Over 35 Industry 4.0 Projects Underway

On January 25, we officially started the 5th edition of our award-winning Open Innovation and Acceleration Program with our first ever Virtual Kick-Off Meeting. Representatives from each of the 31 Participating Startups joined us online to officially begin the 2021 edition of BIND 4.0. These Innovative Startups will work on 40 exciting Industry 4.0 Pilot Projects in collaboration with our BIND 4.0 Corporate Partners throughout the next 5 months. 

 

The Virtual Kick-Off

This year BIND 4.0 hosted a Virtual Meet and Greet, where the 5th edition Startups were able to introduce themselves, their Industry 4.0 solutions and meet their fellow participants. We also discussed the expectations for the Startups participating plus a detailed introduction of the program activities planned in the coming months and how to make the most of the events and support offered. 

 

Virtual Event Overview 

Mentor Miguel Angel de la Fuente highlighted the incomparable BIND 4.0 Mentoring support wherein each startup has a main mentor to provide vision and peer support. In addition, there are focused mentoring sessions when startups would like expertise in a particular field (such as financing, fundraising, legal or technical insight) and for more operational support there are the startup tutors who are technicians from the local Business Incubator Centres (BIC). Two startup alumni, AddiFab and LINQcase shared their insider’s perspective of working with mentors, making the most of the networking activities and the BIND 4.0 support team in addition to the collaboration with the Corporate Partners. As usual, the kick-off event was closed with a networking activity to get the ball rolling and make connections within the BIND 4.0 Community and the Basque Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. 

 

What’s Trending in 2021

The latest technologies are already in progress and being applied through our program to the Advanced Manufacturing, Health, Food and Energy sectors. The state of the art solutions being implemented range from AI and blockchain to biobased solutions, robotics, IoT and artificial vision. The next-gen startups working on these projects will have the full support of the BIND 4.0 Team and 5 months of targeted activities to help strengthen their business acumen and launch their solutions in the Basque Country.  

 

What’s Ahead – Program Agenda 

The BIND 4.0 Support Team and Community have evolved to an online model, part of adapting to the new work environments based in response to the worldwide health pandemic. After the virtual Kick-off event and networking session, the first activity presented was a Pitching Skills training presented by Jack Vincent and Mathieu Carenzo.

There are several upcoming workshops focused on topics such as, B2B Sales, Pitching to Investors, How to Package, Price and Promote Services plus a session with various Purchasing Managers from large Industrial companies. We offer multiple networking activities each month with deep-dive sessions with our Corporate Partners representing the Advanced Manufacturing, Energy, Health and Food Industries.  

 

Industry 4.0 Community Expands Each Year 

Participants can look forward to the online investor sessions with investors from the BIND 4.0 Venture Club in addition to other VCs. Finally, in June all the startups will present the results of their Industry 4.0 pilot projects in our annual BIND 4.0 Demo Day. The virtual Demo Day event is an opportunity to interact with all players in the BIND 4.0 Community providing the opportunity to demonstrate their solutions to potential clients.

As always, all the participating Startups have continuous access to our incredible BIND 4.0 Support Team including the expert Mentors and seasoned Investors in the BIND 4.0 Venture Club. Thanks to the participation and support of these key players, each year the BIND 4.0 Community grows and the Basque Industrial and Entrepreneurial ecosystems expand.  

 

Stay Tuned

Stay with us in the coming months as we share more about the latest collaborations and valuable insight from participants, offering perspectives from both the Startup and Corporate Partners.