EIC at MWC 2025: 15 deep tech companies, a packed EIC Pavilion and a push for procurement and scale up

Brussels, March 14th 2025

Summary

›Fifteen EIC-backed companies exhibited at MWC 2025 in Barcelona inside the EIC Pavilion and 4YFN area, supported by the EIC International Trade Fairs Programme 3.0.
›The EIC organised panels and investor events covering green transition, 5G and XR, procurement, generative AI bias and the EU scale up gap.
›Complementary programmes under EIC Business Acceleration Services include SPIN4EIC, InnoBuyer and InnoMatch to connect innovators with procurers and buyers.
›InnoBuyer is a 2 million euro Horizon Europe coordination action while InnoMatch will fund up to 38 pilots at up to EUR 60,000 each.
›The delegation received coaching, matchmaking and onsite assistance, but concrete follow up metrics and commercial outcomes remain to be published.

EIC at MWC 2025: delegation, panels and the push to turn demonstration into contracts

From 3 to 6 March 2025 the European Innovation Council brought a delegation of 15 EIC-backed companies to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. MWC, organised by GSMA, combined the main exhibition halls with the 4YFN start-up zone. The organisers reported over 109,000 attendees from 205 countries and territories and roughly 2,900 exhibitors. The EIC Pavilion located within the 4YFN area hosted the delegation and a programme of panels, investor events and matchmakings designed to convert visibility into business opportunities.

Opening and high level presence

The EIC Pavilion opened with a ribbon cutting attended by Stéphane Ouaki, Head of Department at the European Innovation Council, and Pere Durán, Director of 4YFN. The presence of senior EIC figures was mirrored across adjacent sessions and at the 4YFN Investors Summit where discussions focused on co-investment opportunities and the EIC Fund.

4YFN explained:Four Years From Now is the start-up oriented zone that runs alongside MWC. It targets early stage innovators and investors, providing a smaller, more founder focused environment for pitching, investor conversations and sector specific programming.

The delegation and preparation

The 15 companies were selected under the EIC International Trade Fairs Programme 3.0 and benefitted from a package of pre departure training, coaching, bespoke matchmaking and onsite assistance. Preparatory work began with an online workshop on 14 January that brought together market experts, EIC representatives and trade fair organisers to orient participants on matchmaking and onsite opportunities. During the week at MWC the companies took part in reverse pitch sessions, investor one to one meetings and an investor dinner night arranged to facilitate introductions.

Company	Country	Primary focus or sector
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY INNOVATIONS SL	Spain	Sustainable technologies
AXELERA AI B.V.	The Netherlands	Artificial intelligence
BEAMMWAVE AB	Sweden	Semiconductors and mmWave
CyRaCo GmbH	Germany	Telecoms solutions
DIMETOR GMBH	Austria	Industrial technologies
DREAMWAVES GMBH	Austria	Connectivity systems
Galera Cluster by Codership	Finland	Database clustering
ManoMotion	Sweden	Computer vision and gesture control
NANOPOWER SEMICONDUCTOR AS	Norway	Semiconductors
Neuron Soundware (NSW)	Czech Republic	Acoustic AI diagnostics
NIL TECHNOLOGY APS	Denmark	Sensor and telecom solutions
OPENNEBULA SYSTEMS SL	Spain	Cloud orchestration
QRUISE GMBH	Germany	Robotics and navigation
VIDEO SYSTEMS SRL	Italy	Media and streaming systems
XELERA TECHNOLOGIES GMBH	Germany	Low latency data transfer

Panels and themes covered at the EIC Pavilion

The Pavilion hosted a programme of panels that brought together EIC companies, investors, corporates and policy actors. Topics ranged from green transition technologies to the practical barriers of scaling telecoms and extended reality and to systemic challenges like bias in generative AI. Below are the core panel topics and the issues discussed.

Panel 1: Driving technology for Europe’s green transition

This session considered how entrepreneurial breakthroughs, corporate R&D and academic research can be marshalled to meet Europe’s green transition goals. Speakers outlined opportunities in renewable energy, resource efficient manufacturing and circularity. The discussion emphasised cross sector collaboration but recognised that large scale deployment demands regulatory clarity and customer commitments that are not always in place.

Panel 2: Accelerating 5G and XR innovation

Speakers examined real world barriers to rolling out 5G infrastructure and scaling extended reality across industry. Case studies highlighted network reliability in dense urban spaces, the cost of edge deployment and the business cases needed for smart city projects. The session framed XR not as a single technology but as a stack that requires hardware, software, networks and integration partners to mature simultaneously.

Panel 3: EIC BAS support to innovation procurement

This session focused on the EIC Innovation Procurement Programme within the EIC Business Acceleration Services. It addressed how public and private buyers can de risk adoption of innovative solutions and how startups can better access procurement pipelines. Presenters described tools designed to bridge demand with supply and to help SMEs prepare tenders for procurement opportunities.

Panel 4: Will we ever mitigate the bias problem of generative AI?

This session faced a persistent issue in AI governance. Panelists explained that generative models can reproduce and amplify societal biases present in training data. Technical approaches such as reward based tuning have reduced some harms but no single technique eliminates bias. Speakers stressed that solutions require a mix of technical fixes, better data practices, governance and ongoing monitoring.

RLHF explained:Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback is a method where human assessments are used to shape a model’s behaviour by ranking outputs and training a reward model. It helps align models with human preferences but it is not a panacea for structural bias because the human evaluators and the training data themselves bring their own perspectives.

