open-innovation
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The Small Firm Translating Big Government
Kaptivate built a business around an unglamorous but valuable trick: making sprawling public programs legible enough to act on. Its best work begins where the memo, the dataset and the community meeting stop agreeing.
Kickstart Innovation gets startups to the other side of the corporate door
A stalled pitch, a persistent insider and a deal that finally stuck: the Swiss company’s real business is helping startups find someone ready to put their technology to work.
The Chilean Venture Shop Built to Make Startups Meet the Real Economy
Fundación Chile's venture arm has spent years assembling capital, corporate pilots and patient mentorship under one roof. Now its first flagship fund is winding down - and the next act is more targeted, more climate-minded and built around proof in the field.
Campinas Had the Science. This Nonprofit Built the Switchboard.
Campinas already had universities, laboratories and ambitious founders. Associação Campinas Tech’s wager was that the missing technology was social: a reliable way for all of them to find one another.
The Madrid Accelerator That Charges Founders Nothing - Except a Favor Later
For 17 years, Tetuan Valley has run a peculiar bargain: six weeks of startup training, no fee, no equity - and an expectation that graduates will come back to help the next class.
Base27 Puts Startups Within Handshake Distance of Big Business
In Espírito Santo, a nonprofit hub brings industrial companies, startups and universities into the same conversation. Its offer runs from R$500 monthly residencies to industrial challenges and a coffee-drying experiment.
PoliHub asks the €40,000 question: who will buy your science?
At Milan’s university-born accelerator, research meets the awkward business of finding customers. Its next chapter, inside Tech Europe Foundation, raises the stakes for turning laboratory promise into working companies.
IEBT Innovation sells the work after the brainstorm
The Brazilian consultancy pairs innovation programs with software teams and its own platforms. Its cases show what happens between a promising idea and an organization ready to use it.
Nana Bianca is growing startups in a Florentine granary
Three veterans of Italy’s internet industry turned their experience into a place to build companies. At Nana Bianca, the offer runs from a €20 desk to startup grants of up to €100,000 - with some hard lessons between the two.
SBI Consulting runs the business behind the startup
From a restaurant app’s finances to the programs that help founders find customers, the Portuguese consultancy works on the practical side of innovation.
Imagine Creativity Center puts the brainstorm on a train
The Barcelona-Silicon Valley innovation company turns corporate challenges into working trips, prototypes and pitches. Its real test begins when the dreamers go home.
Barrabés.biz took the mountain shop to the boardroom
A family retailer’s experiments with online community became a consultancy for companies, startups and cities. Its record shows what turning an innovation strategy into daily work actually involves - and why the corporate story changed in 2026.
SOSA puts a price on the right introduction
New Jersey awarded SOSA $2.352 million to help international companies find their footing. From cement investments to public-safety pilots, its business is getting promising technology past the first meeting.
La French Tech Taiwan knows who you should meet next
For ten years, this France-Taiwan startup community has brought founders, industrial players and public institutions into the same room. Its real value lies in what happens after the introductions.
Central Japan’s Startup Pitch: The Factory Is Next Door
The Central Japan Startup Ecosystem connects founders to manufacturers, university labs and public support across Japan’s industrial heartland. Its most revealing story starts with a robot that would not sell.
LVenture Group put venture capital on the platform at Rome Termini
Inside a railway station, LVenture Group paired startup money with five months of hands-on help. Its journey into Zest reveals the harder part: turning promising companies into cash.
MOA Ventures takes the long road from lab to market
Electric tractors, diagnostic tools and space startups need more than a pitch deck. MOA Ventures puts industrial partners, investment and hands-on development around the science.
H7’s €295 ticket into Lyon’s startup world
In a former boiler works, H7 bundles a workspace, startup coaching and introductions for €295 a month per desk, excluding tax. Behind that offer sits a business balancing founders, corporate partners and a very large room for events.
Luxembourg put its startup network under one roof
At the House of Startups, the neighbours include incubators, investors and potential customers. The bet: a shorter walk can help turn a young company into a working business.
Plug and Play Europe gets startups through the corporate door
From Porsche's pilot projects to a new accelerator in Cyprus, Plug and Play sells access to the people who can put startup technology to work. The revealing number is how much makes it beyond the demo.
Eatable Adventures wants foodtech to pass the factory test
A clever ingredient is only the beginning. Eatable Adventures combines startup investment, industrial trials and corporate matchmaking to get food innovation out of the lab and into business.
RocketSpace housed the unicorns. Then it closed its doors.
Uber and Spotify passed through RocketSpace. Its bet on connecting startups with big companies produced a distinctive business - until global expansion brought a different kind of risk.
Connect wants Bogotá’s next big idea to find a buyer
The Colombian nonprofit brings universities, companies and entrepreneurs into the same room. Its real test comes afterward: turning introductions into technologies that businesses will actually use.
Andalucía Open Future offers a place to grow - and takes no equity
Four hubs, more than 80 mentors and no equity fee: Andalucía Open Future gives technology founders room to build in southern Spain. The real commitment is showing up, testing the business and learning to sell.
LaStartupStation wants your startup to land a purchase order
In Casablanca, Mehdi Alaoui’s accelerator brings young companies into the orbit of corporate buyers. Its next test: helping Moroccan education startups reach learners who are too often left out.
IdeaScale Built a Suggestion Box for 4.5 Million People - Then Learned the Hard Part Starts After the Vote
The bootstrapped software company rode Washington's open-government wave into 25,000 organizations. Its sharper lesson came later: collecting ideas is easy; proving that one shipped is the business.
Sunjong Ryu Bet His Severance on a Basement Full of Possibility
He left the corporate ladder with a 10 million won stake and a stubborn question: what if Korea's good ideas had somewhere to become real things? A decade later, his work has moved from 3D printers to a venture studio built around revenue, repeat customers, and execution.
Giovanni Battistini Is Betting the Next Wearable Breakthrough Starts With an Enzyme
After three decades moving between corporations, startups, and laboratories, the PhenoTap founder has narrowed his work to one stubborn bottleneck: the enzyme inside the sensor.
The Accelerator That Bets on Atoms, Not Apps
Everyone wanted to fund the next app. N15 built a workshop for the people who make things you can hold - and turned Korea's biggest electronics market into a startup factory.
The Accelerator That Grew Up and Became Corporate Innovation’s Operating System
Boomtown started by coaching founders. A decade later, it helps large organizations find, test, fund and deploy the ideas their own machinery tends to miss.