13/07/2006

New materials and systems for renewable energy source products, hotspots which will make roaming possible, and chips for artificial vision were awarded the business plan prizes at the 7th Venture Capital Forum, held on 28-29 June, in Athens. The Forum is the largest international meeting of private investments in Southeast Europe and was organised by the Hellenic Centre for Investment (ELKE), the New Economy Development Fund (ΤΑΝΕΟ) and the HELP-FORWARD network in cooperation with the Hellenic Venture Capital Association (HVCA), sponsored by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

The "Best Business Plan Prize" competition was organised for the forum and included the participation of 79 business plans from Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Israel, Romania, The Czech Republic, Poland, the UK, the U.S.A. and other countries. The goal of the competition was to promote new and dynamic businesses and technology enterprises that have been established by researchers in Southeast Europe. The three best business plans were honoured with a monetary prize of 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000 euro respectively. Remarkably, all three prize-winning companies have their headquarters in Patras.

Specifically, the first prize was awarded to Advent Technologies S.A. for their business plan outlining the development of innovative materials and processes, which will be applied to products of renewable energy sources such as fuel cells and photovoltaic systems. The company’s main activity is the development of a prototype high-temperature fuel cell system, the PEMFC (Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell), based on their own technology. The spin-off business was created by researchers from the Institute of Chemical Engineering and High Temperature Chemical Processes (ICE-HT) of the Foundation for Research and Technology, in cooperation with Professors from the University of Patras, and is located in the Patras Science Park.

The second prize was awarded to SIENJE Technologies, a company working with Deutsche Telecom to manufacture 2,500 hotspots, which will allow roaming, just as is currently done with mobile phones.

Finally, Diaplous Machine Vision was awarded the third prize for its activities in the field of automated vision and, specifically, for their development of chips for machine vision.

More than 200 venture capital company and enterprise meetings were held during the Forum. Participants could promote their products and services and look into potential sources of private capital for the realisation of their business plans.

Source: 7th Venture Capital Forum