Cities secure sponsorship to offer prizes to aspiring entrepreneurs

An article by Jim Sims, Lead Expert for the BluAct Transfer Network

Two European cities that are part of a network that aims to stimulate Blue Growth Entrepreneurship (growth linked to the Marine & Maritime Economy) have secured commercial sponsorship to offer prizes to aspiring entrepreneurs that are in the early stages of developing their business ideas.  

Working as part of the BluAct Transfer Network - a sustainable urban development initiative supported by the URBACT Programme – the cities of Matosinhos, in Portugal, and Mataro, in Spain, managed to secure commercial investment to help deliver their first Blue Growth Entrepreneurship Programmes.  

This sponsorship money, combined with the offer of a professionally delivered incubation and mentoring programme, helped them to publicise their competitions and attract more high-quality applications.

Here’s their stories ….

The BluAct Transfer Network

The BluAct Transfer Network is a network of 7 European port cities (Piraeus, Mataro, Ostend, Galati, Matosinhos, Burgas and Salerno) that came together to transfer a good practice in Blue Economy Entrepreneurship developed by the city of Piraeus in Greece (the Piraeus’ Blue Growth Initiative) to the remaining six other cities.

The network aims to support an improvement and transfer of a good practice in the field of Blue Growth innovation and entrepreneurship across Europe.

The transferring cities are able to adapt the Piraeus Good Practice to suit their particular economic conditions and circumstance. In the case of the Piraeus, the municipality has always opted not to offer cash prizes to potential entrants but preferred to offer a professional package of incubation support as the prize, and act as a conduit to finance by introducing aspiring entrepreneurs to potential investors and finance providers.

The Prize Package

However, two cities in the BluACt network have been able to augment the Piraeus model for running such a competition by securing private sector funding to act as a further incentive to applicants.  

The cities of Mataro and Matosinhos worked with their commercial sponsors to adapt the Piraeus good practice, to offer entrants the opportunity to secure small amounts of prize funding to help them kick start their business idea.

The city of Mataro secured sponsorship of €4,000 in cash prizes from the Mataro Port Consortium and €2,000 from the Barcelona Province Government, both of whom were keen to support the winners of the Mataro Blue Growth Competition that was active in the Blue Economy. This sponsorship money sat alongside a high-quality incubation and mentoring programme (valued at €1,000), delivered by TecnoCampus as a prize package for the first three classified in the contest, together with marketing and promotional support from the Municipality.  

Similarly, the city of Matosinhos secured €10,000 of sponsorship from a range of sponsors, to award to any business with a sustainable business idea. The city of Matosinhos was also able to offer a professional package of incubation support, delivered by UPTEC MAR, as part of their prize package.

Collectively, these prizes helped them attract good quality entrepreneurs to enter the competition.

Winners to the Mataro competition included;

• The first Spanish nautical workshop franchise for refit and repair of boats.
• An online application that facilitates communication between the boat, management companies, refit shipyards and contractors
• An electric propulsion system for boats, which are much more environmentally friendly, quieter and simpler.

As Marta Ruiz Brunet, the Urbact Project Co-ordinator for Mataro, says, “Many entrepreneurship competitions in our country only give a cash prize, but the good experience of the Lead project convinced us to combine a small cash prize with a powerful mentoring program, with the aim of providing projects with a good base of knowledge, tools and contacts’ network” and added “Securing some prize money from commercial sponsors helped us generate more publicity for the competition and attract more successful entrepreneurs to submit their business ideas to the competition”

Winners of the Matosinhos competition included;

• A company that has developed a degradable Polylactic Acid.
• A business renewing and recycling Shipping Containers.
• An aquaculture business that aims to improve fish food, through a pink plankomycete-based diet.

As Margarida Bento Pinto, the Urbact Co-ordinator for Matosinhos says, “Securing commercial sponsorship to award prizes to competition entrants was a great help in attracting good quality business ideas. It also helped give the competition more credibility.”

The publicity generated by the competition, combined with the positive entrepreneurial role models have acted to inspire the next generation of marine/maritime entrepreneurs and both cities have well established plans to continue to build on this excellent work.

More information

To find out more about the BluAct Network, visit bluact.eu