Tag Archives: EIC Accelerator success

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, Phase 2, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

A Winning Candidate for the EIC Accelerator

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) by the European Commission (EC) and European Innovation Council (EIC) funds European Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) and startups.

The provided funding per project can reach €17.5 million in total (€2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity) and there are a variety of freelancers, professional writers and consultants who can help assess the project’s success chances and perform the submission.

This article presents a short list of areas that can make a candidate stand out and gain a positive assessment in the EIC Accelerator evaluation.

1. Sexy Topic

The EIC is a public institution and is fully subject to political, technological and social trends. For better or for worse, it gives preferential treatment to certain industries and technologies which are en vogue or are gaining significant public approval. While some of these causes and technologies are always welcome, specific focus areas are updated annually and outlined in the current Work Programme (see 2023 Challenges).

In 2023, the EIC Accelerator Challenges are:

  1. Novel biomarker-based assays to guide personalised cancer treatment
  2. Aerosol and surface decontamination for pandemic management
  3. Energy storage
  4. New European Bauhaus and Architecture, Engineering and Construction digitalisation for decarbonisation
  5. Emerging semiconductor or quantum technology components
  6. Novel technologies for resilient agriculture
  7. Customer-driven, innovative space technologies and services

But the topic selection is not limited to the EIC Accelerator Challenges outlined above since certain themes such as environmental protection, certain medical technology, artificial intelligence, energy, climate mitigation and others are evergreen and will always have a “wow-effect” on evaluators.

If the problem to be solved by the EIC Accelerator project is immediately understandable and evidently has a high impact then it will have higher chances of success compared to an obscure solution to a problem that is significant but not well understood outside of the industry.

Every evaluator will be aware of climate goals, cancer treatments, autonomous vehicles, quantum computing, green hydrogen, lithium-ion batteries and similar high-profile topics which means that they will have an easier time understanding the problem and the solution.

2. Impressive and Unique Technology

For the EIC Accelerator, there is no way around the fact that a project must have an impressive technology. No matter how interesting the problem and solution are, a simple App or an easy-to-copy hardware device bought from external manufacturers will likely have low success chances.

While there are always cases that slip through the cracks and get funded under the EIC Accelerator even though they are not an ideal fit (see Breaking the Rules), they are an exception and not the norm.

It must be clear to the evaluator that the technology is unique, hard to copy and perfectly designed to address the identified market pain point. For the EIC Accelerator, a sophisticated technology background is beneficial.

3. Easy to Understand

The EIC is using thousands of remote and anonymous evaluators who are underpaid considering the workload of the proposal assessments which limits the incentives to become an evaluator since neither prestige nor financial gain are presented as value propositions.

This creates a self-selection process for evaluators and limits the scope of who would be interested in and available for this type of work. It is not guaranteed that each complex technology and business case will have experts in the field available for an assessment. It is more likely that at least one evaluator tasked with grading an application will be uninformed or uneducated on the subject.

This leads to a double bind where an EIC Accelerator project should be complex enough to be impressive but cannot be so complex that the evaluator does not understand how it solves all of the problems outlined in the application.

This is exacerbated by the limited space found in key application sections where the 1,000 characters to quantify all Unique Selling Points (USP)’s or innovativeness might not be enough in some cases.

No matter what the project is about, it should be understandable to the layman and especially the problem and solution should be clear and easily understood.

4. Clear Commercial Strategy and Traction

Even though Step 2 of the EIC Accelerator is dubbed “The Business Plan” with a Go2Market section that is more comprehensive than most other sections, it is often the commercial strategy that is neglected by evaluators.

This can be a hint that many evaluators have a University or research background or can be based on the vague phrasing of the evaluation criteria (see Evaluation Criteria).

As a result, there is often a lack of understanding regarding the commercial plan and the nature of what is represented as commercial traction in the Step 2 evaluation. This can seem like a blessing for pre-revenue startups or companies lacking a commercial plan but it can lead to a reality check once the company is invited to the Step 3 interviews.

The Step 3 Jury members have a very strong commercial focus and will often identify within a few minutes what Step 2 remote evaluators have missed over days of looking through an application.

