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Venture building and EU funding, from the inside.

Practical articles written from the experience of building ventures for European corporations and evaluating innovation projects for the European Commission.

Corporate Innovation

AI and corporate strategy: the organisational gap nobody is talking about

Large companies have access to the same AI tools as startups. So why are they not moving faster? The bottleneck is not the technology. It is the organisation, and no AI tool can close that gap for you.

July 2026 · 11 min read Venture Building

AI and the MVP: why the lean startup model no longer applies

AI has collapsed the cost of building. When building is nearly free, the entire logic of the lean startup inverts. The new risk is not building the wrong thing. It is speed without learning.

June 2026 · 10 min read Corporate Innovation

Corporate venture building: how large companies build internal startups

Corporate venture building and intrapreneurship: the two models that actually produce results, and why most corporate innovation programmes fail before they start.

May 2026 · 10 min read EU Funding

EU funding for startups and SMEs in 2026: the complete guide

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, Eurostars and national programmes: every European funding option for innovative companies, with amounts, requirements and insider advice from an EU Expert Evaluator.

April 2026 · 11 min read EU Funding

Why most EU funding applications fail (and how to fix yours)

After evaluating hundreds of proposals for the European Commission, I can tell you that most rejections share the same five mistakes. Technology is rarely the problem. Here is what is.

March 2026 · 9 min read EU Funding

EIC Accelerator: the complete guide (written by an evaluator)

I have evaluated hundreds of EIC Accelerator proposals for the European Commission. Here is what we see from the other side, what gets applications rejected, and how strategy changes when you know how it really works.

February 2026 · 10 min read EU Funding

Horizon Europe for SMEs: how to participate without being a university

Horizon Europe is not just for universities. SMEs can join consortia, find partners through the EU Partner Search portal, and access grants up to 100% of costs. A practical guide from an EU Expert Evaluator.

January 2026 · 11 min read Venture Building

What is a venture builder (and why it is not an accelerator)

I have built ventures for large European corporations for over a decade. The question I hear at the start of almost every conversation is always the same: but what exactly do you do?

December 2025 · 8 min read Venture Building

Corporate-startup collaboration: a practical framework for making it work

Most corporate-startup collaborations fail not because the technology is wrong, but because the process is wrong. A practical framework tested across dozens of programmes, including at CERN IdeaSquare.

November 2025 · 10 min read

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