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:

  • Salary for the Champion, with salaries of other Team members covered on an ad-hoc basis. The salary of the Principal Investigator is not eligible.
  • Travel expenses for meetings with clients or investors.
  • Equipment and consumables for developing the MVP (up to 5% – 10% of the total grant).
  • Marketing expenses to design a logo and a website.
  • IP protection, applicable only if the Team has received or will receive the Innovation Coupon from the Research and Innovation Foundation (up to 10.000 of co-funding).

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

  • Dedicated Mentorship: Each team is assigned at least two experienced mentors.
  • A lead mentor holds monthly meetings to guide the team’s progress.
  • Expert Support: Alongside the lead mentor, a Technology Transfer Expert and specialized legal advisors will offer additional guidance as needed.
  • Customized Mentoring: Depending on specific challenges or areas of focus, we arrange ad-hoc sessions with additional mentors who bring relevant expertise to address these needs.
Our mentors offer their time and services on a pro-bono basis, as a give-back to society. 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. Our teams recognize our mentoring program as its most valuable asset.

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.

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A Unique Program

Public-Private Partnership

We are a public-private partnership, created solely to support research commercialization Our founding members are the A. G. Leventis Foundation, The Hellenic Initiative, and the Government of Cyprus. Our private donors are Eurobank Cyprus, PWC 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 exclusively research commercialization in public and private universities, centers of excellence, and research centers.

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 1 licensing agreement with a US Pharma Company.
  • Filing of 9 patents of which 3 have been granted.
  • 6 spinoffs in the areas of health, ART, energy, and climate/environment change.