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The MIT Enterprise Forum CEE accelerator serves as a door opener to the US, and in particular the East Coast. Each year, the accelerator delivers two editions of CEE-based, equity-free startup acceleration program. The 2-month long acceleration culminates in an annual week-long Bootcamp in Boston, Massachusetts USA for the top ten finalists combined from that year’s two editions. And it is this Boston Bootcamp, that is the gem of the MIT EF CEE program, that best startups of each edition get invited to. The Boston Bootcamp is a seven-day within a framework designed to support startups continued business growth. It’s is a wild ride, with a lot of fun, great food, awesome networking… and a lot of work. In English, of course. What’s in it for startup founders? The aim of the bootcamp is to prepare the CEE-based entrepreneurs for building their businesses in the US. They come back home with a much clearer understanding of how the US market works and what is required to build a business in that market. Some startups say that one week in Boston was more important than 3 months of the MIT EF acceleration program. And please note that MIT EF acceleration is considered to be the best in CEE. How is this all accomplished? It’s accomplished by hard, yet very rewarding work done during the week condensed with meetings and business-oriented seminars. Just to name a few, it is the time founders:

• get connected with relevant mentors and experts who give them perspective on the competitive landscape, can help organize relevant meetings, and make additional introductions;
• get feedback on their US “go to market strategy”, by experienced US entrepreneurs;
• pitch to several investors’ audiences, including angels and VCs. The biggest event takes place during the CEE Night in the Cambridge Venture Café. Each startup is additionally trained by Linda Plano, with written and oral pitch directed to the US audience;
• gain information on the US tactics in terms of legal form, visa, and regulatory aspects.

Every entrepreneur who gets into the MIT Enterprise Forum CEE acceleration program becomes a part of an elite Boston entrepreneurial ecosystem, which is a worldwide known hotbed for entrepreneurial activity, with its alumni forming literally hundreds of new companies every year. Founders get access to more experienced entrepreneurs from the US and our region. In the past, during the Boston Bootcamp, we had had the pleasure to host Stefan Batory from Booksy, Michal Borkowski from Brainly, Bartosz Skwarczek from G2A, Mary Waszkiewicz from Randolph, Borya and Vadim from PDF Filer (a unicorn), Filip Twarowski from Point API, Mike Krymov from Sleepbox. If one considers international expansion, Boston bootcamp opens many doors. The US market is extremely liquid when it comes to raising capital. To be a relevant player, one cannot just think about launching business in the US but know when and how to do it. Here at MIT EF CEE we know the answers to both of these questions. Gain most of the Boston Bootcamp and reach your goals. Make your American dream come true.  

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The MIT Enterprise Forum CEE program is part of the global MIT Enterprise Forum network, which has branches in several US states, as well as in Greece, Spain, Israel, Turkey and Pakistan. By now, Poland has been the only country in Central and Eastern Europe where acceleration of startups under the MIT Enterprise Forum Poland brand is carried out. From January 15, another fourteen countries will join this group: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

The aim of the MIT Enterprise Forum CEE acceleration is to support the most innovative scientific and technological start-ups from Poland and Central and Eastern Europe by combining their potential with the knowledge and resources of large enterprises from sectors including finance, insurance, energy and life science, as well as the experience of mentors who have achieved spectacular successes in international business.

THE DREAM OF CONQUERING THE AMERICAN MARKET IS FOR THE TAKING

A total of 15 young technology companies underwent the acceleration in the first edition of the program. During DemoDay, which took place on July 9 in Warsaw, these five finalists were selected and given tickets for the weekly Bootcamp in Boston:

• AISens: Provides precise measurements of joint mobility in real time. Thanks to Orthyo Sensors, therapy is safer and more effective, which significantly facilitates the physiotherapeutic process.
• ChallengeRocket: A platform using artificial intelligence to acquire and recruit talent from the IT industry.
• Intelliseq: Automatic system for fast and precise analysis of genetic information which gives the possibility of generating clinical reports for many diagnostic threads.
• PhageArmour: Technology of combating pathogenic bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant strains, using bacteriophages, dedicated to, among others, veterinary industry and companies involved in animal production.
• : Offers CreditCloud API credit services to clients in any shopping context by increasing the level of their availability.

– This year’s trip to Bootcamp is a prize for the top 10 startups from the last two editions of our program. During their stay in the USA, young entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to learn how to develop business in the US market and learn about one of the world’s largest innovation ecosystems focused on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For young and innovative companies, it is also a great opportunity to present their technologies to investors or potential partners from the USA and an opportunity to commercialize their products and services on foreign markets

says Łukasz Owczarek, Head of Acceleration at Fundacji Przedsiębiorczości Technologicznej, which is the organizer of the MIT Enterprise Forum CEE program. 

