This September, thanks to EBN’s support, three EBN members have benefited from EBN internationalisation service. This time, the target country was the US. 

As EBN has already strategic partnerships in the US and is driving the establishment of ENRICH in the USA, the European Network of Research and Innovation Centres and Hubs in the USA, EBN members and their entrepreneurs and researchers have plenty of opportunities to explore US market and build a professional network in the United States.

EBN Member JIC (Czech Republic) has explored innovation and entrepreneurship scene in North Carolina and Texas (US) as a part of a 6-day study tour supported by EBN. During the same month, a researcher coming from EBN Member Coventry University (UK) learnt about commercialisation opportunities in the US, with a help of a new EBN Member, AccelHUB, an accelerator based in Cambridge, US.

JIC team was one of the members that seized this opportunity and got to meet representatives from local universities, high tech companies and regional government based in North Carolina and Texas. They learnt about the local ecosystem, establishing a foundation for the potential mutual projects together.

David Uhlír, JIC’s Chief strategy officer (CSO) and EBN’s Vice President, attended the study tour and greatly appreciated the help of EBN in connecting JIC to the relevant stakeholders and partners in the US, one of them being InBIA (US), EBN’s strategic partner for the past 15 years:

“The study tour was a great success – the programme was packed but highly inspirational, both for us at JIC, as well as for our partners in the local ecosystem.The connection to InBIA EBN helped us make was critical to the success – without it we would not have been able to organise our programme on the spot, certainly not being able to identify well who are the key people to talk to.”

Another EBN Member, Sebastien Farnaud, a researcher coming from Coventry University received mentoring services from Gregory Geehan, Board Member at AccelHub as part of Research Commercialisation (RC) Bootcamp (a programme developed under ENRICH in the USA umbrella), with other startups from Europe.

Sebastien has come up with an alternative to iron pills and other medical products commonly used to treat iron deficiency problems and wants to explore possibilities in the US market. Gregory helped Sebastien by changing the product’s message from describing exactly what the product does, to identifying massive gaps in current iron supplement treatments, how it impacts everyone and how this product solves the issue better than any other product on the market.

Sebastien was very pleased with the training and mentoring received from Gregory:

“The training was great – the programme was well-structured and I greatly benefited from Gregory’s insight into the US market and the understanding of the business. I am very excited to have the opportunity to attend Research Commercialisation (RC) Bootcamp as the next step and get  the chance to expand my professional network and learn more about the US market's needs.”

Gregory, his mentor, also benefited from this training as he had the opportunity to learn more about needs and internationalisation aspirations from the participants: “It was a pleasure to meet so many interesting startups from Europe. Having startups in different phases of growth, from different industries and all with solid ideas, opened a new window into a great programme connecting innovation between the US and Europe. Having focused mostly on the US, Latin America and Polish startups, I did not have as much exposure to what the needs would be for startups coming from different European economic and cultural backgrounds,” said Gregory Geehan (EBN Member AccelHub).

Interested in similar internationalisation opportunities? EBN has a strong network of partners around the world, while gaining an increasing visibility in Brazil, China, and the US under the umbrella of ENRICH.

EBN Members, check out our internationalisation projects and explore internationalisation and soft-landing opportunities for you and your entrepreneurs and researchers!

If you want to learn more about internationalisation and scaling-up, you should not miss the next EBN TechCamp in Noordwijk (NL) with a focus on internationalisation and best pracices!