Panel 5: Bridging Europe’s scale up gap

This discussion looked at why many European deep tech firms struggle in late stage financing and why relocation outside the EU is common. Speakers evaluated the role of the EIC Fund and venture capital in closing that gap. The conversation acknowledged progress but noted that follow through on co investment, exits and operational scaling remains the long term test.

Reverse pitches, investor engagement and demos

Alongside panels the Pavilion hosted reverse pitch sessions where large companies outlined their unmet needs. Participants included CISCO and alliance partners such as Cellnex, KPN Ventures, Wayra Telefónica Open Innovation and NGP Capital. PwC Strategy& presented on the AI data centre opportunity. Women TechEU was presented as a programme initiative and demos from Xelera and Video Systems took place at the PwC Pavilion. An exclusive investor only panel on co investing with the EIC Fund examined possible deal structures and co investment pathways.

Reverse pitch sessions:In a reverse pitch a large buyer or corporate presents a problem and what they would pay to solve it. The format helps startups assess fit and tailor proposals. For procurement minded organisations it is a way to surface supplier options early in procurement design.

Support model and what companies received

Selected companies received end to end support under the EIC International Trade Fairs Programme 3.0. That included pre departure market briefings, tailored coaching on pitching and IP and matchmaking services to set up one to one meetings. Onsite assistance aimed to increase visibility and to facilitate B2B meetings. The EIC also provided follow up mechanisms to help convert meetings into pilot contracts or further commercial steps.

How the EIC International Trade Fairs Programme 3.0 works:The ITF 3.0 scheme runs from 2024 to 2026 and enables EIC awardees to attend major trade fairs in strategic markets across the EU, the Middle East and the USA. Participation is open to startups, scaleups and SMEs that have received EIC support. Companies apply through open calls published on the EIC Community platform and external experts evaluate applications.

Procurement and demand side initiatives: SPIN4EIC, InnoBuyer and InnoMatch

Beyond trade fairs the EIC is scaling activities to link buyers with suppliers through a set of procurement oriented initiatives. These aim to lower a common barrier for startups which is finding first customers especially in the public sector. The main strands are SPIN4EIC, InnoBuyer and InnoMatch.

Programme	Primary purpose	Budget or scale	Key services	Who can apply
SPIN4EIC	Strengthen links between public and private buyers and EIC beneficiaries to access procurement markets	Ongoing programme under EIC BAS	Assistance in tender submission, capacity building for public buyers, matchmaking and toolkit	EIC beneficiaries and public buyers in EU Member States and Associated Countries
InnoBuyer	Co create solutions between Challengers and EIC backed Solvers and pilot adoption by public buyers	2 million euro Horizon Europe coordination and support action	Recruiting 15 public Challengers, open market consultation, buyer SME matching and co creation pilots	Public organisations as Challengers and EIC backed SMEs as Solvers
InnoMatch	Fund proof of concept and pilot testing with buyers to accelerate procurement adoption	Support for 38 pilots up to EUR 60,000 per pilot, running until September 2027	Open calls for Buyers and EIC beneficiaries, pilot support, grouping of buyer challenges for competition between solutions	Public and private Buyers and EIC backed startups and scaleups

InnoBuyer in brief:InnoBuyer is a Horizon Europe action led by F6S, Civitta and TICBioMed. It targets 15 public organisations with unmet innovation needs and aims to validate a demand driven methodology that accelerates procurement based adoption of startup solutions.

InnoMatch in brief:InnoMatch will run open calls to recruit Buyers and EIC beneficiaries and to fund pilots. The objective is to demonstrate proof of concept in operational settings and to boost the chance that buyers adopt and replicate successful solutions.

Assessment and what to watch for

The EIC Pavilion week at MWC offered a concentrated opportunity for visibility and initiation of commercial conversations. That is necessary but not sufficient to judge long term impact. The real test is whether pilots and procurement tenders follow and whether the EIC Fund and private VCs co invest to support scale up. EIC programmes rightly emphasise matchmaking and procurement as routes to market. These routes require patient follow up and measurable outcomes in procurement awards, pilot conversions and revenue growth. Observers should look for published impact reports that show contracts signed, pilot outcomes and subsequent funding rounds for participating companies.

What remains uncertain:Announcements and event metrics are useful for signalling momentum. They do not by themselves prove commercial success. Key missing information often includes conversion rates from meetings to pilots, the value of signed contracts, and medium term follow up on scaling and exits. Independent impact analysis and transparent reporting will be important to verify claims of success.

Practical next steps and where to find more information

EIC beneficiaries interested in trade fairs, procurement support or SPIN4EIC activities should monitor the EIC Community platform for open calls and register with EU Login credentials to apply for EIC Business Acceleration Services. The ITF 3.0 calls open roughly six months before each trade fair. For questions on specific programmes use the EIC Community helpdesk and select the relevant subject, for example 'EIC International Trade Fairs Programme' or 'SPIN4EIC Powered by EIC Innovation Procurement Programme'.

Recap video:The EIC produced a short recap of the week which is available at https://youtu.be/gmfZN9StY0Q

If you want to follow upcoming opportunities under ITF 3.0 the scheduled trade fairs include CES International and the next MWC among others. The EIC ITF 3.0 programme runs to 2026 with multiple sectoral tracks covering biotech, clean tech and new industrial technologies.

Disclaimer. The information above draws on EIC event reporting and programme descriptions. Announcements about participation and programme activity are valuable for tracking ecosystem activity. They should not be interpreted as a guarantee of outcomes and they do not replace formal procurement documentation or investment analysis.