Making the hype happen

Government grants for blockchain projects

 

It’s almost like every entrepreneur is already developing a unique blockchain application. Our clients are contacting us more and more with their blockchain ideas. We ourselves are often found at conferences, like Blockchain Innovatie Conference #BIC18  and the Blockchain Expo in Amsterdam. However, all of us wonder how many blockchain projects are actually going to be succesfull. And how do you secure grants and funding for a blockchain innovation?

The buzzword of the moment #blockchain. There are over 80.000 projects launched worldwide, however we’ve also heard about the failure percentage of blockchain startups (over 90%).  This doens’t mean it isn’t an interesting or relevant technology. Development in this field goes rapidly and new projects and crypto’s are still being launched every day. There are still many clever brains out there who have innovative, helpful and even disruptive ideas on how blockchain technology can improve our ways of doing transactions.

How can we fund these, and perhaps your projects, that will be beneficial for our society?

Technological challenges

The technology that is blockchain is relatively young and was first properly introduced in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. By now, we’ve passed the early adopter phase as a wider public is now very much fascinated by it. This means that more and more users are becoming active on blockchainplatform and applications, leading to an (over)load. Technical challenges arise regarding scalability and transactional speed, but also when it comes to integration into existing systems. Furthermore there is a discussion about mining and how it is done. The more computational power is required to add a block to the chain, the more energy consuming it is going to be. This goes against the worldwide ambition to become energy saving. Additionally, new applications of the technology brings about new hickups and challenges. Thus, the blockchain technology still has some hurdles to overcome untill it’s fully integrated in our daily ways of doing business.

Business challenges

The hype around blockchain has resulted in a wide variety of project in which products and goods were ‘put in the blockchain’. As stated, over 90 percent of the blockchain projects fail. This is not only due to technological issues, but also because of a lack of a solid businesscase. The technology is used because of the hype and not because it is actually the best technical solutions. Or even worse, people look for problem for which blockchain could be a solution. It is highly important to have a solid understanding of how blockchain technology could solve the certain pressing issue society deals with. Additionally, you should also be able to monitize an innovation. A businesscase is thus very important.

Market oriented projects with a solid businesscase have a higher chance of being publicly or privately funded.

Funding

Innovation comes with risks and for that funding is needed. In Europe and the Netherlands, we know that innovation is key to push our economy forward. Hence, both our national and our European government fund innovative projects. Since 2013 the EC has been funding blockchain projects through their programmes (FP7 and Horizon 2020). In the  years up to 2020, it is investing another € 340 million in projects that could draw on blockchain technology.  The Netherlands also has several funding schemes that stimulate innovative projects that incorporate new technologies like blockchain. From the first industrial research to experimental development (PoC’s and MVP’s) to testing new products in an operational environment, all these phases can be subsidized. These grants are not a loan or an investment and they do not require any coins or shares in the (future) company like an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) would.

Want to apply for your blockchain project as well?

Currently we are working on grant proposals of several blockchain projects for the Dutch SME grant called MIT. We are also highly experienced with European funding schemes. Are you interested in finding out how we can help secure a government grant for your project? Feel free to contact us to discuss your grant options. It goes without saying that we treat your information in a confidential matter.

For more information about blockchain technology: read this article on Bitcoin and Blockchain.