The commercial strategy should be clear and justified. If distributors are needed then they should be verifiably on board and their reach should be quantified. If the company wants to start marketing and sales, it should be explained why customers will buy from them, ideally through commitments and Letters of Intent (LOI).

While the Step 2 evaluators will likely miss the nuances and risks associated with market entry, the Step 3’s EIC Jury will not. It is beneficial to enter the Step 3 interview with a strong commercial plan outlined in the Step 2 proposal.

5. Great Team and Corporate Identity

Not every company has a LinkedIn profile with thousands of followers, a YouTube channel and an active Twitter account. The same is true for EIC Accelerator beneficiaries since not having a social media presence does not exclude a company from receiving funding.

Still, in the same way a person without any social media or online representation will appear odd, a company that has no website, uses Gmail accounts and has no social media accounts at all will seem dubious to investors.

This is aggravated by the fact that no due diligence is done prior to the successful passing of all three application steps of the EIC Accelerator. So, if the Step 3 Jury is suspicious of the claims of a company regarding staff size, experience, current customers and other metrics, it can impact a funding decision.

Since setting up a website and social media accounts is very easy and cheap, it is recommended to create a corporate identity across all sites including logos, a design theme for the pitch deck and private-domain email addresses for at least the CEO and the person who creates the account on the Funding & Tenders Portal and EIC Platform.

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, Phase 2, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

Investing in Well-Funded Projects: How the EIC is Breaking its Own Rules (EIC Accelerator)

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) by the European Innovation Council (EIC) and European Commission (EC) awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity financing per project (€17.5 million total) to startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME).

It is advertised as a risk-taking DeepTech fund that nurtures European innovation and allows companies that are early stage and too high risk for private investors to gain substantial financial investments and scale up to reach the market.

Startups often rely on consultants, professional writers or freelancers to help them assess their success chances since it is well-known that success rates for the EIC Accelerator are as low as 5% (see 2022 Results).

The EIC Accelerators Mission

The 2023 Work Programme 2023 explains the mission of the EIC Accelerator as follows (see Work Programme Analysis):

“The EIC Accelerator focuses in particular on innovations, building on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs (‘deep tech’) and where significant funding is needed over a long timeframe before returns can be generated (‘patient capital’). Such innovations often struggle to attract financing because the risks and time period involved are too high. Funding and support from the EIC Accelerator is designed to enable such innovators to attract the full investment amounts needed for scale up in a shorter timeframe.“

This means that the EIC Accelerator, especially in the case of grant contributions, is designed to:

  • Fund DeepTech with high capital needs
  • Bridge the funding gap until revenues can be generated
  • Support projects that are too risky to attract private capital
  • Signaling to investors that a project is investable

This describes the ideal case for the EIC Accelerator since any technology that does not fit such criteria but has a groundbreaking and disruptive product would be financed through private markets. The EIC is a special vehicle to support high-risk and high-reward projects rather than to invest in “safe bets” which is not its role.

Breaking the Rules

An interesting exception to this mission has occurred in 2022 and, while this is likely not the only exception, it is an obvious one since it seems to be so far removed from the scope of the EIC that it warrants a discussion.

Note: The name of the company is omitted since this article is focusing on the EIC’s decision-making process and not on any individual beneficiary. Every company funded under the EIC Accelerator is likely well deserving and presents an impressive technology and business case irrespective of the EIC’s original mission. The exact cut-off and industry are likewise obscured.

What Is DeepTech?

The company is operating a software platform used in varying industry applications. Generally speaking, software products exhibit higher difficulty in receiving financing from the EIC Accelerator compared to hardware products due to the lower capital requirements and, generally, the higher availability of funds from private investors who expect faster Return on Investments (ROI) from software products compared to lengthy DeepTech developments.

This was likewise true for the software company in question which, by 2021, had already raised over €24 million in financing. Among EIC Accelerator beneficiaries, this is at the higher end of past funding amounts since most companies at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5-7 are struggling to raise substantial capital.

The company then applied to a Step 2 cut-off in 2022 of the EIC Accelerator for grant-only support. This is an interesting choice since grant-only applications are for a maximum amount of €2.5 million which is dwarfed by the already raised amount in excess of €24 million.

