The EU’s leading innovation programme speeds up its start-up activities with a new wave of beneficiaries, a revamped governance and other initiatives.
After the May cut-off of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator evaluations, the European Commission (EC) selected 75 innovative start-ups out of more than 1’000 applications. The 75 selected companies will together receive close to €400 million of funding in a combination of grants and equity investments. The selected companies have a wide geographical spread spanning 21 countries, and 20% of the companies have female CEOs. With 67 companies of the 75 requesting the Accelerator’s blended finance or grant first options, the demand for EIC equity investments remains high among applicants. The EC indicates that, in most cases, the companies will receive the grant financing within the next two to three months, while the first investment decisions will be made next year.
The equity investments for the funded companies will be made through the EIC Fund, which is now fully operational (see SwissCore article). Significant delays have plagued the EIC Accelerator programme since the beginning of Horizon Europe due to procedural disagreements within the EC. Companies offered blended finance (combining equity and grants) have faced long-standing uncertainty on when funding will be available. The EC announced a resolution to the disagreements, with a new governance for the EIC Fund. Under this reform, the equity investments will be managed by an external independent fund manager in consultation with the European Investment Bank.
Given the competitiveness of the programme, some applicants met all the criteria at the remote evaluation stage and were assessed positively by the EIC jury, but were not funded due to budgetary limits. These companies will be awarded a Seal of Excellence. In countries with relevant Seal of Excellence programmes, this will allow those companies to seek alternative sources of funding from national or regional innovation funders.
Meanwhile, the other main instrument of the EIC, the Pathfinder, also announced the decision to fund 57 selected projects under its second Open call of Horizon Europe with a total budget of €183 million. The highest number of selected applicants are based in Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands. While the majority of participants hail from higher education and research organisations, another 18.5% are SMEs. Under the ever more dynamic Pathfinder instrument, beneficiaries will receive not only project financing, but will also have access to tailored-made coaching under the EIC business acceleration services, and will benefit from interactions with EIC Programme Managers, among which the latest of nine has recently been hired. Projects can also receive additional funding (EIC Booster grants with fixed amounts of up to €50’000) for testing a possible application, or for collaboration between projects for portfolio actions. Additionally, follow-up funding is available through the EIC Transition scheme to create a commercial venture or through the Fast Track scheme to the EIC Accelerator, whereby selected companies can pass over the first stage of the remote evaluation process.
Other EIC prize competitions are also moving ahead, with finalists selected in competitions for both the Capital of Innovation awards and the Innovation Procurement awards. These platforms offer recognition, respectively, for cities excelling in building up inclusive innovation ecosystems, and for large public and private actors who actively engage with start-up and SME suppliers to modernise their processes and products. The winners will be announced at the upcoming EIC Summit in December.