History of Encubator

Together with CSE and GIBBS, Encubator realizes ideas into viable enterprises capable of attracting venture capital and experienced business management. Since 2001, Encubator has created ventures from ideas stemming from academy, industry and private inventors. More about the process can be found under About Encubator.

Encubator came about as a result of the first four years of experiences from CSE. CSE was founded in 1997 by Mats Lundqvist and Sören Sjölander, at the Department of Technology Management and Economics at Chalmers University of Technology. The main pedagogy was built upon arranged partnerships between inventors with ideas and students with the drive to become entrepreneurs. Since the start, CSE has had the dual mission of developing entrepreneurs while simultaneously creating technology ventures.

In 2001, Encubator was founded by Ingvar Andersson of Chalmersinvest and Mats Lundqvist as a Chalmers subsidiary. The main rationales behind Encubator were to professionalize the venture creation process linked to CSE and attract more financial support and investments, while also improving the entrepreneurial learning.

GIBBS, the second school involved, was founded by Boo Edgar and Mats Lundqvist in 2005 in order to build stronger relationships with bioscience research areas at Chalmers and the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg. GIBBS pioneered the attraction of international students as a preparation for the so called Bologna system. This system, operating since 2007, has meant an expansion into two year international master programs, international recruitment and more diverse selection of elective courses.

Chalmersinvest was the main financier of Encubator during its first four years and since 2001, Innovationsbron has been a key financier. In 2005, the structure of Encubator changed from annual investment funds to a holding company and an incubation company to strive for a balance between public grants and investment money. Together with Innovationsbron, Region Västra Götaland has been the major financier of Encubator since 2005. In addition to this, Encubator has, since 2005, been receiving grants from a donation from the Hans E Olsson Stiftelse. Grants from GöteborgBIO, NUTEK, the European Union, InnovationsKapital and from the Elof Hanssons Stiftelse have been critical during the expansions of Encubator in the second half of this decade.

Even though capabilities have improved substantially since the start of the first school of entrepreneurship, CSE, in 1997, the two main missions remain; to educate entrepreneurs and to create new knowledge-based companies. Today, Encubator is well-positioned to further develop a future-oriented incubator process– “encubation” – being a professional commercial actor embedded into the schools of entrepreneurship as well as well-connected with the research and innovation systems of Sweden and abroad.