Maltese company wins regional prize in the PowerUp! Competition

During the regional final of the PowerUp! by InnoEnergy Competition, the jury has selected the best Maltese start-up working on energy-related innovations: FLASC - Integrating Offshore Energy Storage.

Nearly 160 start-ups from 23 countries of Central Europe participated in the third edition of the Competition organised by InnoEnergy – the biggest European accelerator in the cleantech industry. The regional final held in Greece, similarly to the 11 remaining regional finals (that took place in Hungary, Croatia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Estonia, etc.), was preceded by intense bootcamps. The participants had an opportunity of verifying business models and improving their presentation skills.

During the regional final, the best Maltese start-up presented its innovative solutions to the jury, investors and media representatives.

“Taking part in the PowerUp! by InnoEnergy Competition was a fantastic experience and we were proud to be the only Maltese team in the regional final – up against seven Greek teams,” says Daniel Buhagiar, from winning team FLASC of the University of Malta. “We enjoyed the process and gained a lot of insight from the experts at the Bootcamp, who guided us on our presentation.

“We hope that our patented technology, an integrated energy storage system that allows offshore renewables to better meet their energy demands, will be licensed out in the near future. Before then, we are looking forward to taking part in the Budapest final and to hopefully working with InnoEnergy again in the future. In the meantime, we are grateful to the Malta Council for Science and Technology for our funding, and to our industrial partners Medserv plc.”

The participants were assessed not only in terms of the professional content but also in the context of business awareness and the potential of the team and product. The jury was composed of: • Spyros Arsenis, coordinator of the NBG Business Seeds program of the National Bank of Greece • Konstantinos Kokkinoplitis, Founder of RISE Research & Innovation Strategy Experts and SevenSigma PC • Grigoris Giovanov, Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and former Deputy Rector of Athens Information Technology (AIT) • Michał Kraszewski (Chairman of the jury), InnoEnergy’s Business Creation Manager On 22 November FLASC - Integrating Offshore Energy Storage will face the winners of other regional editions of the Competition at RaM Colosseum in Budapest, where it will compete for financial prizes (€20,000 for winning first place) as well as participation in the prestigious Highway accelerator, that helps in transforming start-ups at an early development stage into successful businesses.