Several Companies Awarded Funding

GCE Ocean Technology has assisted several member companies in securing external project funding.

This article was first published 3 July 2020.

Innovation Norway and the Research Council of Norway announced several billions in additional funding to support innovation to counteract the effects of Covid-19.

GCE Ocean Technology held a successful webinar series in April about these various funding opportunities. Following this, we have assisted several companies in securing public funding.

Fostering Growth in the Cluster

ConditionALL and SmartFeatures are two of the start-up companies in the cluster who have recently received grants for commercialisation.

ConditionALL is specialising on cloud-based condition monitoring of valves.

– Our employees have extensive experience from the industry, but limited experience with public funding possibilities. It has been very useful to be part of a cluster when starting up for ourselves. The support provided by

GCE Ocean Technology has been very valuable for us and we will continue to use this in new cases we are currently investigating, says Carl Andre Olsen, Chief Information Officer at ConditionALL.

SmartFeatures has in addition to receiving a grant for commercialisation received funding from RFF (Regionale Forskningsfond).

– It has been very useful to get tips and insight from GCE Ocean Technology. As a start-up, we have limited capacity and experience securing public funding, says Torolf Wedberg, founder and CEO of SmartFeatures.

Pro Well Plan has received pre-project funding from Innovation Norway to mature the concept for a new module in their software solution for well planning and design.

Pro Well Plan is currently expanding into the US and UK markets, and has now moved out of the incubator at Marineholmen.

- The pre-project will be performed together with a company we met in the incubator, says Torgeir Lassen CFO at Pro Well Plan. The cluster has proven a valuable arena for networking, knowledge sharing and getting access to competence, Torgeir finishes.

Many Tools Available

GCE Ocean Technology provides free financial and professional support and advice for our partners and members, to establish externally funded RDI projects.

Earlier this year we supported Eelume, IOR Norway and ProAnalysis with pre-project funding.

This has already resulted in more funding too two of the companies, while all three are working to establish larger research, development and innovation projects.

A wide variety of funding schemes are available, and GCE Ocean technology is assisting the companies in finding and applying for the best fit.

An important focus for our work and assistant is matching the right funding for the right project. In the last few months we have assisted companies in applying close to ten different programmers.

There is no “silver bullet”; programmes and companies are different. Moreover, different funding is relevant at different phases in the development of a solution and a company.

Public funding possibilities are highly attractive to many companies and the interest to get assistance has been very high following Covid-19.

In Mai, the cluster held a webinar series with five modules about capital and investors. Public funding will typically reduce the need for investing own money or attracting external investors.

Please get in touch if you like assistance to realise your projects and business plans.

Learn how you can become a member of GCE Ocean Technology.