Startup Spark 4.0
Has already connected over 250 startups with the region’s large companies.
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See what technology companies in the region are looking for
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SparkAlert is a board of real technology needs from companies that work with the Zone. A manufacturer describes the problem, and you submit your solution whenever you want, without waiting for an accelerator call.
Go to the programme site (opens in a new tab or window)
What SparkAlert is
An established company has a specific problem: it wants to automate quality control, measure its carbon footprint or deploy AI in logistics. It describes the problem on the SparkAlert board, and a startup with a ready solution writes to us. We put the two sides together.
The board works all year round, independently of the Startup Spark accelerator’s application rounds. That is the important difference: in Spark you wait for an open application window, in SparkAlert you react as soon as you see a need you can meet. A submission does not come with a grant. It comes with a conversation with the company, and often with an invitation to the nearest Spark round, where the pilot can be funded.
The needs are posted by companies from the Zone’s partners and investors, Ericsson, Cordis Logistics, LEADS, NEBA and the Polish Mother’s Memorial Hospital Research Institute among them. The subjects run from artificial intelligence and data analysis through cybersecurity, automation and robotics to e-commerce, fintech and logistics. The Zone itself keeps an open “agnostic” submission on the board: if your technology fits none of the needs described, you can still show it.
What you gain
SparkAlert shortens the longest part of selling to industry: reaching the person who has the problem and the budget to solve it.
Every submission on the board describes the need of one company, not a general trend. You know why someone is looking for a technology before you write the first line of your offer.
You send your submission to the accelerator’s address, and we pass it to the person who posted the need. You save weeks of looking for the right contact in a large company.
If your solution fits the need, we invite you to the nearest accelerator round, where a grant can fund the pilot at that company.
A short description of the technology and the need you are answering is enough. The formalities start only when the company wants to talk further.
The companies posting on the board are manufacturers who have been through Spark pilots and know how to work with a young team. You talk to someone who has already seen a prototype on their own shop floor.
SparkAlert in numbers
what is on the board
- 16companies and institutions with open needs
- 250+startups in the Spark accelerator
- PLN 40 millionof grants paid out in Spark
- since 2017accelerating startups in the Zone
Part of the Startup Spark accelerator
We run SparkAlert as a tool of the Startup Spark accelerator, which European Funds for a Modern Economy finance. The Zone is the programme’s operator, selected in PARP’s competition, which is why posting on the board and taking part in a round cost you nothing.
Funded by the European Union.
Frequently asked questions
No. The board exists to put a startup in touch with a company. A grant comes only with a Startup Spark accelerator round, which we can invite you to if the company wants to test your solution.
Pick a need from the board on the programme website and write to us at spark@sse.lodz.pl: a few sentences about the technology, its stage of development and the need you are answering. We come back to you once we have passed your submission to the company.
Companies from the Zone’s partners and investors, and institutions from the region, Ericsson, LEADS, NEBA, Cordis Logistics and the Polish Mother’s Memorial Hospital Research Institute among them. We update the list whenever a new need arrives.
Yes. Write to the accelerator team, describe the problem and the result you expect, and we will publish the need on the SparkAlert board and send you the startups whose solutions fit.
No. What counts is the solution, not the registered address. The deployment takes place at the company that posted the need, and most of them work in the region.
Have a technology for one of the needs? Write to the Spark team
The accelerator team knows the companies on the board and will tell you how to describe your solution so that it reaches the right person.
Monika TomaszewskaExpert / Rethink Digital Hub/EDIH / Spark 3.0 / Spark 4.0+48 601 977 823monika.tomaszewska@sse.lodz.pl
Not sure who to call?
Call the hotline or go to the programme website.
Other Zone projects
SparkAlert is the way into the world of startups in the Zone. Beside it we run the accelerator with its grants, and free digitalisation support for established companies.
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