It could have made more logical sense from the EIC’s perspective if the company had difficulty raising a follow-up financing round and required a co-investment from the EIC Fund in the form of equity. This would have translated to blended financing or equity-only support rather than grant-only.

Furthermore, justifying the need for grant support by the EIC is not helped by the fact that the company already has substantial revenues.

A Drop In The Ocean

The EIC Accelerators’ mission is to bridge the financing gap for companies that have difficulties leveraging sufficient funding and are “stuck” in the valley of death between rounds due to lacking investor interest.

This particular software company could not be further from that mission since it had significant revenues, had raised substantial funding and does not obviously meet the general DeepTech case found in capital-intensive hardware projects.

A Role for the EIC

It could still be argued that the grant investment was essential to de-risk the project and to attract additional private financing. But, this would be questionable since the company has high staff numbers with a high burn rate that does not match the financing via grant-only support.

This new financing would be capped at €2.5 million since this is the maximum amount provided by the EIC grant and, since every company has to fill out and justify form fields regarding their difficulty in raising that financing, it should be expected that the same was true for this particular company.

The question becomes – what difference would this grant make for a company in that position? According to the EIC’s mission, it would be to help them if they “struggle to attract financing” or help to “attract full financing”.

As will be evident below, neither option is applicable.

Why Funding From Other Sources Was Not Available

Contrary to the EIC’s mission, funding was clearly available and de-risking the project with a comparatively small grant seemed unnecessary.

The application deadline for the Step 2 submissions is generally multiple weeks ahead of the Step 3 interviews which creates a waiting period between the steps. Right within that time frame, the company raised an additional €25+ million which it announced a few weeks before the Step 3 interview on its website.

This means that the company has raised at least 10-times as much funding as they would request a month later in front of the EIC Jury. It also meant that there was no role for the EIC to play since equity was not requested, funding was available and private investors were willing to invest already.

The EIC Jury was likely aware of the funding round and, even if this was not the case, the due diligence following the successful approval of the EIC Accelerators Step 3 would have identified this fact.

150+ Rejectees

This article is not designed to call out any particular company which is why the name was omitted. A company receiving the EIC Accelerator grant is always a cause for celebration and it shows that it has a timely, disruptive and excellent innovation.

What this article is about is the investigation of the EIC’s decision-making progress.

For the respective Step 2 deadline, 200+ companies were invited to the Step 3 interviews while 150+ companies ended up being rejected. All 150+ rejectees have successfully passed Step 1 and Step 2 which means that they are excellent innovation and business cases.

Some of them have likely resubmitted their applications and obtained the EIC Accelerator funding at a later date (see Resubmissions).

The question becomes: Were there no companies among the 150+ rejectees that fit the EIC’s mission more than the company discussed in this article?

Conclusion: Hypocrisy or Poor Communication?

It is important for the EIC to address cases that are outliers from the general scope of the EIC Accelerator to build trust with the ecosystem and to clearly manage the expectations of future applicants. This likewise extends to the large number of consultancies that are often the first stakeholders to interact with prospective applicants and must make accurate recommendations.

In conclusion, there are a variety of potential motives for this funding decision. The company was largely US-funded and the EIC could have tried to add financing to manufacture a closer relationship to the EU. Equity financing would be preferable but it appears that the beneficiary rejected that by applying for grant-only support.

Another likely explanation is that the Step 3 Jury selects the most investable companies irrespective of the EIC’s mission. The most investable companies are low-risk, have a good business model, have high scale-up potential, have existing revenues and have significant investor interest.

In contrast to the typical DeepTech case.

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

Deciding Between EIC Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator

The EIC Accelerator funding (grant and equity, with blended financing option) by the European Innovation Council (EIC) and European Commission (EC) is one of the multiple programs available to Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) and startups. It awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity financing per project (€17.5 million total) and applications are often supported by consultants, professional writers or freelancers.

Still, there are alternative options for project financing available under the EIC framework.

EIC Funding Programs

The EIC’s funding programs can be complex and there is limited structured information that can support and guide a selection process. There are different funding arms (i.e. EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition, EIC Accelerator), different topics (i.e. Challenges), varying budget allocations (see EIC Budget 2023), different funding modes (i.e. grant, equity, mixed) and even different application systems (i.e. written applications, videos or interviews).

