RobotUnion

Grant Agreement Nº: 779967

Start date: 01/01/2018
Duration: 36 months

Guide for Applicants (GfA)

RobotUnion 1st Open Call

(1st edition 2018)

Open date for proposals: Tuesday April 17th at 00:00 (CET).

Deadline: Tuesday July 3rd at 13:00 (CET)

Version 16/04/2018

Project funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union,
Grant agreement Nº: No. 779967

PROPRIETARY RIGHTS STATEMENT

This document contains information, which is proprietary to the RobotUnion Consortium. Neither this document nor the information
contained herein shall be used, duplicated or communicated by any means to any third party, in whole or in parts, except with prior written
consent of the RobotUnion Consortium.
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Guide for applicants 1st Open Call

DOCUMENT HISTORY

Version Status1 Date Comments Author

1 Draft 21/03/2018 First version to be reviewed by partners and PO FBOX
2 Under review 28/03/2918 VTT, ISDI and BLM review VTT, ISDI, BLm
3 Draft 30/03/2018 FBA legal team review FBOX
4 Under review 30/03/2018 All partners of the consortium and PO All and PO
5 Issued 16/04/2018

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Selection Process RobotUnion................................................................................................................. 9
Figure 2. Robotics Acceleration Program Stages .................................................................................................. 15
Figure 3. Criteria to pass the milestones ............................................................................................................... 16

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Support per Scaleup ....................................................................................... 16

1 Status (a status is associated to each step of the document life cycle)

Draft. This version is under development by one or several partner(s)
Under review. This version has been sent for review
Issued. This version of the document has been submitted to EC

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................4
2. RobotUnion Open Call .......................................................................................................4
3. Eligibility Criteria ............................................................................................................5
3.1. Type of beneficiaries .................................................................................................5
3.2. Eligible countries .....................................................................................................5
3.3. Type of Activity .......................................................................................................6
3.4. English Language .....................................................................................................6
3.5. Multiple submissions are forbidden ................................................................................7
3.6. Submission system ....................................................................................................7
3.7. Deadline ...............................................................................................................7
3.8. Absence of conflict of interest .......................................................................................7
3.9. Other ...................................................................................................................7
4. RobotUnion project types ....................................................................................................7
5. Preparation and submission of the proposals ................................................................................8
5.1. Deadline for submission of proposals ...............................................................................8
6. Selection Process .............................................................................................................8
6.1. Phase 1: Eligibility Check ............................................................................................9
6.2. Phase 2: Pre-scoring ..................................................................................................9
6.3. Phase 3: Experts Evaluation ....................................................................................... 10
6.4. Phase 4: Consensus Meeting ....................................................................................... 11
6.5. Phase 5: Jury Day .................................................................................................. 12
7. Applicants Communication ................................................................................................ 12
7.1. Appeal Procedure................................................................................................... 12
8. Funding and Acceleration Services Agreement Setup Process ........................................................... 13
9. RobotUnion Accelerator Package for Beneficiaries ....................................................................... 14
10. Obligations of Beneficiaries ............................................................................................ 19
11. Intellectual property rights .............................................................................................. 19
11.1. Originality of the sub-granted projects ........................................................................... 19
11.2. Ownership of the sub-granted projects results .................................................................. 19
11.3. IPR and obligations of the Beneficiaries.......................................................................... 19
12. Support to Applicants ................................................................................................... 20
13. Applicable Law.......................................................................................................... 20
14. Schedule ................................................................................................................. 20
15. RobotUnion Consortium & Committees ............................................................................... 20
15.1. Consortium .......................................................................................................... 20
15.2. Committees .............................................................................................................. 21

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1. Introduction
RobotUnion is the pan-European Robotics Acceleration program implemented by RobotUnion
Consortium (hereinafter RobotUnion), within Horizon2020 program, under Grant Agreement with EC
number 779967 dated 22/11/2017.
RobotUnion will select 20 Scaleups that will participate in the Acceleration program and could be
financed with up to €223,000 equity free in cash plus acceleration services. The 20 Scaleups selected
will receive €3,800 in cash equity free and services in the first phase. The 10 best of these Scaleups will
enter in the product acceleration program and will receive up to €120,000 in cash equity free. Finally
the 4 best Scaleups will receive up to €100,000, so in total they can receive up to €223,000 equity free
in cash plus services. Details of the program and rules for granting co-financing are described below.
This is an acceleration program in a funnel approach, 20 Scaleups start the journey and just 4 finish it.
The four best Scaleups will also have the possibility to be privately funded with around €1M with
the help of Blumorpho, Odense Seed and Venture and Chrysalix that are part of the RobotUnion
consortium.
Selected companies would be able to participate in a 12 months online Premium Acceleration Service,
led by top Research and Technology Organizations from all over Europe, key world class digital
ecosystem professionals and entrepreneurs, which will include:
1. State-of-the-art technical support and access to “premier-class” technology provided by
top Research and Technology Organizations like VTT, DTI, TU Delft, TECNALIA and PIAP.
2. World class Training and high level Mentoring by a pool of tier 1 mentors from Google,
Airbnb, Ikea, Yahoo, Prisa, Microsoft, among others, provided by ISDI.
3. Internationalization services. Presence in top EU Scaleups events such as 4YFN@Mobile
World Congress, Slush, Web Summit and International PR exposure powered by Mobile World
Capital.
4. Fundraising services provided by Blumorpho (private funding) and FundingBox (public
funding).
5. Engagement with world top industry leaders such as MADE representing world
Manufacturing leaders like Danfoss, Grundfos, Vestas or LEGO among others. ARLA in Agro
Food; FENIN in Healthcare and FERROVIAL in Civil Infrastructure.
RobotUnion is looking for Scaleups in the robotics sector. We will prioritize the following
verticals: Agrifood, Healthcare, Inspection and maintenance and Manufacturing, but we will accept any
project in the robotics arena.
First open call opens on April 17th 2018 and closes on July 3rd 2018

2. RobotUnion Open Call

This document summarizes the main characteristics of the first Open Call under the RobotUnion project,
that will be open from April 17th 2018 and with deadline on:

 July 3rd, 2018 at 13:00 CET.

