Created in 2015 to address the fragmented SME investment market in Europe and support SMEs in becoming investment-ready, the Invest Horizon programme has made a significant contribution to the European SME industry in the past 2 years - as of May 2017, a total of thirty-three companies participating in the programme have raised 120 million Euros!

To provide tailored support to SMEs in Europe, Invest Horizon has created strategic partnerships with many high profile organisations and investors, among them EBN and EBN member bwcon GmbH, together with Europe Unlimited, EBAN,  European Crowdfunding Network, Eurochambres, F6S, IULG, Tilburg University and ASTP Proton.

Via online courses, face-to-face coaching and opportunities to pitch in front of the key European investors, many participating companies have secured investments, new clients, strategic partnerships and even prospects for internationalisation!

As the Invest Horizon programme is coming to an end on May 31, several companies participating have shared their success stories largely facilitated by the Invest Horizon programme’s tailored solutions to their needs.

Invest Horizon programme's sucess stories

 Agricolus is an Italian SME with a goal to provide a complete system for managing pesticides and growth treatments for agricultural crops, introducing precision farming and better management of agricultural crops. 

By participating in Invest Horizon’s pitching event "Invest Forum", Agricolus has gained new customers, improved validation of their solutions, established potential partnerships and distributors for their products, and the team was approached by an Italian investor following the pitching event. 

Andrea, Agricolus' team member, praised the pitching event:“The pitch was useful to validate our technological and business strategies and market approach. It has been a very important experience for Agricolus. We had good results after this experience and we had the chance to introduce ourselves to this valuable group of international investors.”

Aucobo is a system that cross-links various systems of production via a simple interface enabling software (e.g CRM), hardware (e.g smartphones), and even machines to be connected. It improves the productivity of machines and workers on the shop floor by connecting different systems in order to decrease media discontinuity and avoid unnecessary work. 

Thanks to Invest Horizon Programme's Coaching Academies, Aucobo has acquired new clients and their solution is now being used by a German automation company for their production processes. 

The team has grown from 2 to 5 and has been selected for the programme Young Innovators of the state of Baden-Württemberg.

 Knok offers on-demand in-person appointments at a patient’s home. No more waiting at the hospital because the doctor “Knoks" on your door. Knok provides top quality, personalised and affordable health care delivered by GPs, paediatricians and psychiatrists, not only improving the satisfaction of patients but also the quality of outcomes, whilst simultaneously enabling doctors to earn more money.

Knok attended the Academies and Investment Forum events and won the “Most Investable Company” award at the InvestHorizon Investment Forum, which helped the company raise £300k seed round lead by Mustard Seed Impact (a London based VC fund). 

Since attending the Investment forum events, the company has experienced rapid growth:

 "Our revenues trebled and we have two more people working with us. Additionally, we are offering our services in 3 more cities in Portugal, we’ve launched our Android app and we are preparing our lunch in Madrid, where we hope to launch during the second quarter of 2017, ” said José Bastos, Knok's CEO. 

Made and More is a Belgium based online store dedicated to sustainable fashion and transparency on garment production, offering alternatives to fast-fashion for conscious consumers. The online store helps conscious consumers understand who has produced their garment and how it has been produced. 

Stéphanie Fellen, the CEO of Made&More, participated in 2 coaching academies sessions organised by Investment Horizon: "The Art of Persuasion" and “The Pitch".

Since then, in 2016 she raised €225k to develop her market in Lille, Liège, Brussels and Antwerp.

  MVMANT is an urban transportation on demand solution based on vehicles circulating over fixed routes with service on demand. The dispatching of vehicles is managed by predictive algorithms and by requests generated through the dedicated app. 

This allows to allocate the vehicles when and were needed and match the mobility needs of citizens in the most efficient way. 

The MVMANT platform consists also of a city loyalty program and a targeted advertisement solution.

Since joining the Invest Horizon Coaching Academy and winning the Innovation Award, MVMANT closed a strategic partnership with Mercedes-Benz, was selected by the Dubai Future Accelerators program, and has raised €100,000 through business angels.

Preesale is a platform that multiplies sales channels by increasing tickets sales on Facebook, helping the sellers sell the tickets to targeted customers and easily track their sales.

Preesale participated in the Invest Horizon's Coaching Academies, and in 2016, the team was selected by the famous accelerator program Techstars Atlanta. 

Since the creation of the start-up in 2015, they have developed good customer traction and are now on track to break-even.

T Shared is a company committed to sustainability in fashion and achieving Zero Waste fashion. T Shared vision is to "inspire, educate, reduce overproduction, make unique high quality clothing on demand, cause no unnecessary harm to planet and people.”

With the help of the InvestHorizon Investment Readiness Coaching Seminar in April 2016,  Jeroen van der Heide, T Shared's CEO practiced his business pitch and found out about crowdfunding as a funding opportunity, which lead to creation of T Shared's crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

  XMetrics is  the first activity tracker designed by swimmer for swimmers which cutting-edge technology combines biomechanical sensors with advanced algorithms for exceptional precision. After the training an extremely detailed data-driven analysis allows swimmers to maximise their real potential!

Xmetrics participated in the Invest Horizon Academy and the Corporate Venture Forum. They won the final award and subsequently attracted the interest of several international stakeholders, including Breed Reply who invested a million Euros in the new company.

Here you can see other successful companies that benefited from Invest Horizon's programme. 

What’s next?

After the programme's closure, Invest Horizon will continue to support European SMEs by providing practical and timely support to the participants, forming a better understanding of the current landscape of investment in Europe.

Stay tuned via Invest Horizon website for all updates and information related to the programme.