To reduce the complexity, this article aims at providing a guide for selecting the right EIC financing.

The three flagship EIC grant funding programs are EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition and EIC Accelerator. For an explanation of the differences between them, please view this article: EIC Funding Framework

The core selection criteria for the EIC funding options are (1) the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the innovation, (2) the topic or industry, (3) the number of applicants and (4) the financing needs and investor availability.

Technology Readiness Level (TRL)

To decide between EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition and EIC Accelerator, the prospective applicant must first identify the level of their current technology according to the TRL’s:

  1. basic principles observed
  2. technology concept formulated
  3. experimental proof of concept
  4. technology validated in lab
  5. technology validated in relevant environment
  6. technology demonstrated in relevant environment
  7. system prototype demonstration in operational environment
  8. system complete and qualified
  9. actual system proven in operational environment

See also: Technology Readiness Levels, Timelines and Interview Priorities (2023 EIC Accelerator Work Programme Part 4)

While the descriptions for the TRL’s are rather vague, the general cornerstones are easily differentiated when considering that TRL5 accounts for validating the key technology in a test setting while TRL6 accounts for the testing of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in a customer environment (i.e. actively testing the prototype)

After identifying an applicants TRL, it is then straightforward to make a decision regarding the funding program whereas:

  • EIC Pathfinder starts at min. TRL1 and ends at max. TRL4
  • EIC Transition starts at min. TRL4 and ends at max. TRL5-6
  • EIC Accelerator starts at min. TRL5-6 and ends at max. TRL9

Topics

The EIC’s Work Programme is renewed and adopted each year which means that the budgets and thematic topics will change annually.

Why is the budget relevant?

The total budget defines how much funding is available in any given year and for any given cut-off. If 1,000 applicants compete for €100 million then it will be more difficult than if 100 applicants compete for €1,000 million since the average funding per project increases.

It is advisable to identify the general competitiveness of a funding program prior to planning an application which includes the number of total applicants, the number of winning projects and the overall budget size (see 2022 Results).

Why are the topics relevant?

In general, there are always “Open” and “Challenge” Calls for the respective funding arms whereas the former is available to all types of technologies and industries while the latter is only available to specific projects that fulfill certain criteria.

To elaborate, topics or Challenges are a specialized focus of the respective funding program whereas the total budget is divided into multiple buckets. While the “Open” bucket is available to all applicants, the “Challenges” bucket is only available to those who fulfill the criteria regarding the technologies and industries outlined in the Work Programme.

In practice, it is always preferable to apply to the “Challenges” if possible since it can be less competitive while providing higher success chances.

This can be illustrated in a simple example:

The EIC Accelerator budget for 2023 is €1.1 billion in total but it is divided into the “Open” call with €611 million and the “Challenges” with €523 million. The strategic challenges for the EIC Accelerator in 2023 are (see 2023 EIC Budget):

  1. Novel biomarker-based assays to guide personalised cancer treatment
  2. Aerosol and surface decontamination for pandemic management
  3. Energy storage
  4. New European Bauhaus and Architecture, Engineering and Construction digitalisation for decarbonisation
  5. Emerging semiconductor or quantum technology components
  6. Novel technologies for resilient agriculture
  7. Customer-driven, innovative space technologies and services

From a statistics perspective, there are likely fewer companies that fall into these particular topics while there is a high probability that the majority of applicants are only eligible for the Open call.

It is therefore advisable to identify the current topics for each funding program prior to preparing a submission. Considering that resubmissions are a common occurrence in case of rejections, it is likewise preferred to apply in a timely manner to account for at least 3 Step 2 submissions in the case of the EIC Accelerator (see Resubmissions).

Consortia vs. Single Applicant

The EIC Accelerator is a single-applicant instrument which means that only a single entity is receiving the funding and must be located in the EU or a country associated with Horizon Europe. For EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition, the applicants can either be single entities or consortia consisting of multiple entities.

