EIT Crisis Response: €2.7M awarded to 6 Israeli companies

Scroll down to find out more about how their fascinating technology is helping to create a healthy, green and digital recovery.

As part of the EU’s efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology is proud to announce the EIT Crisis Response Initiative results: EUR 60 million awarded to 207 ground breaking innovation projects and ventures from 32 countries, including Israel. The selected innovations provide immediate solutions within the EIT’s key focus areas, from health and digitisation to food and urban mobility, to meet the wide array of challenges posed by the crisis.

The EIT Crisis Response Initiative had two main tracks of activity :

• Pandemic Response Projects : New solutions are needed more than ever to tackle the crisis and increase Europe’s resilience to future threats. The EIT ecosystem is mobilising innovators in business, education and research to tackle the impact of the crisis in terms of the immediate health concerns as well as the wider response needed. The additional financing is ensuring relevant innovation projects are launched.
• Venture Support Instrument : start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs have been significantly affected by the crisis, with investment drying up and cash flow issues emerging since the beginning of the pandemic. Additional EIT support and financing is now helping highly innovative ventures weather the crisis and accelerate their post-crisis growth.

We are proud to announce that 6 Israeli companies and organizations have been selected through the EIT Crisis Response Initiative, as follows:

Pandemic Response Projects

• Algaennovation (Selected by EIT Food KIC, € 615.9K)
  Partnered with MATIS from Iceland on project CovidX, whose goal is to bring to market a food supplement based on a novel Spirulina-extract, providing a natural shield to population at high risk, such as older adults and people of any age with underlying medical conditions or people with high exposure potential. 
• Wasteless (Selected by EIT Food KIC, € 702.5K)
  Partnered with NX-Food from Germany on project FRIENDS Reduce Food Waste, whose goal is to implement the usage of dynamic pricing technology to reduce food waste by up to 40%, ensure smoother supply of perishable goods and bring fairer prices to consumers in 40 branches of a German supermarket chain.
• Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Selected by EIT Health KIC)
  Responsible for developing project Cheap and Superior Long-Lasting Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Bleaching Polymers. The project’s laboratory develops a rapid synthesis of antiviral polymer-disinfectants, possessing antiviral functionalities. These can then be used in different surfaces, and are anticipated to exhibit long-term bleach effects for months.

Venture Support Instrument

• Phytolon (Selected by EIT Food KIC, €393.6K) Phytolon uses an environmentally friendly fermentation-based technology to produce natural food colours that are GMO-free, high-quality and sustainable.

• Agritask (Selected by EIT Food KIC, €500K) AgriTask helps farmers and agribusiness consolidate agri data and make better decisions, to better manage the farm operation from A to Z, with validation in 30+ countries and 50+ crops.

• HT Bioimaging (Selected by EIT Health KIC, up to €500,000). Employs an innovative system to measure heat diffusion in biological tissues to enable early detection of cancer in a non-invasive and real-time procedure at the point of care.

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