Matej Barvirčák

He works with SMEs and large corporates across Europe, from shaping an innovation idea and choosing the program that fits to building the consortium and leading the proposal to submission. He has helped clients secure funding for projects worth more than €200 million, through EU programs such as LIFE, Digital Europe, Horizon Europe, European Defence Fund and Innovation Fund. He has worked on an e-methanol production facility under the Innovation Fund, AI-powered cybersecurity tools against zero-day threats under the Digital Europe Programme, and nature-based solutions for climate adaptation and multi-country flash flood prevention under LIFE.

Within a European Digital Innovation Hub, he led the access-to-finance activities, helping dozens of Slovak SMEs understand how EU funding works and win financing for their ideas. In cooperation with GIZ, he also supported the set-up of innovation hubs in Albania. He wants more companies in the region to compete for this funding, and raises awareness of these programs and speaks at events on how they work.

Before Disruption Embassy, he led international teams of project managers and consultants at Civitta, an international consultancy, and helped assemble and coordinate large consortia of private, public and non-governmental partners while developing their project proposals. Earlier, he scouted deep-tech startups and SMEs and helped them compete for the EU’s SME Instrument under Horizon 2020. His entrepreneurial experience includes co-founding BILLESS, a fintech startup selected by accelerators in London and Dubai, and supporting the launch of several smaller ventures.

He holds a degree in Finance from Masaryk University in Brno and an MBA from Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, and is a certified Project Management Professional.