Katapult
The acceleration program Katapult is a technological development and innovation support mechanism intended for startups in the early stages of development and market positioning (Ideation) and startups with proven market traction (Scale-up) that aim to accelerate their growth and secure private external investments.
Mentoring program
Katapult consists of an intensive three-month mentoring program and financial support. The training is organized through mentoring by domestic and international experts, successful startup founders and investors. Depending on the needs, training and mentoring include typical areas of business development such as business model development, go-to-market strategy, business internationalization, defining product-market-fit, sales increase, marketing, investment readiness, pitch preparation and similar.
Financial support
All Katapult beneficiaries have up to 36 million dinars available through:
- At-entry grant from 2.400.000 to 6.000.000 RSD, depending on the stage of development, i.e. acceleration stream upon entry into the mentoring program;
- Co-Investment Grant equal to a qualifying secured private investment of up to 36 million dinars per startup (reduced for the amount of the At-Entry Grant received). Program beneficiaries can apply for this grant after completing the three-month mentoring program, and up to the end of one year from the official start of the program. This grant can be utilized over a period of 12 months.
Conditions for application:
- The Applicant is an active micro or small company registered in Serbia (at least 80% privately owned) as limited liability company (in Serbian d.o.o.), with the majority of the team residing in Serbia (meet conditions for being residents for tax purposes).
- Be at least 1 year and less than 10 years old at the time of submitting the application;
- The Applicant must be majority owned (>50%) by the founding team of entrepreneurs.
- Remain under the 1 million EUR lifetime cap of received funding from the IF across all programs and including this one. This applies directly or indirectly to all legally related/affiliated entities to the applicant’s entity.
- The Applicant or its affiliated entity must not be listed on the stock exchange.
- The Applicant or its affiliated entity must not have generated revenues over €8,000,000 in any of the prior two years.
- The Applicant or its affiliated entity is not involved in any other IF program at the time of application - whether the involvement concerns a submitted, under evaluation, approved, or ongoing project/contract (excluding Voucher schemes).
- Companies that have been awarded funding by the IF and are completing their projects implementation by the end of the year in which the public call for the Katapult acceleration program is published are eligible to apply, unless such a program creates a direct conflict of interest (e.g. general partners in a VC that is financed by the IF under any of the Serbia Ventures programs may not be part of the company that also hold a Katapult grant).
- No founder of the Applicant controls a company with an ongoing IF project or controls multiple companies applying under IF programs.
- The Applicant has not applied more than twice with substantially same application.
Industry/sector: Katapult is open to all innovative companies, with an emphasis on the areas defined in the Smart Specialization Strategy of Serbia.
Required documentation: The complete set of the necessary documentation is available on the Innovation Fund’s website.
Applications: submitted via the Katapult portal
Public call: Open
Contact: katapult@inovacionifond.rs
Web page: Katapult program
Financing for the Katapult Program is provided by the Republic of Serbia (from the budget of the Republic of Serbia through the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation), through a World Bank loan with implementation support, and the European Union, through a grant contribution. The program is part of the "Serbia Accelerating Innovation and Growth Entrepreneurship Project," dedicated to strengthening innovative entrepreneurship and scientific research.