ACT Venture Capital
Dublin, Ireland · AcceleratorFounded 1994. Multi-stage investor in ICT and healthcare with a long track record in Irish technology.
Filter the directory by category, geography, or sector to find the right partners.
Founded 1994. Multi-stage investor in ICT and healthcare with a long track record in Irish technology.
Spun out in 2016. Deep tech and healthcare investor with a history from seed to growth stages.
Launched 2017. Corporate venture program connecting startups with the Jose de Mello Group in healthcare, energy, and infrastructure. Support: pilot agreements, corporate guidance, and potential customer contracts. Scope: National.
Impact Hub Vienna is a leading center for social entrepreneurship and innovation, part of the global Impact Hub network that spans 100+ cities. Founded in 2010 in Vienna, it provides coworking space, incubation programs, and a vibrant community for startups addressing social and environmental challenges. Impact Hub Vienna runs several tailored acceleration initiatives – for example, RE:WIEN (supporting urban sustainability startups in partnership with the city) and Better Mobility Accelerator (for green mobility solutions). These programs typically offer mentorship, workshops, and occasionally grant funding or prize money to selected ventures. The Hub has a strong convening power: its corporate and NGO partners include Vienna’s public agencies, energy companies, and organizations like WWF. Startups to come out of Impact Hub Vienna’s ecosystem include Refugeeswork.at (job platform for refugees), Kiweno (at-home health tests), and EET (solar energy storage solutions). In addition to formal accelerators, Impact Hub offers its members year-round benefits – from “Connect” meetups to an Investor Circle that links impact startups with socially-minded investors. The facility itself, located centrally in Vienna, hosts numerous hackathons, pitch nights, and community events that cross-pollinate ideas between sectors. Uniquely, Impact Hub is structured as a social enterprise: it’s mission-driven to amplify impact, and revenue comes from memberships, partnerships, and consulting. Over the last decade, Impact Hub Vienna has supported hundreds of impact innovators. It emphasizes cross-border collaboration too – many ventures it accelerates tackle problems applicable across Central/Eastern Europe. For example, its “Climate Ventures” program (with Climate-KIC) has cohorts from multiple countries. By providing a nurturing home for impact startups, Impact Hub Vienna has solidified Vienna’s status as a hub for social innovation. It demonstrates that entrepreneurial solutions to societal issues – whether in climate, inclusion, or education – can be scaled successfully with the right support network.
Launched 2010 with backing from Dutch pension fund APG. Early-stage investor in healthcare and enterprise software.
Founded 2007. Early-stage fund investing in technology and life sciences with parallel focus on digital, IoT, and healthcare.
Novo Holdings is the investment arm of the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the largest life science investor in Denmark. It backs biotech, medtech, and health innovation across seed, venture, and growth stages while also managing the foundation's long term ownership in Novo Nordisk and Novozymes. The firm provides patient capital, deep scientific expertise, and global networks for founders building therapies, diagnostics, and industrial biotech solutions. Novo Holdings is a cornerstone of the Danish life science ecosystem.
The Siemens Technology Accelerator (STA) is a unique corporate accelerator program run by Siemens AG since 2001, aimed at spinning out non-core technologies from Siemens’ R&D into independent startups. Based in Munich, STA essentially identifies promising internal innovations (often developed at Siemens Corporate Technology labs) that don’t fit Siemens’ core business, and forms new ventures around them. STA provides seed funding, co-founding management, and access to Siemens’ infrastructure to these ventures, effectively acting as a venture builder. Over its history, the Siemens Technology Accelerator has spun out more than 12 companies across sectors like energy, industrial automation, healthcare, and materials. Notable spin-offs include MetisMotion (advanced actuators), Magazino (warehouse robotics – which STA helped early on), and Epiqo (a digital twin software). One high-profile case is Rethink Robotics GmbH: in 2020, STA helped relaunch assets of Rethink Robotics (the US cobot pioneer) in a joint venture, integrating it with Siemens technology. The typical STA project starts with identifying a tech with market potential. STA then recruits external entrepreneurs or Siemens intrapreneurs to lead the startup, develops a business plan, secures intellectual property rights (license or assign IP from Siemens to the newco), and provides initial funding (often low millions of euros). Siemens often remains a minority shareholder and provides pilot customers or manufacturing help. The time from project inception to an independent company launch is around 18–24 months. STA’s model addresses a common big-corporate problem: great inventions that don’t make it to market. By essentially incubating startups from within, Siemens both creates value from dormant IP and fosters innovation culture. Many STA spin-outs go on to raise venture capital or get acquired. For example, Ionity (an EV charging network) was seeded by Siemens’ STA and later became a major joint venture with automakers. The Siemens Technology Accelerator operates with a small specialized team and has won awards for corporate venturing. It serves as a best-practice example of how large industrial firms can proactively spin off new ventures rather than let R&D sit on a shelf. In essence, STA extends Siemens’ innovation beyond its core by unleashing startups that bring cutting-edge tech (like novel sensors, new materials, etc.) to the broader market.
Founded 2014. Six-month program for entrepreneurial teams with coworking, mentoring, and technology partners; alumni include energy and healthcare startups. Support: mentorship, workspace, partner resources. Scope: Regional (East Germany).