The KATANA project can be seen as a business accelerator. It supports European SMEs in the agri & food ecosystem to access knowledge, technology, capital and markets in order to respond to the global competitive environment. In 2016, entrepreneurs and SMEs all across Europe were invited to join the competition with their innovative business concepts. We received 512 applications of which 100 were selected in March 2017.

Since then, the participants were stimulated by a range of activities to form consortia with other entrepreneurs and companies to produce innovative solutions for the agri & food ecosystem. Building partnerships requires trust. Therefore, KATANA organized matchmaking events in recent weeks to stimulate exchange and support participants in finding the right partners for bringing innovative product or service ideas to life. Various consortia have been formed and in the next phase they will be competing with each other via crowdfunding campaigns. The best 10 consortia will be rewarded with €100.000.

EFFoST is one of the consortium partners in KATANA and is responsible for the assessment of relevant trends and technologies for the project and the entrepreneurs, In addition, we have a supporting role in dissemination and communication of the results of the project.