Access to finance
Find the right funding to move your innovation forward
At BlueChem, we help start-ups and scale-ups navigate the funding landscape, strengthen their investment readiness and connect with relevant investors, funding programmes and financial partners. Whether you are investing in lab infrastructure or scaling towards industrial application, our ecosystem helps you take the next step.
BlueChem Kickstart fund
Setting up a laboratory requires a significant upfront investment. Sustainable chemistry start-ups renting a customisable lab at BlueChem BASE or PORT can apply for the BlueChem Kickstart Fund, provided by the City of Antwerp. The fund can subsidise up to 80% of investments in laboratory equipment.
This allows young companies to build a lab tailored to their technology while preserving more capital for research, recruitment and business development.
VITO4Starters
VITO4STARTERS goes beyond a traditional accelerator program. This support programme of VITO guides ambitious deep-tech entrepreneurs through a tailored 12- to 24-month journey that brings together funding, technological expertise and business guidance.
Selected start-ups can receive up to €200,000 in seed funding together with up to €200,000 in technological support. Through the technological support, startups benefit from co-creation with VITO’s technology experts, access to word class infrastructure and a topic specific ecosystem of industrial partners.
In addition, VITO4STARTERS provides access to a strong network of investors, strategic advice and fellow innovators within and beyond VITO, helping start-ups strengthen their technology, grow their business and accelerate their path to market.
Catalisti
As Flanders’ spearhead cluster for chemistry and plastics, Catalisti supports collaborative innovation across the chemical value chain. Catalisti helps companies identify relevant funding calls, build strong project consortia and develop innovation projects together with industrial and research partners. For sustainable chemistry start-ups and scale-ups, this creates opportunities to access public innovation funding while connecting their technology to real market and industry needs.