The European Union is supporting the extension of the Digital Innovation and Scale-up Initiative (DISC) to the Eastern partner countries, in line with the Eastern Partnership policy beyond 2020, assisting digital start-ups and SMEs to improve their access to finance, better reach into EU markets, and strengthen links with EU innovation ecosystems.

In order to achieve this, the EU4Digital Facility has launched a new activity on ‘Market assessment for the Digital Innovation and Scale-up Initiative (DISC study) in the Eastern partner countries’. The assessment will carry out a market analysis on the investment landscape for digital / high-tech innovative start-ups in the Eastern partner countries. 

The activity was inspired by the Digital Innovation and Scale-up initiative (DISC) in the Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe region, which aims to address the investment gap in digital innovations and to support the scale-up of digital start-ups in the region. 

Based on this approach, the European Commission aims to measure the need and possibilities for the implementation of a similar initiative in the Eastern partner countries. The Market Assessment will support the European Commission in understanding the investment gap and will serve as a basis for considering a DISC-like initiative for the Eastern Partnership. 

EU4Digital’s DISC study in the Eastern partner countries will specifically focus on the following activities: 

• Identify the existing market gaps. 
• Provide an overview of the main private venture capital funds’ investments. 
• Provide an overview of the main public sector investment programmes. 
• Provide an overview of the main market data on existing market failure in terms of investments. 
• Provide recommendations on how to enhance access to finance for digital / high-tech start-ups. 
• Provide recommendations on the use of financial instruments to better support the growth and scale-up of digital / high-tech start-ups in the region. 

The DISC study in the Eastern partner countries will be conducted based on the analysis of existing data resources and field research data collected during interviews with the key market stakeholder groups and will be validated during country consultations. The target date for completion of the study is summer 2020.

More information: Launch of DISC