FABulous Announces Open Call for 5.4 Million Euro 3D Printing Challenge for European Entrepreneurs and SMEs

Heads up, business minded European entrepreneurs and makers! Opportunities and funds are available if you’ve got the drive, talent, and potential services and goods for an online 3D printing business venture.

An open call has just been announced for an exciting competition and program being directed by FABulous, the Future Internet Business Acceleration Programme for 3D Printing Services. Project ideas are to be submitted for the following areas of challenge:

• Crowd-sourced and Cloud-based Design & Services for 3D Printing
• Mobile Apps and Services for 3D Printing
• Manufacturing & Logistics Tools and Services
• Advance Content Management Related to 3D Printing

If you are a small to medium enterprise (SME) or entrepreneur with a unique and sustainable idea for an online business or service involving 3D printing, you may want to answer this open call, which has just been launched and runs through December 18, 2014. This is not only a great way to receive funds for your project, but it’s also a great way to test out your project idea, whether you are funded or not.

With their particular focus being in cultivating European 3D printing entrepreneurs, FABulous is one of the 16 accelerators within the FIWARE Accelerate of the European Commission. In offering this opportunity to the SMEs and entrepreneurs of Europe, The FIWARE Accelerate Programme hopes to offer a defining life and career opportunity for those who are part of the three-tiered competition. They use the word ‘entrepreneur’ broadly, hoping to reach a wide scope of creative, ambitious makers and innovators.

As one of the 16 accelerators in the program, FABulous has a designated budget of 5.4 million Euros, which is designated for cultivating the ideas of European SMEs and entrepreneurs who are involved in businesses using 3D printing. The funds will be used to help them shape their business ideas and make firm business plans to provide new services through ‘the future internet.’

Creative team from FIWARE Accelerate Programme brainstorming on a project.

The competition is truly for those serious about their ideas, with dedication to a long-term project, as it is an 18-month commitment which continues through 2016. The three tiers of the competition work as follows:

1. Your first step is to answer the open call, and should you decide to do so, you have until December 18^th. One hundred applicants will be accepted for the first phase of four months. These applicants are the initial group, which will be pared down in each phase. In the first four months, these initial applicants will begin their proposed internet services.
2. In a longer phase, spanning from July 2015 to February 2016, only 30 of the projects will receive 60.000€ to turn their ideas into true commercial applications.
3. The final phase will involve and include only the last and the best of the applicants from March to August 2016, with only the 10 best projects, which will receive an economic support of 40.000€ to position themselves as 3D printing online businesses.

If  you are a European entrepreneur or have an SME and are interested in applying for this competition and program, click here for more information. Have you participated in any 3D challenges, or if you are in Europe, are you planning to apply for this one? Tell us about it in the FABulous Announces Open Call forum thread at 3DPB.com.

Within The FIWARE Accelerate Programme, FABulous is working with up and comers to design a service ecosystem for 3D printing technologies in the field of design, manufacturing, logistic and content-based services.