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Please refer to the RobotUnion website for more information about the program and to the ‘Frequently
Asked Questions’ (FAQs) for further information. If you have any doubt you can contact our
helpdesk. You can apply here.

3. Eligibility Criteria
All applicants will have to abide to all the general requirements described in Sections from 3.1 to 3.8
below in order to be considered eligible for the RobotUnion acceleration programm.

3.1. Type of beneficiaries

The Open Call welcomes applications from: SMEs participating on their own, only one SME (see
Section 3.1.1).

Definition of SME
A SME will be considered as such if it complies with the Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC.
As a summary, the criteria which define a SME are:
• Headcount in Annual Work Unit (AWU) less than 250;
• Annual turnover less or equal to €50 million OR annual balance sheet total less or equal to €43
million.
Note that the figures of partner and linked enterprises should also be considered as stated in the SME
user guide. Scaleups are included in this category if they are incorporated.
The last criterion is reviewed once the company is selected to join the program, so, individuals can
apply if they establish the company once they are selected to join the acceleration program (and before
the acceleration program starts)

3.2. Eligible countries

Only SMEs legally established in any of the following countries (hereafter collectively identified as the
‘Eligible Countries’) will be eligible for the RobotUnion Acceleration Programme, more information of
the eligible countries here:
− The Member States of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden and United Kingdom.
− The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) linked to the Member States (Entities from Overseas
Countries and Territories (OCT) are eligible for funding under the same conditions as entities from the
Member States to which the OCT in question is linked): Anguilla, Aruba, Bermuda, Bonaire, British
Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curaçao, Falkland Islands, French Polynesia, Greenland, Montserrat,
New Caledonia, Pitcairn Islands, Saba, Saint Barthélémy, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Sint
Eustatius, Sint Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands, Wallis and Futuna.
− The Countries Associated to Horizon 2020 (signed an agreement with the Union as identified in Article
7 of the Horizon 2020 Regulation): the latest information on which countries are associated, or in the
process of association to Horizon 2020 can be found in the online manual.

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− The following countries, except where this is explicitly excluded in the call text: Afghanistan, Albania,
Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize,
Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia,
Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Congo
(Democratic People’s Republic), Congo (Republic), Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Djibouti,
Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia,
Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Buissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia,
Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Korea (Democratic Republic), Kosovo*,
Kyrgyz Republic, Lao, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Micronesia,
Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua,
Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Palestine, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines,
Rwanda, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands,
Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the
Grenadines, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-
Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu,
Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe. (* This designation is without prejudice to
positions on status and is in line with UNSCR 1244/99 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration
of independence).

3.3. Type of Activity

Robotics companies willing to develop novel and challenging technology and systems applicable to the
following markets:
 Manufacturing,
 Health,
 Civil Infrastructure
 Agrifood
 Open Disruptive Innovation - the companies that don’t fit in any of the other verticals can apply
to this one.
Proposals should address one of the core technology areas highlighted in section 5 of the “Robotics 2020
Multi-Annual Roadmap” document:
 Systems Development
 Human Robot Interaction
 Mechatronics
 Perception
 Navigation
 Cognition
 Artificial Intelligence

3.4. English Language

English is the official language for RobotUnion open calls. The proposal must be in English in all its
mandatory parts in order to be eligible. For videos, English should be used as spoken language, or at
least the video must be properly subtitled in English. If the mandatory parts of the proposal are in any
other language, the entire proposal will not be eligible. If only non-mandatory parts of a proposal are
submitted in a language different from English, those parts will not be evaluated but the proposal is still
eligible.

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English is also the only official language during the whole length of the acceleration process. This means
that any requested deliverables will be admitted only if submitted in English.

3.5. Multiple submissions are forbidden

Only one proposal per applicant can be submitted to RobotUnion in this open call. Applicants will be
asked to confirm that ’they are not submitting any other proposal to this same Open Call in the Honour
Declaration to be accepted before submitting the Application Form. If more than one proposal per
applicant is identified by the RobotUnion team, only the first proposal which has been submitted in
order of time, will be evaluated.

3.6. Submission system

Only proposals submitted through the Open Call management tool
[https://robotunion.fundingbox.com/] within the Call duration will be accepted. Proposals submitted by
any other means, will not be evaluated.
Only the documentation included in the application form (and in the attachments) will be considered by
the Evaluators. It is Applicant’s responsibility to include all the necessary information in the form.
Data provided should be actual, true and complete and should allow assessment of the proposal.

3.7. Deadline
Only proposals submitted before the deadline will be accepted. After the call closure no additions or
changes to received proposals will be taken into account.

3.8. Absence of conflict of interest

Applicants shall not have any actual or/and potential conflict of interest with the RobotUnion selection
process and during the whole acceleration program. All cases of conflict of interest will be assessed
case by case.

