. Decimal scores may be given. For each criterion under examination, score values will indicate the following assessments:

• ▪  0 Fail. The proposal fails to address the criterion under examination or cannot be judged due to missing or incomplete information

• ▪  1 Very poor. The criterion is addressed in an unsatisfactory manner.

• ▪  2 Poor. There are serious inherent weaknesses.

• ▪  3 Fair. While the proposal broadly addresses the criterion, there are significant weaknesses that would need correcting.

• ▪  4 Good. The proposal addresses the criterion well, although certain improvements are possible.

• ▪  5 Excellent. The proposal successfully addresses all relevant aspects of the criterion in question. Any shortcomings are minor.

 

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