During DemoDay, the ChallengeRocket team, whose pitch received the highest number of votes from the participants of the event, was the audience award winner.

1st EDITION OF THE MIT ENTERPRISE FORUM CEE PROGRAM

The main partners of the program are Adamed – a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, which was founded on the basis of Polish scientific thought and own patents, and MCX – the core of a strong group of specialized companies, including, among others, companies in the field of ICT solutions and renewable energy.

Supporting partners include LINK4, Nationale-Nederlanden, MDI Energia SA, Sollers Consulting, PZU and Vetasi. The substantive partners include the Authorized Training Center of Sandler Training – Twarowski & Posmyk, CRIDO, EUPATENT.PL patent office, Extended Tools, Novismo, TaxLab and Hasik Rheims & Partners. Organizations supporting acceleration include CMS Law and Tax, Foundation for Polish Science, Polish Business and Innovation Centers Association in Poland (PBICA).

The implementation of the program is supported by a grant awarded to Foundation of Technology Entrepreneurship by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development under Measure of the 2.5 SGOP Acceleration Programs.

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Łukasz Raczkowski, Solutions 4 Tomorrow

A trip to the United States is in itself a dream for many people, and we also had the opportunity to visit unusual places and meet people unavailable to ordinary tourists. It was an intensive week that brought a lot of new experiences to each of us. First of all, we got to know the look at the businesses of people on the other side of the Atlantic and we realized that it is not the same as the one represented in Poland. Personally, I liked the most meeting with Poles who achieved business success in the USA. It is great to see that on such a demanding market “our people” have succeeded, and additionally they have the willingness to build a Polish community. Cooperation with a local mentor was also important, and it contributed a lot to our perspective on the development of business on a global scale. What surprised us the most was the approach to building entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — accessibility of infrastructure, openness of people and their approach — frivolous on one hand, and critical on the other. After this trip, we are certainly more aware of our shortcomings, and at the same time we have become convinced that we can afford to succeed. This mixture of emotions and impressions has allowed us to become even better entrepreneurs.

Ewa Rutczyńska-Jamróz, Lifetone

Our participation in the Bootcamp was very important to us — in particular its location in Boston, which is a leading medical and business center in the field of new technologies from the BioMedTech sector. It was a unique opportunity for us to get to know the ecosystem, visit accelerators, talk to entrepreneurs and scientists specifically from our industry, which makes the knowledge, experience and relationships gained even more valuable to us. Meetings with people who decided to run their businesses in the United States, as well as people who are actively involved in the organization of the start-up support ecosystem in the BioMedTech area in Boston were of special importance to us. We were surprised by the openness of the people we met with. They listened with interest about our business and wondered with whom they could contact us, who from their environment could potentially contribute something to the development of our business. This resulted in setting up further meetings, which filled the agenda to the limits of what is possible and allowed us to review, in a short span of time, our thinking about the steps we should take in terms of expansion to the United States. The goal that we set for ourselves in connection with our trip to the Bootcamp was not related to looking for financing. We wanted to understand the Boston ecosystem and establish relationships. Thanks to the involvement of the organizer, i.e. MIT Enterprise Forum Poland, we managed to achieve this goal, for which we are very grateful.

Konrad Krajewski, Genomtec

The most important benefits of participating in the Bootcamp in Boston are the opportunity to meet interesting people, feedback from investors and information about the functioning of business in the USA. This market has to be seen as the European Union — each state in the USA has to be seen as an individual country. People in different states differ in customs and approach to business, states have their own individual laws, so in the USA it is very important to analyze the possibility of creating a business in a particular state, and not in the whole country. We liked the openness of Americans and their approach to business. The people we met openly shared their contacts with us and helped us arrange meetings, while expecting nothing in return. The most important thing was to get to know the mentality of local investors and people, which is different from the approach and mentality of Poles. Business practitioners and entrepreneurs with whom we met, openly share with us their experiences and thoughts on Polish projects. In Poland, people do not function this way, because they are afraid that someone could steal their ideas or contacts from them. We are far from the state of mind and mentality of American business, so we will be slow to develop further. “You go faster by yourself, but in a group you’ll go farther”. The Americans understand this, Poles — not at all. We realized that in order to do business in the U.S., you need to be there, have global patents, understand the U.S. market and have the best validated product. In addition, in the USA the customer who buys the product/service and the business model are the most important. Technological advantages and price do not matter if the customer is not interested in them.

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