3.9. Other
Applicant is not under liquidation or is not an enterprise under difficulty Accordingly to the
Commission Regulation No 651/2014, art. 2.18,
Applicant’s Project is based on their original works and going forward any foreseen developments are
free from third party rights, or they are clearly stated
Applicant is not excluded from the possibility of obtaining EU funding under the provisions of both
national and EU law, or by a decision of both national or EU authority
Applicant confirmed all statements embodied in the Declaration of honour and also the
Information and Consent Sheets, included as annexes, considering the ethical issues that
might arise concerning the gathering of personal data, during the application process

4. RobotUnion project types

Whilst Section 3 lists the minimum criteria that a project must abide to in order to be eligible,
RobotUnion partners will aim to select the most ambitious projects that show the highest potential as
global businesses.

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The ideal type of project RobotUnion Consortium is looking for is disruptive and innovative, beyond
the state of the art and with a degree of differentiation with its competition. The ideal target projects
are looking for additional investment for scaling their business globally. Projects must be led by a
balanced and cross-functional team fully dedicated to the project with experience in the target market
and skills to make it happen.
All these elements are recommended, they are not mandatory. The more closely the projects match these
criteria, the more likely they will be selected. What is mandatory is fulfilling all the eligibility criteria
in section 3.

5. Preparation and submission of the proposals

The submission of proposals will be effected online through the FundingBox Platform
[https://robotunion.fundingbox.com/]

Proposals will be submitted in a one step process via the online application which will include:

1. Project proposal: divided in 5 main sections:

a. Contact and legal info.
b. Project.
c. Excellence.
d. Impact.
e. Implementation.
2. Questions for statistical purposes: additional multiple choice questions requested by the
European Commission for statistical purposes. This section will not be evaluated.
3. Honour declaration on exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest: accepted by the
SME or by the individuals being part of the project team.
Evaluators will be instructed not to consider additional material which hasn’t been included and
specifically requested in the online evaluation form. Data not included in the proposał will not be taken
into account.. RobotUnion makes it best effort to keep all provided data confidential, however, for the
avoidance of doubt, the applicant is solely responsible to indicate its confidential information as
such.
Applicants are strongly recommended not to wait until the last minute to submit the proposal. Failure of
the proposal to arrive in time for any reason, including extenuating circumstances, will result in rejection
of the proposal.
Applicants are solely responsible for verification of the completeness of the form. Data not included in
the form will not be taken into account during assessment regardless of the reason for not being included.

5.1. Deadline for submission of proposals

 July 3rd, 2018 at 13:00 CET.

6. Selection Process
The evaluation flow is as follows:

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Figure 1. Selection Process RobotUnion

Here you have available a video with some tips to be successful in the application process.

6.1. Phase 1: Eligibility Check

In order to be eligible for evaluation, applications will be checked for compliance with the following:
 Comply with all the ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA listed in Section 3.
Communication to participants: Specific communication will be sent to the applicants eliminated from
the process after the eligibility check. An individual communication will be sent to all participants
passing the eligibility check.

6.2. Phase 2: Pre-scoring

Eligible proposals will then be automatically scored by the FundingBox System according to the
following criteria:
 Team skills.
 Founders dedication to the project.
 Traction in terms of users, profit and sales.
 Scalability. Growth potential and knowledge of potential market.
 TRL (Technology Readiness Level)
 Investment. Amount of investment received, founders own equity and sources of money.
 On round: looking for money and investment for scaling the business.
 Partnership, having or in advanced stage of commitment with a corporate or any equivalent
strategic partner.
For each item different levels will be defined (See detail in the Application Form). Each applicant will
select the option that best describes the characteristics of its project in relation to each criterion. In total
you can get up to 100 points.
At least 150 of the top ranked applications will form the “Filtered List of Applicants” proposed for
expertsl evaluation. Each of the RobotUnion Selection Committee member (description in section 15)
has the right to sponsor up to 3 applicants into the Filtered List of Applicants, independently of their
pre-scoring (subject to having passed the eligibility check), where there is a clear strategic fit with the
Partner and the mentors network of RobotUnion. The partners cannot support applicants if there is any
conflict of interest. The names of sponsored projects will not be disclosed, either to applicants or to
external reviewers (see next phase). A maximum of 12 projects will be supported following this
procedure.
Output: Filtered List of Applicants.

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Communication to participants: Specific communication will be sent to the applicants eliminated from
the process after the pre-scoring. An individual communication will be sent to all participants passing
the pre-scoring with specifics on pre-scoring results.

