Participation in the acceleration ensures: 

• Non-refundable support up to PLN 200,000 for developing your product or technology;
• PLN 50,000 for advice services;
• Access to experts, mentors and employees of large companies;
• Possibility of verifying business hypotheses according to the PDCA cycle;
• Possibility of testing technologies in use in infrastructure and with participation of the end customer;
• Access to production teams with experience in introducing products onto the market;
• Possibility of presenting your company before a group of leaders associated in the R&D Club;
• Cooperation with an individual start-up supervisor and the possibility of utilising experience of a carefully-selected group of specialists; 
• Financing further stages of works, according to the actual needs and plan of developing a product or technology;
• Support of VC funds: Movens Capital, Leonarto and Arkley;
• Recommendations of a large customer and the possibility of further cooperation;
• Guarantee of protecting know-how of the start-up and keeping 100% of shares.

Participation in the Programme is free.

To join the Programme you have to take part in one of the recruitments and meet the following conditions:

• You are in the process of developing a project meeting the needs of the National Intelligent Specialisations, and particularly solutions in the area of agricultural and food production, power industry as well as production and transport;
• You own a prototype or an MVP of your solution at the sixth readiness according to the TRL scale;
• You have ownership rights to the project you are submitting;
• Until the documents are signed, you will need to create a limited liability partnership (sp. z o. o.); or 
  • You represent a company with the status of a micro enterprise or a small enterprise that is not listed on a stock exchange;
  • You develop a product within a company that has been functioning for less than 5 years and which was not created as a result of a merger and in which a division of income has not been completed.

The main areas where solutions are required:

Tauron Polska Energia S.A. One of the biggest companies in Poland in charge of generation and supply of energy. The company is looking for projects that resolve problems in the following areas:

• New products and services for customers (B2B/B2C) of this energy company and innovative tools for customers (SMART HOME technologies);
• Diagnosis and automation of power networks and increasing the quality and reliability of power supply;
• SMART GRID / SMART CITY infrastructure;
• Limiting technical and commercial losses of the distributed electrical and heat energy;
• Energy storage;
• Renewable Energy Sources (RES);
• Clean technologies of energy generation;
• Increasing energy effectiveness and improving technological processes in production of sorbents and processing of hard coal;
• Managing waste generated during energy production and extraction of hard coal and aggregates (aim: waste-free mine and power plant).

See the detailed requirements of Tauron Polska Energia S.A.

KROSS S.A. This is the biggest company in Poland manufacturing and selling bicycles and bicycle frames. The company is looking for projects that resolve problems in the following areas:

• Creating an electric bicycle always ready for use;
• Developing new batteries for supplying bicycles with an electric motor;
• Designing an attractive and ergonomic bicycle with electric supply;
• Creating a full-suspension e-bike and a full-suspension frame with electric supply;
• Creating a system of protection against theft and a security system for bicycle products;
• Developing a technology of manufacture and selection of materials for production of moulds – intermediate products for producing bicycle components;
• Creating a standard for preparing raw frames for painting – developing an automated process of preparing bicycle frames for applying paint.

See the detailed requirements of KROSS S.A.

Amplus Sp. z o.o. is one of the biggest producers and distributors of fruit and vegetables in Poland.  The company is looking for projects that resolve problems in the following areas:

Product – healthy food: 

• Extending the shelf life of fresh produce – post-harvest treatments (fruit and vegetables);
• Quick an non-laboratory based detection of crop protection chemical remains used in fruit and vegetables as well as microbiological hazards;
• Reduction and removal of crop protection chemical remains used in fruit and vegetables as well as microbiological hazards;
• Possibility of testing and eliminating pests, diseases, soil bacteria that occur in crops of vegetables and fruit – developing a quick method of detecting and identifying diseases and soil pests.

Management with the use of big data:

• Methods of designing quality and quantity of crops with the use of big data technology;
• Defining algorithms making it possible to reduce losses in trade of vegetables and fruit.

Transport of food and logistics:

• Innovative container methods – overseas transport in terms of a selected product group vs. shelf life;
• Developing a solution making it possible to trace each product batch from harvesting to it being served on a Customer’s table;
• Purchase and advice portal for farmers and other participants of the agricultural production process.

See the detailed requirements of Amplus Sp. z o.o.

Acceleration place: Warsaw

Do you have a different idea or a ready solution? The Pilot Maker Accelerator is also available to challenges that have not yet been defined. Submit your project to the programme even if it does not address the problems defined by the accelerator partners yet. 

Full list of participation conditions can be found in the Terms and Conditions.

Within this project, there will be three rounds of the acceleration programme. The duration of each round is from 3 to  6 months:

1^st round: January  2017 – October 2017;
2^nd round: March 2017 – June 2017;
3^rd round: May 2017 – February 2018

SCHEDULE AND COURSE OF RECRUITMENT

• Recruitment start – recruitment to the accelerator takes place through a submission form, which you can use to apply for participation in a given programme.
• Recruitment end – recruitment lasts approximately one or two months.  
• Formal and professional assessment – checking the formal criteria of the submitted projects, such as legal status, compliance with the National Intelligent Specialisations. 
• Concluding a contract – formal acceptance of a team to the acceleration programme, granting the first financing instalment.
• Acceleration start – starting works within the Programme.

The accelerator is composed of two stages: Speed Launch and Fast Iterative Prototyping. That is why, if you are accepted to join the Programme: 

• During the Speed Launch (two months), you will work with mentors. During the workshops, you will work on the details of your idea, create business cases, plan further activities including work on the business model; 
• During the Fast Iterative Prototyping (four months), you will complete business experiments and also verify your assumptions and research hypotheses using the available infrastructure and experience of partners for this purpose; 
• You will work on the pilot implementation at the programme partners;

After the acceleration ends, you can continue to cooperate with the Pilot Maker team within Market Launch Support. You will receive support in the scope of commercialisation of your product or service, and identification of new sales markets appropriate for your solution.