SmiLe Venture Hub- non profit partner for innovation and commercialization support

SmiLe’s interest in ESCALA is driven by the ambition to contribute at EU level as a top-tier venture builder within deep tech, with a clear and long-standing focus on life science and food science. ESCALA offers a unique platform for network expansion, competence development, benchmarking, and structured peer learning among leading European hubs active in science-based and capital-intensive innovation.

Through participation, SmiLe aims to both contribute and gain: developing and refining methods, tools, and operational models for venture execution, scaling, and investment readiness, while exchanging proven practices and lessons learned from supporting ventures operating in complex environments. New collaborations across regions and ecosystems are a key motivation, particularly where they enable cross-border pilots, access to infrastructure, and capital mobilisation.

While SmiLe’s core experience is rooted in life science and food science, the methodologies, execution models, and investment frameworks contributed are designed to be transferable across deep-tech domains, supporting broader EU innovation capacity and long-term competitiveness.