6.3. Phase 3: Experts Evaluation

Proposals will be evaluated by 3 experts and confidential evaluators with wide expertise in Robotics.
The experts will be selected from the ‘Experts Panel Committee’, accordingly with the specific
characteristics of the project. The proposals will be evaluated on the following criteria:
 Excellence.
 Impact.
 Implementation.
More specifically:
(1) EXCELLENCE will evaluate:
 Ambition. The applicants have to demonstrate to what extent that proposed product is beyond
the State Of the Art and describe the innovative approach behind it (e.g. ground - breaking
objectives, novel concepts and approaches, new products, services or business and
organisational models).
 Innovation: applicants should provide information about the level of innovation within their
market and about the degree of differentiation that this experiment will bring.
(2) IMPACT will analyse:
 Market opportunity: The applicants have to demonstrate a clear idea of what they want to do
and whether the new/improved product has market potential, e.g. because it solves a problem
for a specific target customer.
 Competition: The applicants have to provide information about the degree of competition for
their particular product/service and if the idea is disruptive and breaks the market. i.e. the
products/services to be brought to market can be clearly differentiated from the competition.
 Commercial Strategy and Scalability: The applicants have to demonstrate the level of
scalability of the new/improved product meaning by that not address to solve a specific problem,
but able to be commercialised to solve a structural problem in a specific sector/process/etc.
And in general it has to contribute to revitalise Europe's robot-making capacity.
(3). IMPLEMENTATION will consider:
 Team: The promoters have to demonstrate their management and leadership qualities, their
ability to take a concept from ideas to market, their capacity to carry through their ideas and
understand the dynamics of the market they are trying to tap into. The team should be balanced,
a cross-functional team, fully dedicated to the project and with a strong background and skill
base.
 Resources. Demonstrate the quality and effectiveness of the resources assigned in order to get
the objectives/deliverables proposed. One important aspect is that applicants make clear in the
proposal that what they propose can be developed using the RobotUnion partners’ technical and
business solutions.
Transversal criteria such as ‘Environment and low carbon economy contribution’, ‘Equal
Opportunities’ and ‘Social Impact’ will be also considered by evaluators when scoring the proposals.

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Each evaluator will rank the application assigning a score from 0 to 5 for each criterion and produce an
Individual Evaluation Report. The final score will be calculated as the sum of the individual assessments
provided by the Evaluators after normalising in order to compensate for scoring bias.
The default threshold for individual criteria is 3. The default overall threshold, applying to the sum of
the three individual scores, is 10. And, the criterion Impact is given a weight of 1.5 to determine the
final ranking.
At least 50 of the top ranking proposals will be included in the “List of Pre-Selected Applicants” and
passed to the next phase. Ties will be solved using the following criteria, in order:
 Impact score,
 Team score,
 Date of submission: earlier submitted proposals go first.
Output: List of Pre-Selected Applicants.
Communication to participants: Individual online communication will be sent to all eliminated
proposals with information about their final score.

6.4. Phase 4: Consensus Meeting

The Short List of Pre-Selected Applicants proposals will pass to the Consensus Meeting. The Evaluation
Committee composed by the Steering Committee and at least 3 experts from the Experts panel will
decide the best proposals to be invited to the Jury Day Consensus meeting will be attended by Internal
Committee composed at least by the ‘Acceleration Manager’ of the CORE partners.
During the Consensus Meeting the ‘Internal Committee’ will decide the best proposals per vertical based
on the external evaluation results and taking into account the selection criteria specified below:
 Excellence.
 Impact.
 Implementation.
Transversal criteria: ‘Environment and low carbon economy contribution’, ‘Equal Opportunities’
and ‘Social Impact’ will be considered in the final decision for instance: in case of a tie, projects with
a female in the position of CEO, CFO or CTO will be prioritised to those without women or having
women but not in management positions.
During the Consensus Meeting the RobotUnion Evaluation Committee, by consensus, will have the
faculty to add up to 1 point (per proposal) to the average score of those proposals that show a significant
strategic fit with projects goals, and where RobotUnion partners believe they can add the most value
during the acceleration process. No more than a total of 10 points can be distributed in this way, among
all proposals. (Some applicants may be invited to an interview during the Consensus Meeting (by default
it will be a web interview) when necessary to acquire essential information to take an informed decision.
The partners cannot support applicants if there is any conflict of interest. After this step the final ranking
will be computed.
A list of at least 30 finalists (hereafter, the “Finalists”) will be invited to the final stage. The exact number
will be decided by consensus during the meeting.
Output: List of Finalists.

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Communication to participants: Individual online communication will be sent to all evaluated proposals.
Additional information about next steps will be also sent to the List of Finalists which will be asked to
send further information about their projects.

6.5. Phase 5: Jury Day

The Selection Committee, composed of members of the Steering Committee, the Investment Advisory
Board and the Industrial Advisory Board will undertake the final evaluation of the List of Finalists
during a Jury Day.
Finalists will have to travel to Spain or Poland to pitch face to face in front of the Jury.
The Selection Committee by consensus will select the “Provisional List of Beneficiaries” (up to
distributing all available grants). A “Reserve List” will be built out of the excluded applications. Formal
assignment of the grant is subject to the final formal verification and undersigning the Funding and
Acceleration Services Agreement (SGA). Beneficiaries who refuse to undersign the SGA or will not
fulfil formal requirements prior signing the SGA will be excluded, and substituted by the next in rank
in the Reserve List.
The applicants who undersign the SGA will be declared Beneficiaries of the 1st RobotUnion Open Call.
Output: Provisional List of Beneficiaries, and Reserve List.
Communication to participants: Individual online communication, a formal communication letter will
be sent to all proposals participating in this final step, with information on their inclusion in the
Provisional List of Beneficiaries or in the Reserve List.

7. Applicants Communication
The applicants will receive the communications after each step of the evaluation process indicating if
they passed the phase or not. A communication will be sent to applicants eliminated including the
reasons for the exclusion.

7.1. Appeal Procedure

If, at any stage of the evaluation process, an applicant considers that a mistake has been made or that the
Evaluators have acted unfairly or have failed to comply with the rules of RobotUnion Open Call, and
that her/his interests have been prejudiced as a result, the following appeal procedures are available.
A complaint should be drawn up in English and submitted by email to: info@robotunion.eu
Any complaint made should include:
 Contact details (including postal and e-mail address).
 The subject of the complaint.
 Information and evidence regarding the alleged breach.
Anonymous complaints will not be accepted.
Complaints should also be made within three (calendar) days of you becoming aware of the grounds for
a complaint.

