Clear to Engage is out with a new call for startups, C2E@2015. This new edition is once more organized in collaboration with the MSc Course of Business Administration, University of Bologna, and with a new academic partner, the Demola Slovenia program of the University of Maribor.
As for previous C2E calls, objective of C2E@2015 is to support high potential startups in getting funded by investors, by leveraging feedback and business/technical advice by academic students and startup professionals.
Starting from the 2015 edition, C2E introduces a distinction between two stages of startups development, based primarily on customer development parameters: Players (aka “Blue Pill Startups“, early stage startups with lots of business assumptions still to verify) and Engagers (aka “Red Pill Startups“, validated startups that need to make things more profitable). C2E@2015 schedule of activities, is organized so that Players activities are conducted at the University of Bologna, immediately after the deadline, while Engagers activities are conducted at the University of Maribor, at the end of the year. Take a look at the boxes below. Click here to learn more about Players and Engagers.
Startups applications have to be sent by the following deadlines:
31st March 2015
To access all 3 acceleration actions: Project Work, Mentoring and Capstone Project
31st May 2015
To only access Mentoring and Capstone Project
C2E@2015 selectes 2 winners (in case both are already identified after the first deadline, more slots will be made available for the second one):
- 1 unvalidated, early stage startup, a Blue Pill Player, that gets accepted as a business case at a course of the MSc in Business Administration of the University of Bologna, Italy, getting consultancy by a team of 5-6 students on issues related to the development of its business
- 1 validated, advanced stage startup, a Red Pill Engager, that starts directly with the mentoring. The two startups move then in parallel and both will have the chance to enter a Capstone Project with Demola program of the University of Maribor, Slovenia, getting a technical outsourced development by a multi-skill team of students for a longer period of time than the Project Work
Here’s a breakdown of the activities for the two selected startups (also check the calendar below)
Given the international partnerships, C2E@2015 is open for submissions both from Italian and Slovenian startups. Please note that Italian “Convergence” Regions, i.e. Calabria, Campania, Puglia and Sicily, are not eligible for the first call, since they will be main target of a subsequent call in mid 2015.
Project Work – Bologna | Blue Pill Players
For C2E@2015, the Project Work at Unibo is dedicated to early stage, “Players” (blue pill) startups, that have to deal with validation of core business assumptions, conduct market research, customer surveys, MVP experiments, and so forth.
Capstone – Maribor | Red Pill Engagers
For C2E@2015, the Capstone Project is held at Maribor, with Demola Slovenia, and is dedicated to developed/validated, “Engagers” (red pill) startups, that have to deal with optimizing product-market fit, metrics, finding a repeatable sales process and so on.
The Slovenian Demola program is usually reserved to established companies. The 2015 autumn Demola session will feature a special “Clear to Engage track” with up to 2 slots for C2E@2015 startups. Here’s a few important facts about the Capstone Projects:
- Only Engagers can access the Capstone at Demola: if the Project Work and the mentoring will not be enough to bring your startup to Red Pill level, access to Demola will not be granted
- Startups that get accepted for a Capstone Project at Demola, still have to attract the students’ attention. Students have to choose autonomously which project to dedicate their effort to. This is completely up to them and outside either Clear to Engage’s and University of Maribor’s control
Below you see the schedule of activities at a glance. Note that there is plenty of time between the Project Work and the Capstone Project, in order to allow for enough company development and avoid the two issues above.
C2E@2015 Acceleration schedule
Project Work (University of Bologna): April-May 2015
Mentoring time span: June to October 2015
Capstone (University of Maribor): November 2015 to February 2016 approx.
No duplicated work!
Just use the documents you already have created about your startup.
Be sure to check the call details below. Good luck!