Financing Needs and Availability

Each funding program has a dedicated budget and a general budget amount per project. For the EIC Accelerator, the general funding allocations are a maximum of €2.5 million for grant funding and €15 million for equity funding while the average ticket sizes are generally below the maximum.

For the last cut-off of 2022, the average ticket size for all projects (incl. grant-only, grant-first, equity-only and blended finance) was €6.03 million (see 2022 EIC Accelerator Results).

For EIC Pathfinder, the limits for projects are €3 million and for EIC Transition they are set to up to €2.5 million per project.

It is therefore beneficial to also assess the funding needs of the project beforehand to assure that the amount of funding that can be granted will allow the project to reach its desired endpoint.

It should also be assured that sufficient follow-up or co-financing is available in relevant cases. For the EIC Accelerator, the projects requesting grant-only, equity-only and blended financing are generally required to demonstrate that additional financing is available.

For grant-only applications which are only requesting funding up to TRL8, the funding to reach TRL9 should be justifiable. The EIC reserves the right to cancel ongoing grant projects in case a lack of additional financing is jeopardizing the project (see Cancelling Funding).

For applications that include equity components such as blended finance, the EIC expects applicants to secure outside investors for a co-financing round. While such rules can change on a year-by-year basis, it is important to be aware of them to meet and manage expectations.

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, Phase 2, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

A Short but Comprehensive Explanation of the EIC Accelerator

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) by the European Commission (EC) and European Innovation Council (EIC) is a complex funding instrument for startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME).

It is often supported by professional writers, freelancers or consultants since it can be challenging for startups to navigate the lengthy assessment and proposal writing process. This article aims to provide a brief but comprehensive overview of the program to help future applicants decide if the EIC Accelerator is the right instrument for them.

What is the EIC Accelerator?

The EIC Accelerator is a funding program by the European Commission (EC) and the European Innovation Council (EIC) as part of Horizon Europe.

It funds innovative DeepTech companies with grant and/or equity financing of up to €2.5 million and €15 million, respectively (see 2023 Budget).

Applicants can be from the EU-27 countries or from countries associated with Horizon Europe (see Eligibility).

The company’s technology should have reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 5 at least and be able to reach TRL8 within 24 months but exceptions can apply (see Technology Readiness Levels).

What does the EIC Accelerator provide?

Next to business acceleration, coaching and networking opportunities, it provides funding in the form of 4 different application options:

  • Grant-only: A non-dilutive grant with the company reaching TRL8 at the end of the project and subsequently reaching TRL9 without the help of the EIC.
  • Grant-first: A non-dilutive grant with the company reaching TRL8 at the end of the project. There is an option to apply for dilutive equity financing from the EIC Fund afterward to reach TRL9 (see Grant-First).
  • Equity-only: Dilutive equity funding from the EIC Fund to reach TRL9.
  • Blended finance: A mix of non-dilutive grant and dilutive equity financing to reach TRL9 at the end of the project.

How do the different funding options finance development work?

In general, grant funding can only be used for activities up to TRL8 (i.e. TRL5 to TRL8) while equity funding can be used for developments up to TRL9 including innovation activities (i.e. TRL5 to TRL9).

What industries can apply and are there topic limitations?

The EIC publishes topics every year in the EIC Work Programme which outlines specific budget allocations. Generally, the budget is split between the options of an “Open” and a “Challenge” Call which are usually available on the same cut-off dates (see Deadline). A company can therefore decide which topic they would like to apply for. The two options are:

  • EIC Accelerator Open: This call is open to applicants of all industries provided they are not violating the agendas of the European Union (EU) in terms of climate, human rights, ethics and other political and social targets.
  • EIC Accelerator Challenges: These topics are clearly defined technology and industry themes that must be achieved or covered by the applicant (see EIC Accelerator Challenges). The applicant can select the respective Challenge during the Step 2 submission process.

When and how can I apply?