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As a general rule, the RobotUnion Team will investigate complaints with a view to arriving at a decision
to issue a formal notice or to close the case within not more than seven days from the date of reception
of the complaint, provided that all required information has been submitted by the complainant.
Where this time limit is exceeded, the RobotUnion Team will inform the complainant by email.

8. Funding and Acceleration Services

Agreement Setup Process
The objective of this phase is to fulfil the legal requirements between the RobotUnion consortium
members and every beneficiary of the call. The SMEs included in the Provisional List of Beneficiaries
will have to provide all documentation required to prove their compliance with the Eligibility Criteria
described in Section 3 and with Horizon2020 rules.. More specifically, the following documentation
will have to be provided:
1. Status information of the beneficiaries:
i. Legal Entity form: signed and stamped.
ii. SMEs checklist: signed and stamped. Following a simplified version of the EC SMEs check list.
In the event they declare being non-autonomous: the balance sheet and profit and loss account (with
annexes) for the last period for upstream and downstream organizations.
iii. Financial information. It includes the headcount (AWU), balance, profit & loss accounts of the
latest closed financial year and the relation, upstream and downstream, of any linked or partner
company.
iv. Legal existence. Company Register, Official Journal or similar, showing the name of the
organisation, the legal address and registration number and, if applicable, a copy of a document
proving VAT registration (in case the VAT number does not show on the registration extract or its
equivalent).
v. In cases where either the number of employees or the ownership is not clearly identified: any
other supporting documents which demonstrate headcount and ownership such as payroll details,
annual reports, national regional, association records, etc.
vi. Confirmation of the establishment of the company – in case of natural persons
2. Confirming the following aspects included in the Honour declaration accepted by proposed
beneficiaries before submitting the Application Form:
i. Beneficiaries are not submitting any other proposal to this same Open Call (internal check), as
provided for in Section 3.5.
ii. Beneficiaries will not take part in another Acceleration Program while participating in the
RobotUnion Acceleration Program.
3. Bank account information: The account where the funds will be transferred shall be indicated
via a Financial Identification form signed by the SME and their bank. The account holder will have to
be the SME. Bank account should be denominated in EURO
All above mentioned documents should be provided in English (certified translation).

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The Provisional Beneficiaries have to provide all documentation required to prove their compliance with
the Eligibility Criteria.
All main listed proposals will be carefully verified by the ‘Ethical Committee’ to see if there are any
ethics issues raised in the proposal. If so, a ‘Ethics Summary Report’ will be produced, and specific
requirements will be included as deliverable (contractual obligation) in the ethics section of the SGA.
The implementation of ethics issues will be monitored during the entire project life cycle.
In case of any requirement/info requested is not provided by beneficiary within the time limit, this will
directly end the SGA setup process and projects inside the ‘Reserve List’ will substitute the failing
applicants.
The RobotUnion acceleration program is operating with payback conditions. It will be
introduced for supported companies based on the transactions generated with RobotUnion
support including fundraising and sales. These conditions will be fair and limited to a period of
time after the Acceleration Program support. They will be negotiated and modulated on a case
by case basis.
These conditions will be stated inside the Service Delivery Agreement, before the Acceleration
program actually starts.
The documentation will have to be provided within deadlines communicated when enlisted in the
“Provisional List of beneficiaries” (whether immediately or after the waiting list). In case the requested
information is not provided in time without significant, clear and reasonable justification, this will
directly end the ‘Funding and Acceleration Services Agreement’ setup process and projects inside the
‘Reserve List’ will substitute the failing applicants inside the “Provisional List of beneficiaries” in order
of ranking. Time for establishment of the company in eligible country cannot be extended under any
circumstances.
Once all these formalities are covered the Consortium (represented by its coordinator FundingBox) will
sign the ’RobotUnion Funding and Acceleration Services Agreement’ with the final beneficiaries.

9. RobotUnion Accelerator Package for

Beneficiaries
9.1. RobotUnion Acceleration program
The selected applicants will participate in an Acceleration Program of training and mentoring, with a
duration of 14 months. Beneficiaries will have to travel at the beginning of the feasibility study, the
product acceleration program and the live due diligence for face to face training.
The payments will be done in 4 instalments subject to achievement of certain milestones. Participants
will receive:
 20 beneficiaries up to € 3,800 equity free in cash to participate in the feasibility study phase.
 10 beneficiaries up to € 120,000 equity free on top of the above to be delivered in 3 instalments
(lump sum).
 4 beneficiaries up to €100,000 equity free on top of the above.

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 Services’ vouchers (Acceleration Suite) and perks. These services will include Technical
Mentoring and Training, Access to facilities, Business Mentoring and Training, access to private
and public investment and go to market and corporate brokerage.
Beneficiaries not qualified to the next stage of the acceleration might receive only part of the
grant corresponding to the completed stage.
The Robotics Acceleration Programme is articulated as a totally customised service, where high
level researchers and top business professionals are specifically selected to fit Scaleups needs and
guide them along the whole Program. Once selected, the Scaleups will go through an exhaustive
sequential filtering process. The following figure summarises the full program, from the Selection
Process, where the most promising 20 Scaleups will be selected to enter the 14 months Acceleration
Programme, till last stage where only the most 4 outstanding projects will reach.

