Space3ac – development opportunity for Polish space projects
As much 2 million PLN have been earmarked for development and commercialization of concepts presented by participants of Space3ac, an accelerator programme run by Blue Dot Solutions and Black Pearls VC. Applications will be accepted only until 20 June!
The idea of the programme is to support projects from the lower segment of space industry (or the so-called downstream), which use data from satellite navigation and Earth observation.
Space3ac is open to startups, Galileo Masters and Copernicus Masters winners as well as academic teams, provided that they work on projects involving space technology (EO, GNSS, ICT Space, telecommunication). The important factors that are going to be taken into consideration when selecting the best projects will be the technological knowledge of the applicants, their market awareness, completeness of the team, the business potential, and above all – the relevance of the problem and general appeal of the solution which is supposed to address it.
“The accelerator’s mission is to contribute to the development of the Polish space market by coupling the industry and government-owned companies with startups. We want to support the export of Polish products and services related to space industry to Europe and beyond”, says Wojciech Drewczyński of Black Pearls VC, one of the founders behind Space3ac.
Success in three steps
Applications to join the accelerator can be submitted until 20 June through www.space3.ac. At stage one, we are going to select 10 teams, which will then be invited to an introductory camp organised by Starter, a Gdańsk-set startup incubator, between 27-29 June.
The core work on the projects will be taking place between 18 July and 28 August 2016. Five best teams from phase one will be learning all about conducting and managing space projects. We provide mentoring from exquisite Polish and foreign experts in technical and business fields. Accommodating the projects to the needs of concrete firms, or giving them a strong market context at the very early stages, is pivotal to this concept. Such structure of the programme is the result of the experience gained by our Black Pearls VC experts, in their everyday cooperation with startups. We know that success comes from commitment and hard work both on the side of the organisers and participants of an accelerator programme.
The final stage the first accelerator recruitment will take the form of a presentation delivered to an international group of investors during a Demo Day, which takes place on 8 September.
Contacts and contracts
The total pool for investment in space technology projects laid out by the Polish and other industry as well as government owned companies is 2 million PLN. On top of direct financial support, the teams may benefit from broad networking possibilities offered by Space3.ac in such space organizations as ESA, GSA, POLSA, Polish and foreign companies. The best team will be awarded 50 thousand PLN for further research and development work.