Success story #5: Pitch perfect - group and individual coaching for startups and scale-ups.
Dragons’ Den event: boost your innovation and discover valuable investment opportunities
In collaboration with EDIH DIGITALIS, EDIH-EBE organized the "Dragons’ Den" matchmaking event on November 7, 2025 at Embuild in Brussels, with a preparatory coaching trajectory. The goal was to support innovative startups and scale-ups from the construction, energy sector, and manufacturing industry in pitching their innovation and to bring them into contact with investors and the Flemish startup ecosystem.
An intensive and widely shared campaign resulted in the candidacy of 22 startups and scale-ups. As part of the group coaching, these entrepreneurs were invited to attend the interactive online workshop "Mastering the Perfect Pitch" with expert advice from VOKA and PMV. The partners and jury selected 8 companies (4 per EDIH) for individual coaching sessions by VOKA experts to perfect their slide deck and pitch for the matchmaking.
The jury members and over 70 participants elected SCOPR (construction/energy sector) and Ugani Prosthetics (manufacturing industry) as the winners of the Dragons’ Den Awards. Networking was facilitated using the matchmaking app Conversation Starter.
The aftermovie
• Dragons' Den: starters testify about the added value of the coaching trajectory
Success story #6: International collaboration creates growth opportunities for Flemish starters
StarWatts - Accelerating the energy transition together
StarWatts is a joint initiative of Flux50, De Blauwe Cluster, Cluster TWEED, and InnoEnergy. These four key players for energy innovation in the Benelux bundled their complementary ecosystems to stimulate collaboration between innovative startups and scale-ups, large enterprises (corporates), and investors. The goal: to accelerate the rollout of solutions for the energy transition.
The main objectives of StarWatts are supporting innovation trajectories at companies, strengthening the international recognition of Flemish innovation players, attracting international innovation to the Belgian market (and vice versa), and connecting startups with investors.
For this, two trajectories were set up; an ideation and challenge generation trajectory for the ‘Challengers’ (corporates) and a pitching trajectory for the startups and scale-ups.
The 8 Challengers (DEME, Fluvius, John Cockerill, KBC, Ocean Winds, ORES-RESA, and Port of Antwerp-Bruges) were guided by an experienced partner, Start it Ventures, in defining their internal innovation challenges. This resulted in 15 ‘real world challenges’.
These challenges were marketed internationally through an intensive campaign (mailings, video, social media) and with the support of an extensive network of European innovation hubs and accelerators. A total of 93 submissions from more than 20 countries were received.
The challengers nominated 30 enterprises that were allowed to follow a guidance trajectory to perfect their pitch for investors. This trajectory was made possible with the support of EDIH-EBE. The experienced startup coach Nathalie De Schepper was hired for the guidance. The trajectory consisted of 2 online group coaching sessions and an individual online session.
This unique trajectory culminated in an impactful event on October 9, 2025 at Maison de la Poste (Brussels), where more than 230 participants from 12 European countries came together. With pitches, panel discussions, awards, and over 300 B2B meetings, the event proved that the energy transition accelerates when people and ideas meet.
Aftermovie
Growing at full power: how StarWatts brought startups and corporates together