20
10
8
4

Figure 2. Robotics Acceleration Program Stages

The Acceleration Suite or Robotisation acceleration program includes Four stages:

1. ‘Feasibility Plan’ will be a 2-months period where the Scaleups will define a Feasibility Plan
which will specify the technical and market potentiality of the Robotics solutions proposed.
Based on that Plan, the 10 more promising Scaleups will pass to the next Stage.
2. ‘Research & Product development’ which will last 12 months. The 6 last months of the
“Research & Product development” Stage will run in parallel with the 3rd stage and 4th stage.
3. ‘Live Due Diligence’ will be, a 3 months period focused in helping the 8 Pilots of this phase
in defining the Business Plan.
4. ‘Pre-seed round and corporate brokerage’’ will support the 4 Scaleups that reach this phase in
raising private funds and brokerage with corporates.
After this the Go to market phase will start where the companies will receive support for their
sustainability, by supporting them to raise private and public funds and market their pilots.
In each of the stages the companies will receive cash and services in form of vouchers, those vouchers
can be provided by partners or by external experts. In the table below we summarize the whole process.

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Table 1. Support per Scaleup

Projects not qualified to the next stage finish they participation in the acceleration program.

9.2 Selection criteria

The payments to the Scaleups will be done according to pass certain milestones. The ‘Review
Milestones’ will be applied in 2 steps as illustrated in following figure:

Figure 3. Criteria to pass the milestones

In the first step, the Technical/Business performance will be evaluated based on the KPIs and
Deliverables established at the beginning of each Stage by the ‘Mentoring Committee’. Pilots not
reaching the minimum KPIs or whose Deliverables are not validated by the ‘Mentoring Committee’
yet, because they are not mature enough, will not be candidates to upgrade to next stage. In the second
step, the ‘Selection Committee’’, will ratify final decision, based on the info provided by the
‘Mentoring Committee’.
The Scaleups which will not pass to following stage, will receive a detailed feedback and advices to
further develop their activities from RobotUnion Mentors and an ‘Alternative support service’ where
partners will continue giving them services in their business-as-usual. These advices and support
services from recognized experts will be an added-value for each company entering into Robotunion
process, even if they don’t reach the final stage.

9.3. Detailed description of the stages of the acceleration program

All benefits are further detailed in the following sections.
1st stage: Feasibility Study (€3,8K)
The projects selected will be invited to participate in a 2-days Welcome event in Delft or Odense, the
center of two of the most well-known robotics hubs in Europe, Robovalley and Odense Robotics. In
this camp RobotUnion will introduce to pilots the full programme support and the RobotUnion
resources available to support them and the projects will participate in a pitching session where they
will receive feedback from RobotUnion to improve their proposals.

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Projects will have two months to develop their feasibility plan, the 10 best projects will pass to the next
phase.
Projects not qualified to the next stage finish they participation in the acceleration program.
2nd stage: Product Acceleration (€120K)
The goal of this stage is to help the selected Scaleups to accelerate their product development by
providing a full provision of research and technology services.
Each Scaleup will be assigned a ‘Researcher-in-Residence [RiR]’ and will have access to the facilities
of the Research Organizations that are part of the Consortium: VTT, DTI, TU DELFT, TECNALIA and
PIAP.
 Research in Residence [RiR] will be a Ph.D or a Senior Researcher from one of the Research
organizations of RobotUnion, that is , with a wide background in Robotics and with an overall
vision of all the Technologies/abilities addressed, who will be allocated to a given Scaleup to
match its' needs with what is technologically feasible. This concept, partially inspired by the
Entrepreneur-in-Residence profile used in the Venture Capital industry and by LEAN-Start-up
Accelerators, will be the central point of the mentorship program from the Technical point of
view. The RiR will support the Scaleup in developing their product in Robotics domains which
can convert into customer value and market opportunity. The RiR will select, from the
consortium resources, those needed for the company according with the technical requirements
and specialities such as configurability, adaptability, motion planning, manipulation, decisional
autonomy, dependability, interaction, perception and cognitive ability.
 Access to facilities. Companies will have free access to the facilities of the Research
organizations in the consortium.
Additionally, a Technical Voucher will be implemented, just in case some Scaleups request additional
capabilities/facilities which are not available at consortium level. The RiR will support the Scaleup in
finding the most suitable provider according with its needs. The RiR profile coordinates, matches and
integrates all technological abilities present in RobotUnion during the whole Acceleration Program.
3rd stage: Live Due Diligence (€0K)
The objective of this stage is to validate the potential of the Scaleups selected, while passing through a
highly demanding process of training and mentoring that is designed to strictly validate their products,
business models and teams. It will be done by applying an ‘extended Lean Startup acceleration model’
adapted to the maturity level of the beneficiaries, composed of a full range of tailored services described
below. In order to properly monitor the Scaleups performance at this stage, an “Individual Mentoring
Plan” per Scaleup will be defined at the beginning of the Program. The services in this phase will be
articulated according with the project verticals
(1) Training Master Class Week– high quality one-week face to face training Programme .
(2) Online training – available for Scaleups to provide them a continuity of learning, specialised in
digital skills as it is one of the most demanded profile in Scaleups. The online training includes virtual
classes with well recognised professionals responsible for guiding each student in the acquisition and
implementation of the knowledge and skills that will make them experts in the topic of the course they
have enrolled.
(3) Mentoring - a totally customised service, where high level mentors and top professionals are
specifically selected to fit Scaleups needs and to help them to advance, from their current growth

