AIRE helps industrial companies find more financing aimed at development

The artificial intelligence and robotics center AIRE (AI & Robotics Estonia) will start offering a new service to industrial companies from April – finding support to find funding sources. With the new service, AIRE wants to be a leader in reaching the right funding sources.

AIRE’s new service gives industrial companies a good opportunity to find and select suitable financing conditions. Industrial companies can find various subsidies on their own, but finding a suitable one among them is often difficult – that’s why AIRE has decided to start offering a financial consulting service. “We cooperate with the Enterprise Development Foundation (EAS), the Estonian Research Agency (ETAG), the European Commission (EC) and the Enterprise Europe (EEN) network to map out the ideas of a specific company’s artificial intelligence and robotics developments and direct the company to the right funder,” described the artificial intelligence and Kirke Maar, head of the robotics center, in the service delivery process.

The financing necessary to accelerate the development of industrial enterprises does not have to come only on the basis of equity capital, bank loans or public support schemes. One possible option is to involve financing through private capital investments. According to Anu Puusaag, head of Tehnopol’s smart technologies field, the most important prerequisite for involving private capital is the existence of your own product or the ambition to develop your own product. “We offer a practical and market-based consulting service on how to bring additional capital to the company and expand its operations many times over,” Anu Puusaag pointed out the usefulness of the service, adding that the industrial company also gets advice on how to supplement its business model and develop its product or service. AIRE evaluates and creates direct contacts with private capital providers both in Estonia and abroad as needed. In addition, the artificial intelligence and robotics center also advises on the risks associated with raising private capital and supports the capital raising process with the help of legal and financial professionals.

The leader of AIRE is Tallinn University of Technology, the partners are the University of Tartu, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tehnopol science and business campus, Tartu Science Park and the Technology Development Center for Innovative Mechanical Engineering Production Systems (IMECC). The preparation of the center is supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications with nearly half a million euros, and the activities are carried out jointly by Estonian universities and science parks. Cooperation partners are professional associations, clusters, chambers of commerce, banks, telecom companies, developers of robot systems, importers of robots.