As the first batch of start-ups is going into the last four intense weeks of the trial run, the application deadline for the first official Business Acceleration Academy (BAA) is also approaching and has been postponed for one week until November 1.
Starting in March 2019, up to five projects will have the opportunity to go through an eleven weeks intense acceleration program to build a solid initial business- and development plan with the help and guidance from mentors, industry experts and BII staff.
“We see that many start-ups don’t realize what it means to have a solid initial business plan and instead they only focus on their technology. A start-up needs in-depth knowledge on all aspects of their case such as their IP situation, regulatory issues, clinical development plan, competition and their market strategy and business model. A solid initial business plan is key to commercialize research and a prerequisite to make it through to the Incubation phase where BioInnovation Institute offers convertible loans of up to 10 million DKK .” says BII scientific advisor Hervør Lykke Olsen.
In September, she gave insights on what BII is looking for in an application, and she encourages more companies to come forward and apply for BAA to invest in the business side of their research.
“Right now, we have six companies with strong science in the trial run of the Business Acceleration Academy. While at different stages they are all making significant progress aiming to attract the interest of investors,” says Hervør Lykke Olsen.
One of the companies is Mycropt that works with protein optimization. The future CTO Maja Rennig is currently full time on the Business Acceleration Academy program and she explains how she has realized that business building and scientific research require very different skill sets.
“I do not know where or how I could have gotten all the knowledge and understanding of building a life science start-up anywhere in such a fast and relevant fashion than in the Business Acceleration Academy”, she says.
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