TechEU Investment Readiness Checker – AI Upgrade (Phase 2)

Overview

SquareX Solutions is delivering the next phase of the TechEU Investment Readiness Checker, the European Investment Bank (EIB) platform that helps European start-ups and small businesses find out how investment-ready they are and where to go for finance. We are delivering the assignment together with NTU International A/S, under the Framework Agreement to Support EIB Advisory Services (EIBAS) Activities, Lot 4. The work runs for 17 months and adds four new functionalities to the live platform.

Implementing Partner: SquareX Solutions
Consortium Partner: NTU International A/S
Duration: 17 months (from 2026)
Framework: EIBAS Activities, Lot 4
Stakeholders: European Investment Bank (EIB), European Investment Fund (EIF)

Background

This is a continuation rather than a fresh start. Our team built and rolled out the first version of the Checker, which introduced a structured self-assessment, an investment-readiness score, tailored PDF reports and a referral module linking companies to venture capital funds backed by the European Investment Fund (EIF). The platform was publicly unveiled at TechBBQ 2025 in Copenhagen, went live in six EU languages after pilots in Italy and Poland, and today serves roughly 1,000 SMEs and 350 venture capital funds.

Users praised the diagnostic value but asked for a shorter path and less manual typing. Administrators wanted richer analytics. Those two requests shaped this phase.

What We Are Building

• Simplified assessment path with dynamic, conditional questionnaires, so a founder answers only the questions that matter for their profile
• AI-assisted document prefill, where users upload a pitch deck or financial model and the platform extracts and suggests answers for review before anything is saved
• Onboarding for new actor types, including business angels, corporates, financial intermediaries and national partner organisations across all 27 Member States, supported by a multi-dimensional matching engine
• Administrator reporting module with live dashboards and export functions, plus integration with EU and national portals such as the European Commission Innovation Hub

Data Protection by Design

• All AI processing runs on private, enterprise-grade infrastructure hosted inside the European Economic Area (EEA), in line with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725
• A contractual zero-retention policy means uploaded documents are never used to train models and are deleted once extraction finishes
• Every AI-generated field is clearly flagged and fully editable, and manual entry always remains available

Rollout and Outreach

• Official launch events for the enhanced Tool in Luxembourg and Brussels, hosted at EIB premises
• National launch activity in up to eight countries, with Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain already confirmed
• At least 20 stakeholder interviews and two half-day exploratory workshops feeding directly into the design of each functionality

Over the coming months our team will turn the Checker into a genuine pan-European entry point for access to finance, backed by analytics that give policymakers a real-time view of the innovation ecosystem — putting a faster, smarter tool in the hands of founders across all 27 Member States.