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stage, to a higher one. It is the cornerstone of the acceleration Programme and one of its most vital
parts. . A 3x3 matrix approach is applied, where three complementary profiles are engaged in the process
of fostering the growth of each Scaleups.
(4) Perks –access to the PERKS package offered by RobotUnion including Technical services,
Marketing services, Legal services, Talent Recruitment among others. All perks are coming from top
digital brands such as:

(5) Project Monitoring

A ‘Project Review Meeting’ will be done at the end of the 3 months, in order to validate the project
performance and to approve the next payment. The Review Meeting will be applied in 3 steps to better
understand the Scaleup performance and progress.
The projects passing the threshold established, will have successfully pass the ‘Live Due Diligence’.
Therefore they will pass to the next phase of the acceleration Programme and will receive the
corresponding tranche of money.
4th Stage: Pre-Seed Round (€100K)
The main goal of this phase is to support the 4 Best-in-Class Scaleups in raising additional funds. The
specific goals are:
 To support the Scaleups in close an extended private investment with the support of Blumorpho
and the investors in the project Chrysalix and Odense Seed & Ventures.
 To Identify the public funding available to support those companies.
 Proof of Concept in market conditions of the products developed in previous phases.
 To connect Scaleups with Corporates and supporting them in closing Partnership Agreement
Each Scaleup will be assigned a fundraising Mentor that will act as the link of the Scaleups with
Corporates and VCs’, within the consortium and outside of it, coordinating the ‘Follow on investment’
for the Scaleups and the ‘fast-track access to Corporates and Large Industries’ as part of the
sustainability approach implemented by the project for the Scaleups.

Additionally, the Scaleups will participate in 4 networking events along the process.

 The first one will be during the Jury Day, where all selected Scaleups will be invited to pitch their
project (see as reference the Jury Days Video organized by FundingBox/ISDI in IMPACT
Acceleration Programme).
 The second one, the Welcome Event, will be at the beginning of the Robotics Acceleration Program,
to allocate the mentors to Scaleups, to introduce themselves and get to know each other and the
mentors and to properly explain the resources available and the procedure to follow within the
program.
 The 3rd one will be the ‘Training Master Class week’ at the beginning of the ‘Live Due Diligence
Stage’. It’s 5- days of live classes taught by a variety of high-level professionals from companies
such as Airbnb, Google, Yahoo! and ING Direct (See as reference ‘Master Calls’ organized by ISDI
in IMPACT).

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 And finally, an Investors’ Day will be organised at the end of 4th stage by ODENSE who has wide
experience in organising successful Investors Days for their companies such as: Business Angels
Denmark Annual Meeting with more than 200 Business Angels (As ref. in 2016 the Company
TriVision got in contact with the right investor and closed the deal of €1M approx. 3 months later);
Odense Investor Summit which in 2016 gathered 45 Robotic Investors (The Company MultiTower
closed a deal of €1M approx. 3 months later). WHINN Pitch-fire gathering Scaleups with focus on
robotics in health tech and VIP Tech at Tinderbox a selected event which gathers 3-5 international
VC’s in combination with the most important national Robotic Business Angels, presenting them
the most outstanding 1 to 3 Robotic investor pitches.

10. Obligations of Beneficiaries

Each selected Beneficiary will sign the ’RobotUnion Funding and Acceleration Service Agreement’
(SGA with the Consortium (as indicated in Section 8). The funds, up to the €223,000, awarded under
the SGA are provided directly from the funds of the European Project RobotUnion, and are therefore,
funds owned by the European Commission: Management of the RobotUnion funds has been transferred
to the project partners in RobotUnion via a European Commission Grant Agreement Number 779967.
The ’RobotUnion Funding and Acceleration Service Agreement’ will include a set of obligations the
Beneficiaries have towards the European Commission and RobotUnion consortium partners. It is the
task of the Beneficiaries to satisfy these obligations and of the RobotUnion consortium partners to
inform the beneficiaries about them.

11. Intellectual property rights

11.1. Originality of the sub-granted projects
The applicants base their proposals on original works and going forward any foreseen developments are
free from third party rights, or they are clearly stated.
The RobotUnion consortium is not obliged to verify the authenticity of the ownership of the future
products and services and any issues arising from third party claims regarding ownership are the solely
responsibility of the sub-granted parties.

11.2. Ownership of the sub-granted projects results

The ownership of all IPR created by the Beneficiaries, via the RobotUnion funding, will remain with
the beneficiaries, although SGA might introduce provisions concerning joint ownership of the results of
the sub-granted projects. It will be assessed and negotiated case by case.

11.3. IPR and obligations of the Beneficiaries

There are no IPR obligations toward the European Commission (EC). Yet, any communication or
publication of the Beneficiaries shall clearly indicate that the project has received funding from the
European Union and the RobotUnion acceleration program, therefore displaying the EU and
RobotUnion logo on all printed and digital material, including websites and press releases. Moreover,
Beneficiaries will agree that certain information regarding the projects selected for funding, can be used
by RobotUnion for communication purposes.

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12. Support to Applicants

For more information about the RobotUnion Open Call, please, check the FAQ section included in
IMPACT website http://robotunion.fundingbox.com.
For further information on the call or if you have any doubts relating to the eligibility rules or the
information that is to be provided in the Application Form, please contact the Helpdesk. If you
encounter technical issues or problems with the Application Form, you can also contact the Helpdesk.

