ESA BIC Greece

The Greek Ministry of Digital Governance has identified the creation of the ESA BIC Greece as a key element in the development plan of the Greek Space Industry. The objective of the ESA BIC Greece is to strengthen the community of successful space-related start-ups in Greece by supporting 25 incubatees over the period of 5 years under the ESA BIC scheme so that they can develop their business and their technology until they are ready to leave the incubation phase and continue operating and growing without support from the incubator. ESA Business Incubation Centres' goal are to create jobs and develop regional economies via the ESA BICs programme in the ESA Member States. They provide incubation services to promising space related start-ups in order to help them become successful companies by exploiting space technologies or utilising space systems in non-space markets (spin-off), or by becoming suppliers to the space sector, e.g. by exploiting non-space technology in the space market (spin-in). This European-wide network, which annually fosters the creation of more than 140 start-ups across Europe, has led to the creation of more than 900 new enterprises since its inception in 2003 with a survival rate of 85%. Corallia, a unit of the Research Center Athena, is tasked with implementing the ESA BIC Greece. This will be accomplished in collaboration with more than 65 supporting organisations. Those supporters are Ministries and Public Agencies, Universities, Research Centers, Large companies and SMEs, Financing Institutions, Associations and Networks, other ESA BICs and Civil Society NFPs in Greece and ESA Members.