KATANA supports European SMEs in the agri-food value chain to simultaneously access knowledge, technology, capital and markets, in order to respond to the global competitive environment. KATANA aims to provide this access to companies by leveraging upon the multiplier potential of cross-border/cross-sectoral collaboration and the systemic approach, which homogenizes services towards the overall aim to place new products/ services in the market.

KATANA proposes a systemic approach by combining:

   ▪ An innovative selection and funding scheme based on peer-to-peer evaluation and crowdfunding.
   ▪ A holistic portfolio of support services covering the entire KATANA lifecycle.

   ▪ Three large scale demonstrators capitalizing upon emerging industries (eco-industries, mobile services and           

     personalized health).

KATANA is a cluster-driven project, bringing together 7 active clusters of SMEs from all over Europe (from Scandinavia to Mediterranean and Balkans) covering the entire ecosystem, namely agriculture, food production and ICT/ emerging industries. At the same time a diverse and strong presence of five SMEs – technology providers within the consortium guarantees that the technological infrastructure for the large-scale demonstrators is delivered by actors who understand the needs of the community. The innovative selection method and the corresponding algorithms are provided by an RTD organization with long experience in organizing and running Open Calls and competitions for SMEs.