Space2Business and Demoday & Pitch competition
A two-day event Space2Business took place on the 28th and 29th of November at Prague Congress Center. The event’s program was full of amazing plenary sessions, informative workshops, and B2B meetings. Space2Business was an official event of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the fifth edition of Czech Space Week.
Space2Business was Europe’s largest exhibition and conference for startups in the space industry. The main ambition of the event was to bring together companies, startups, research institutions, and other stakeholders searching for collaboration and market opportunities. It has the support of both ESA and EUSPA, as well as the private sector and investors from all over Europe.
On the first day of the event, visitors and investors had an opportunity to see startups from the ESA BIC Czech Republic. Firstly, the representatives from ESA BIC welcome new incubatees ICEE.Space Czechia, VisionCraft, StatoTest, SPACERACE, and Corac Engineering. After this ceremony other startups (alumni and still in the incubation) pitch against each other. The winner, Word from Space, joined the champions from European ESA BICs and startups from EU and EUSPA competitions in the international final.
The international finale was held on November 29th and had nine competitors from all over Europe:
- Agcurate (#MyEUSpace; Netherlands)
- Bitrezus (ESA BIC Greece)
- Celestial (EU Space Week; Germany)
- Fourth State Systems AB (ESA BIC Sweden)
- GATE Space (ESA BIC Austria)
- Soilspect (#MyEUSpace + ESA BIC Noordwijk)
- SpaceCrop (ESA BIC Hungary)
- SPiN (ESA BIC Bavaria)
- Super-Sharp Space Systems (ESA Pitch to Fly competition; UK)
Experts commission composed of representatives of the European Space Agency (ESA), European Union Space Progam Agency (EUSPA), CzechInvest, TRL, and Seraphim space chose the winner – SPiN winning €10 000.
Apart from the Demoday & Pitch Competition, Space2Business offered also a conference on how to boost space business with the EU and ESA. Many side events address various topics for both space & non-space audience; like Job fair, Building Lunar Economy, Satellite-connected cars: an opportunity for Europe, Czech-Italian Business Forum, and many more. Moreover, the Technology Centre AS CR presented financing options within the ESA Spark Funding program to support pilot applications, as well as the new research support challenges of the Horizon Europe program. During the event, the Technology Centre also announced the results of the Get Space Inspired competition, in which the authors of the best technology transfer ideas took home checks worth €5,000 and €10,000 to further develop their innovation projects.