The EIC Accelerator funding (grant and equity, with blended financing option) by the European Commission (EC) and European Innovation Council (EIC) awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €10 million in equity financing per project (€12.5 million total) and is designed for startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME), often supported by professional writers, freelancers or consultants.

This article is part of a series that contains suggestions for the EIC and the EIC Board regarding various improvements to the evaluation process (see ChatEIC).

Interview Reimbursements

Applicants should be reimbursed for their travel expenses again if they are invited to Brussels. Germany, France, and central Europe in general are already dominating the EIC Accelerator winners lists, but they also have an unfair proximity advantage. Israel, Ukraine, Iceland, and many other deserving countries are simply very far away from Brussels.

The best way to accomplish this without using more funding is to make the Step 2 business coaching optional. Companies should be able to choose between getting a Step 2 coach or, if they are invited to the interview, getting the travel reimbursement.

Since the Step 2 business coaches are generally not EIC Accelerator writers and have usually not successfully written a proposal, they cannot adequately help with the writing process. This would be a very simple change to help make the application process fairer.

Any company that does not pick a business coach should have travel reimbursement by default. If they select a coach, they are notified that they will not be reimbursed for their travel in case they are invited to the interview.

Many companies in widening countries would likely prefer the travel reimbursements as will every company that is already working with a professional grant writer or consultant.

Programme Managers (PM)

Programme Managers who are thematic advocates for certain technologies as part of the EIC should be given a clear role if they participate in the interviews of EIC Accelerator challenges. They are neither Jury members nor EIB representatives or facilitators. They have to have a separate role that fits their capacity as technical experts.

First and foremost, there should be a rule of neutrality for PMs. They should not be allowed to undermine the applicants with their own bias, which, from experience, does happen on occasion.

One example of a clear role for the PM could be to give technical expertise to the Jury and contextualize information, but only if requested by the Jury. They are also able to interject if the interviewee made a factual mistake or misrepresents the science or technology.

The jury should be encouraged to involve the PM in their probing by asking them for clarification, if necessary. The PMs can act as technical advisors to the jury, but they are told to remain neutral and in service of the Jury.

An interview in which the PM remains silent is a good interview since they did not need to interject to correct false information, and the Jury did not need their clarifications since the interviewee explained everything well.

The same rule of neutrality should apply to EIC facilitators. They should likewise not undermine the applicants, which does happen as well on occasion.

Jury Briefing

The concept of having one Jury member brief the rest is good, but can be flawed if the briefing is insufficient. A simple workaround is to just feed the proposal into an LLM (EU-based, local) and give the Jury members access to summaries and a chat interface.

The Jury should be told that this chat interface is a tool for asking better questions. They can even ask the AI to generate good probing questions for them. Since the interviewee will always get the chance to answer, they will always be able to respond accurately, even if the AI makes a mistake.

Based on experience from being interviewed and interviewing, it is often not about the starting questions but about the discussions and follow-ups. An AI interface will create diverse starting questions that could potentially lead to the core of the company/technology faster, and can be a tool for the Jury to prepare more thoroughly.

Evaluator Focus

There needs to be a shift from how Steps 1 and 2 are graded by evaluators, since they often assess Projects while the Jury assesses Companies. A project can sound great and make sense, but the company behind it could be poor.

If Steps 1 and 2 are graded like essays, there will always be a way to game the evaluation. The evaluator should be a scout for the best companies and not akin to a teacher grading an essay (i.e., “you have forgotten to tell me which TRL this is, so you are rejected”).

In theory, the most amazing company that submits a poor proposal should still succeed in the EIC Accelerator because there should be sufficient facts to prove excellence. At least, this company should always make it to the interviews, even if their proposal writing skills are amateurish, since a good scout should recognize a diamond in the rough.

From experience, Juries prefer companies that have a strong corporate identity (i.e. nice slides, company branding, social presence), are focused on one thing (i.e. have a single technology with offices and employees at the same location), have a clear IP and technology origin story that shows their long-term dedication and are playing the VC game (i.e. active funding plans, engaging VCs).

Evaluators in Steps 1 and 2 almost always miss all of the quality markers above. They do not view a team that works remotely in different locations or has a US CEO as strange. They also do not assess the presentation from a funding perspective (i.e., pitch deck quality) because they are busy grading an essay (i.e., ESR checklist). When it comes to VC, the evaluators might not focus enough on the type of funding since Grantrepreneurs often slip through the cracks (i.e., companies that pivot from grant project to grant project with little to no private funding).

This is a difficult thing to integrate, but it could improve the switch from Step 2 to Step 3 by adding a Step 3 focus to the earlier stages. For that, the Evaluation Summary Report (ESR) criteria must be adjusted, and Step 2 evaluators must be briefed with a Jury focus.

Equity Expenditure

The equity expenditure should not be scrutinised on a cost-by-cost basis (i.e., CAPEX). In the end, the EIC will be a minor co-investor (i.e., crowd-in factor of 3-4), and the investment will be 12+ months from the interview date.

During this time, much will have changed, and any plan presented in the proposal will likely have evaporated already. Since the due diligence is conducted by the lead investor, the EIC should trust the EIB and the lead to make the right decisions when the time comes.

This article was last modified on May 4, 2025 @ 09:23

These tips are not only useful for European startups, professional writers, consultants and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) but are generally recommended when writing a business plan or investor documents.

Deadlines: Post-Horizon 2020, the EIC Accelerator accepts Step 1 submissions now while the deadlines for the full applications (Step 2) under Horizon Europe are:

Step 1
- Open now: Apply as soon as possible to be eligible for the next Step 2 submission deadline
  - Proposals are sent for evaluation on the first Tuesday of every month
Step 2 (closing 17:00 Brussels Time)
- 1^st cut-off 2025: -
- 2^nd cut-off 2025: March 12^th 2025
- 3^rd cut-off 2025: -
- 4^th cut-off 2025: October 1^st 2025
Step 3
- 1^st cut-off 2025: -
- 2^nd cut-off 2025: TBD
- 3^rd cut-off 2025: -
- 4^th cut-off 2025: TBD

The Step 1 applications must be submitted weeks in advance of Step 2. The next EIC Accelerator cut-off for Step 2 (full proposal) can be found here. After Brexit, UK companies can still apply to the EIC Accelerator under Horizon Europe albeit with non-dilutive grant applications only - thereby excluding equity-financing.

Contact: You can reach out to us via this contact form to work with a professional consultant.

AI Grant Writer: ChatEIC is a fully automated EIC Accelerator grant proposal writer: Get it here.

EU, UK & US Startups: Alternative financing options for EU, UK and US innovation startups are the EIC Pathfinder (combining Future and Emerging Technologies - FET Open & FET Proactive) with €4M per project, Thematic Priorities, European Innovation Partnerships (EIP), Innovate UK with £3M (for UK-companies only) as well as the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants with $1M (for US-companies only).

Any more questions? View the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section.

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by Stephan Segler, PhD
Professional Grant Consultant at Segler Consulting

General information on the EIC Accelerator template, professional grant writing and how to prepare a successful application can be found in the following articles:

A Quick FTO Guide for EIC Accelerator Applicants in a Rush

2023 Budget Allocations for EIC Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator

Developing the Unique Selling Points (USP) for the EIC Accelerator

Explaining the Resubmission Process for the EIC Accelerator

A Short but Comprehensive Explanation of the EIC Accelerator

EIC Accelerator Success Cases

Deciding Between EIC Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator

A Winning Candidate for the EIC Accelerator

EIC Accelerator Interview Preparation Process: Scripting the Pitch (Part 1)