Periodic Reporting for period 2 - InvestHorizon (Boosting Investment Readiness of SMEs and Small Midcaps - InvestHorizon) Reporting period: 2016-06-01 to 2017-05-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project Maximising entrepreneurs’ chances of successfully obtaining funding, through training and direct access to key European investors.InvestHorizon is the Investment Readiness Programme designed to increase investments made in Innovative European SMEs through Investment Readiness development and Investor sensitization. Brought forward by 10 qualified and reliable partners, InvestHorizon offers a set of services and training across Europe, to investors and entrepreneurs, from start‐up to mid‐cap level. InvestHorizon programme addresses the main challenges affecting investment readiness, namely:1. the lack of programmes addressing investment readiness across Europe;2. the low awareness regarding investment readiness and financing options amongst entrepreneurs;3. the weak interest of different investor types for innovative SMEs across the technology sectors;4. the weak investability of many of the companies and presentational failings, and;5. the difficulty of matching innovative companies with specialized investors.InvestHorizon pursues the following 5 objectives:1. Identify, recommend and communicate those strategies, indicators, schemes and tools with the best impact on investment readiness and investors sensitization and matching;2. Raise the awareness amongst innovative SMEs across origination types, stages, countries, technology sectors about those key topics affecting their knowledge and capacity to improve their investment readiness;3. Increase the interest of investors across the range of technology sectors and across the range of different types of (co)-investors;4. Improve the investment readiness of 3000 SMEs by boosting their business and investor propositions as well as their presentation pitch, and;5. Matching at least 450+ investment ready companies with specialized investors across Europe. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far In the first 18 months of the project, InvestHorizon has achieved:• 100 000+ views in website and 3700 followers on twitter• 460+ SMEs attended awareness workshops to learn about InvestHorizon• 1550 SMEs from 48 different countries registered in InvestHorizon programme• published the report “OPENING THE “BLACK BOX” OF EUROPE’S “STARTUP ECOSYSTEM” with the output of our research activities in the area of investment readiness. The report offers a new understanding of investor readiness and the policy solutions that will be most effective in helping entrepreneurs to launch, grow and scale a new business in Europe.• established its e-learning platform with already 1000 users and 39 online courses available on business and management; industry and technology; financing and equity investment• Organised 35 coaching initiatives (25 academies + 10 dry-run clinics) across 16 different countries with more than 1000 SMEs attending and 300 industry experts and investors as coaches working together with the companies to improve their investment readiness and pitch to investors.• Organised 12 investment forum events with 590 + investors attending on site, and 320 companies selected out of 450+ applying companies Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) InvestHorizon expected impact is to:• engage 3000 innovative SMEs and entrepreneurs to benefit from the training activities of the project, providing improved investment readiness• establish an e-learning platform with 40+ online training modules• organise 40 coaching academies, involving 700+ SMEs • organise 22 matchmaking events online and offline, with +450 SMEs presenting to a pool of +500 active investors• have a min of 50 companies raising a total of EUR 25 million. Coaching academy objectives InvestHorizon impact Investment Forum objectives
