AxisBIC is a certified EU | BIC member.
The European Business and Innovation Centre Network (EBN) is the leading international, non-profit association of quality-certified EU Business and Innovation Centres (EU|BICs), incubators and other innovation brokers and business support structures (i.e. accelerators, clusters, investment funds).
Today, EBN networks together some 140 EU|BIC and 70 associate members whose shared vision is to ensure that every entrepreneur can realise their new innovative business idea with growth potential, from early-stage to international expansion.
AxisBIC was named ‘Best in Class BIC’ for 2011/2012. This award recognises the best and most successful innovation-based incubation practices in the European BIC Network. It also aims to showcase at European level the results tools and processes put in place by AxisBIC with the view to inspiring other network members.
The first EU|BICs were born back in the 1980s, as EC-BICs, with the support of the European Commission and private industry actors with the aim of stimulating the creation and growth of new enterprises by providing technical support to innovative startups, spinoffs, SMEs and entrepreneurs. EBN itself was created by the early EU|BICs in 1984, cofinanced by the EC as a community-based membership network connecting innovation actors rooted at the intersection of public policy and private sector development.
Through this network, the EU|BICs have developed the EU|BIC trademark, which certifies their compliance to a set of standards known as the EU|BIC Quality Mark Criteria, the only innovation and entrepreneurship quality system recognised by the EU. In 2018, EU|BICs actively supported 23,400 innovation businesses, 56% of which are deep-tech startups and SMEs. Survival rates of EU|BIC-supported ventures are significantly higher than average.
In 2018, 93% of companies incubated by EU|BICs were still trading after one year and 89% of EU|BIC alumni companies are still trading three years after graduating from the EU|BIC support programmes. More information on the impact of EU|BICs: https://ebn.eu/news-events/