13. Applicable Law

Any matters not covered by this Regulations will be governed by Polish law, in particular the provisions
of the Polish Civil Code and the law of the European Union.

14. Schedule
In the table below are included the approximate dates in which each of the evaluation phases will end
and the number of applicants that go through to the next phase:

Approximate Pass to the next

Phase Description Time
Date phase
Phase 1 &
Eligibility & Prescoring 1 week 09/07/2018 100+
2
Phase 3 Experts Evaluation 6 weeks 12/08/2018 50+
Phase 4 Consensus Meeting 1 day 13/08/2018
Evaluation
30+
Finalist communication 1 day 22/08/2018

12/09/2019
Phase 5 Jury Day 2 days 20
13/09/2019
Phase 1 Feasibility Study 2 months Nov 2018 10
12
Phase 2 Product Acceleration Jan 2019 8
months
Acceleration
Phase 3 Live Due diligence 3 months Sep 2019 4
Pre seed Investment and Corporate
Phase 4 3 months Dec 2019
Brokerage

15. RobotUnion Consortium & Committees

15.1. Consortium
The RobotUnion consortium is composed by 14 partners from 7 European countries (Denmark, Finland,
France, Poland, Spain and Netherlands) and Canada. RobotUnion gathers a constellation of Top players
representing all the links of the innovation value chain from Research to Market.

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Market Outreach: Mobile World Capital -the biggest mobile & digital centric event on the planet and
most influential event for Scaleups.
Open Call management: FundingBox -the European leader in managing open calls and Financial
Support to Third Parties (FSTP).
Research and technological Services: A network of 5 "premier-class" Research and Technology
Organizations specialized in Robotics across Europe, which will act as technology facilitators. VTT
(FI), DTI (DK), TU DELFT (NL), TECNALIA (SP) and PIAP (PL).
Business Acceleration: ISDI, part of the sponsored EC Acceleration programmes IMPACT, IMPACT
GROWTH, and IMPACT Connected Car, and recognised as one of the best delocalised acceleration
models in Europe .
Investment: RobotUnion counts on CHRYSALIX, Vancouver clean-tech venture capital firm that has
recently created a €100 million venture capital fund to help kickstart the fledgling robot space; and
ODENSE SEED & VENTURES , instrumental to the 100 million euros invested in 18 robotic
companies in 2016. Furthermore, Bluemorpho, that has a large network of VCs, will drive the last mile
to turn innovative technologies into successful business.
Market take up: global corporations with EU headquarters will lead each vertical domain: MADE -the
Danish manufacturing Cluster representing world leaders like Danfoss or LEGO among other- in
manufacturing
ARLA Foods -an international cooperative based out of Denmark and the largest producer of dairy
products in Scandinavia, which is also a member of MADE- in Agri-Food.
FENIN -a multi-sector federation that groups companies and associations of healthcare technologies and
products gathering more than 80% of the total sales to the Spanish Health Technology market- in
Healthcare.
FERROVIAL -the world's leading infrastructure operator for municipal services- in Civil
Infrastructure.

15.2. Committees
Selection Committee
Role: Committee responsible of selecting the best proposals in each Open Call and the best ones to
upgrade to next phase in filtering milestones.
Composition: It will be coordinated by FBA, as partner responsible of Open Call Management, and
will be composed by SC and the members of the ‘Investment Advisory Board’ and ‘Investment
Advisory Board’. The members of the “Advisory Board’ will have voice but no vote.
Evaluation Committee
Role: This Committee will be in charge of evaluating the proposals in each Open Call
Composition: It will be coordinated by FBA, as partner responsible of Open Call Management, and
will be composed by SC and at least 3 experts from ‘Expert Panel Committee’

Investment Advisory Board

Role: This board aims to advise Project Partners in the selection process taking into account the criteria
applied by the Venture Capital industry. In particular, the IAB will monitor the progress of the private
investments in the Best-in-class Scaleups and may suggest corrective actions to the SC in order to
improve the results gotten. For sake of independence, InvAB members cannot be personally involved

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in any Scaleup applying to RobotUnion Open Calls. There will be virtual meetings before each Open
Call and one at the end of the project to generate recommendations for possible follow-up projects and
optimal sustainability.
Composition: This Board will be composed of independent board-level experts in Venture Capital
Industries related to Robotics. Renaud Champion, as expressed in LoI attached in Annex 1, has shown
his interest in acting as Chairman of this Board

Industrial Advisory Board

Role: The purpose of this Board is to advise project partners on the project challenges and the long-
term strategies from a wide industrial viewpoint. It will participate in the definition of the Challenges,
in the Evaluation Process (if needed) and as part of the Selection Committee, with voice but no vote.
There will be a ‘virtual’ IAC meeting before launching each Open Call and one at the end of the project
to discuss about the overall success of the action and generate recommendations for possible
improvements regarding project sustainability.
Composition: This Board will be integrated by independent board-level experts in Large Industries
related to Vertical addressed. MADE will coordinate this Committee.

Experts Panel Committee

Role: The panel is composed of a group of experts who have understanding of both market and technical
problems. The panel members will be selected primarily from consortium staff plus invited experts
coming from external collaborators. This committee will be set up at the beginning of the project to
undertake specific tasks such as evaluation of Pilots (both for selection and for filtering milestones) as
described in WP3, 4 and 5.
Coordinator: VTT, as Technical Coordinator, will lead this Committee.

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