Our

Program

An 18-month program offering grants, mentoring, training and networking opportunities with international investors

We Offer

Grants

We offer funding in the form of grants, ranging between €10.000 – €30.000. The grant is awarded to scientific teams, selected to participate in our 18-month Program.

Eligible expenses include:

  • Salaries of graduate students, post-doc, or researchers. Faculty salaries are not eligible.
  • Travelling expenses for meetings with clients or investors.
  • This applies only if the team has received or will receive the Innovation Coupon from the Research and Innovation Foundation. For such cases, Cyprus Seeds will match the €10,000 provided by RIF.

Funding and non-financial support (mentoring, training, and networking with investors) can be awarded to the same project for a second cycle, subject to the submission of a new application.

Mentoring Program

Each team will be assigned at least two international experts with hands-on experience on commercializing academic research and establishing successful startups.

We extend our gratitude to our incredible mentors for their ongoing commitment and generosity in offering their pro bono services to Cyprus Seeds. Without them, we would not have such a successful program.

Training

Our program offers a series of mandatory workshops to team members delivered by a pool of experts. These workshops cover:

  • Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer
  • Market Discovery
  • Pitching to Investors

Networking

We network and connect our teams with business angels and investors as well as incubators/accelerators in the EU and the US.

We provide and facilitate networking opportunities to teams, evaluated as “ready” to pitch in front of investors, through a series of special events organised by Cyprus Seeds or its strategic partners outside Cyprus.

Demo Day

We organise a Demo Day at the end of each funding cycle.

Our grantees are given the opportunity to present their work, and pitch for private funding sought from business angels and venture capital funds.

Connecting with the egg enter grow go

Egg has been running since 2013 with the support of Eurobank Greece and Corallia of the Athena Research and Innovation Centre. Egg offers to startups and scientific teams opportunities for financing, mentoring, networking, and international exposure through their start-up and scale-up platforms.

Through our collaboration with the egg enter grow go, our teams can join the egg acceleration program. To date, four Cyprus Seeds teams completed the egg’s 12-month startup program after completing our 18-month program.

carousel_2
carousel 9
carousel_7
carousel_18
carousel 10(1)
carousel_23
carousel25
carousel_17
carousel_eng4
carousel_1

A Unique Program

Public-Private Partnership

We are a public-private partnership, created solely to expand innovation. Our founding members are the A. G. Leventis Foundation, The Hellenic Initiative, and the Government of Cyprus. Our private donors are Eurobank Cyprus, EY Cyprus and Mohari Hospitality.

Supported by Diaspora

We are the only initiative in Cyprus, supported and funded by prominent Greeks and Cypriots of the Diaspora. Our diaspora advisors and donors offer a multiplicity of benefits to Cyprus Seeds and its grantees.

Focus on academic entrepreneurship

We are the only initiative in Cyprus focusing on supporting innovation in both public and private universities, centers of excellence, and research centers-helping them bring their research from their labs to the international market.

Equity-free

We offer without asking for any equity in our spinoffs.

International partners

Our strategic partners are catalysts for innovation and change. We are able to tap on their experience and network. These include:

Success stories

Since our inception in 2018, we achieved:

  • The conclusion of 2 option-to-be-licensing agreements
  • Filing of 9 patents of which 3 have been granted
  • 6 spinouts