Clean Cities ClimAcceleratoris a demand-led Accelerator Programme focused on climate impact in urban areas by cleantech commercialisation. The accelerator is run by Impact Hub Vienna and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The cities and partners involved, as problem owners, bring in their respectives portfolios. Startups will receive up to €24k of financial support, business coaching and mentoring, access to demand owners, investor matchmaking, events and training. The program aims to help you to scale your clean-tech business, accelerating you to enter the European market successfully and lever investment.
The accelerator is run by Impact Hub Vienna and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in partnership with EIT Climate KIC. Both institutions are specialized in high added value services for entrepreneurs and are well connected with the municipalities of their respective cities. The cities and other partners involved, as problem owners, bring in their respectives portfolios.
NO equity is taken in stage 1 of the program. If you are eligible to apply and succeed in convincing us that you have the best technology solution to tackle a climate problem, you can access this financial support as well as all other benefits on offer. Stage 1: € 4k.
The grant money of Stage 2 is up to € 20k and will be attached to the Climate-SAFE investment agreement. For more information, please go to the Climate-SAFE investment section.
The programme consists of three fixed term phases, after which you leave the programme and become alumni. If you apply for and are successful in completing each stage, we will have supported you for a period of about 9 months.
We understand that startups move at different paces and that some products take longer to build than others. Nevertheless we have a rough idea what the focus would be per stage. You are more than welcome to move faster. In these stages, different objectives and type of support are given:
Stage 1 – EXPLORE
This stage focuses on diagnostic, training and networking. This stage will be two months long with a funding grant of up to EUR 5.000. You will have the opportunity to participate at the Smart City Summit (May 30-31), Impact Days ‘22 (CEs leading conference on impact investment - June 2-3), ViennaUP ’22 and the South Summit (June 8-10) in Madrid. At these events you will have the opportunity to get connected with other ventures, city representatives and investors. Please keep in mind to block these dates when applying for this stage!
Stage 2 – VALIDATE & COLLABORATE
This second stage focuses on the collaboration between startups with matching potential partners(challenge owners) in order to validate their solution-problem fit. . The aim is to develop a proof of concept work plan by focusing on solving a real problem presented by one of the challenge owners. Ideally this collaboration will continue beyond Stage 2 and this Program. This stage will be about five months long with a funding grant of up to EUR 20.000.​
Stage 3 – SCALE
In the third and final stage the selected start-ups will be supported individually in their approach to get in touch with investors and new markets. Therefore we will give access to our network of investors and municipalities as well as to the EIT Climate-KIC Investment Program and Investor Marketplace. The start-ups will get the opportunity to pitch and discuss their business cases with key stakeholders within our network.