The higher goal of the RFS network is to facilitate and stimulate collaboration and cross-fertilisation between RisingFoodStars, the members of EIT Food, and external parties.

The value proposition includes:

• Easy access and personalised introductions to world-leading corporates, academia, investors and research organisations
• Increased visibility through accessing high-impact international agrifood and startup events and our own social media
• Backing from a ‘trusted network’, including names as Pepsico, Danone, Nestlé, Cambridge University, and TUM.
• Individual support to scale up, raise investment, and tackle typical startup growing pain points

Membership comes in terms of three consecutive financial years against a fee of €3.000 per financial year. We waive the fee for the accession year

We welcome all companies that at the submission stage, identify with the following:

• You have your legal entity based in a member state of the European Union (EU) or Horizon Europe associated countries. Switzerland and UK-based companies are eligible to apply. However, eligibility to receive funding will be determined based on Switzerland’s and UK’s eligibility status for EU funding at that time.
• You are a SMALL sized company as defined in the EU recommendation 2003/361 (between 5 and 49 employees and less than 10 million turnover or balance sheet)
• You expect to conclude a Series A within the next 6-12 months or you have recently raised a Series A 
• You are past the ideation phase, with preferably paying customers and at least a product-market fit in your home market
• You have a technological solution within one of the six key focus areas of EIT Food 
• You have the ambition of strong growth, and your next milestone is to scale your business across borders
• You complement the current pool of RisingFoodStars and EIT Food partners, and you can add value to the network. The current list of members is available here 
• You are not involved in another EIT Food Entrepreneurs programme, i.e. Seedbed Incubator or the EIT Food Accelerator Network
• You have no conflict of interests. Ventures owned by EIT Food employees or members of EIT Food governing bodies and engagements in which EIT Food employees or members of EIT Food governing bodies have an interest are also excluded. EIT Food includes all CLCs of EIT Food and all governing bodies.

For more details, refer to the Terms & Conditions

Programme applications are open from the beginning of January to the end of February each year, and all applications are evaluated from March-May

Our RFS manager undertakes an annual evaluation of the RFS members to assess their eligibility to remain a member of the association based on the following criteria:

• You must be supporting the aim of the EIT Food RisingFoodStars programme
• You must still be directly or indirectly active in the food sector, in one of EIT Food’s key focus areas 
• You must be involved in a minimum of 3 x EIT Food activities in one financial year, such as KAVAs and/or other activities, including podcasts, FoodUnfolded, and various external representations of EIT Food RisingFoodStars trainings etc. external 
• You must attend EIT Food (supported) events
• You must be showing signs of growth and progress