U.Porto spin-off selected for EU accelerator programme

Over the next six months, BEAT Therapeutics, a spin-off company from the University of Porto currently incubated at UPTEC, will embark on a journey with nine other tech startups in the Ready2Scale Acceleration Programme. Funded by the European Union, this programme aims to promote collaboration between innovation ecosystems.

The six-month initiative is designed to support digital and deep tech startups in their international expansion.  Participating companies will have access to €60,000 in funding, as well as international experts and mentors, external missions to explore the market, along with many other advantages.

"We were looking for programmes that could contribute to our growth strategy and we applied to Ready2Scale because it is clearly aligned with our current stage of development," says Ângela Carvalho, CEO of BEAT Therapeutics.

Founded by researchers from various faculties and research centres in the U.Porto ecosystem, BEAT Therapeutics is a biotechnology start-up dedicated to developing innovative therapies for the treatment of aggressive cancers. Focussed on anti-cancer agents that act on DNA repair, the company seeks to drive advances in oncology research and provide highly effective and safe therapies with a significant impact on patients' quality of life.

For BEAT, Ready2Scale is a programme with several advantages, three of which are essential: ‘funding, partnerships to accelerate the development of technology and access to a network of specialised mentors and actions focused on strategies for attracting funding,’ they say. The focus will then be on participating in missions to discover new markets.