The EIC Accelerator generally has 3-4 cut-offs per year which are set for Step 2 submissions (see Deadline). The following conditions apply:

  • Step 1: This step encompasses a short application including a pitch deck (see Pitch Deck), a video (see Pitch Video) and a short proposal. Submitting a proposal is possible at all times since the call is continuously open.
  • Step 2: This step requires a very detailed business plan in addition to multiple annexes such as financials, Letters of Intent (LOI), a Freedom to Operate (FTO) analysis, a Data Management Plan (DMP), a pitch deck and a customizable company profile. After Step 1 has been passed, the applicants can apply to Step 2 to any of the designated deadlines (see Deadlines).
  • Step 3: This step is an interview with the EIC Jury that is usually conducted online through a video call. It encompasses a 10-minute pitch by the applicant using the pitch deck submitted in Step 2 and an up to 35-minute Question and Answer session by the jury (see Interview Preparation). If Step 2 has been passed successfully, the interview dates are generally a few weeks after the Step 2 evaluation was completed.

The EU application process is performed on a dedicated website provided by the EIC where an online form is acting as the proposal template. Each applicant can create the appropriate proposals and begin writing applications inside the web browser although it is recommended to use off-platform templates to prepare all documents in collaboration with a team and then upload the content for the submission.

What does the result of an application look like?

The EIC has increased the level of transparency compared to earlier years and has introduced detailed feedback from evaluators. For Step 1 and Step 2, four or three evaluators will grade the application, respectively, and leave feedback for the applicants.

  • Each evaluator will be able to grade the proposal with a GO or NO GO rating.
  • For Step 1, at least 2/4 of evaluators have to provide a GO for the application to be successful.
  • For Step 2, at least 3/3 of evaluators have to provide a GO for the application to be successful.

Feedback is provided to the applicants irrespective of the GO or NO GO grading through detailed responses by the evaluators for all evaluation criteria (see Evaluation Criteria).

For the Step 3 interviews, a unanimous decision by the EIC Jury is presented and the applicants likewise receive responses regarding the evaluation criteria as well as the GO or NO GO result.

If the applicant passes all three steps, the preparation for the Grant Agreement Contract (GAC) and a due diligence process are initiated.

How long does it take to apply for the EIC Accelerator?

The time it takes to apply for the EIC Accelerator will differ depending on the number of resubmissions and the efficiency of preparing an application. It can be further delayed if the due diligence process is slowed down from the side of the EIC.

In general, one can expect a timeline of 2-4 weeks for the preparation of Step 1 followed by a 5-30 day average assessment period. For Step 2, a 50-70 day preparation period followed by a 30-40 day assessment period should be expected. With the Step 3 interviews following approximately 2-6 weeks after the Step 2 result is obtained, one can add an additional 3-5 weeks to receive the final grading by the EIC Jury.

A fast application process can go from the Step 1 start to Step 3 approval within 6 months if no rejections have occurred and if all documents were prepared efficiently without waiting times.

In case of rejections and multiple resubmissions, the total process can also take multiple years and there is never a guarantee that a project will be funded.

What are the success chances for the EIC Accelerator?

Since the 3-Step application process is complex, it is difficult to estimate exact numbers for success rates. If 1,000 companies apply for Step 1 and 70% receive a GO over multiple weeks then it cannot be determined based on the published data how many of these exact companies proceed to the subsequent Step 2 deadline (see Deadlines).

The metrics are further obscured through the previous batch being able to resubmit their applications or abandon the application entirely.

Based on past data, the following estimations can be made (see 2021, 2022A, 2022B):

  • Step 1: ~67% pass rate
  • Step 2: ~22% pass rate
  • Step 3: ~32.5% pass rate
  • Total EIC Accelerator success rate: 4.8%

What limitations exist regarding the submissions?

The EIC Accelerator has introduced freezing periods for resubmissions whereas every applicant generally receives two attempts for each written proposal step (i.e. “two strikes, you’re out”). This means that a company that has failed twice in Step 1 will be blocked from submitting the same application for 12 months. The same is true for Step 2 applications.

There are nuances in the case of the Step 3 interviews which are explained here: Resubmission Process Explained.

What types of companies actually win the EIC Accelerator grant?

The companies that generally win the EIC Accelerator are often DeepTech hardware businesses but there are likewise software and IT industry winners among the funded projects (complete beneficiary lists are linked here: 2021, 2022A, 2022B).

How do I know if I should apply or not?

Predicting who will receive funding under the EIC is difficult even for seasoned consultancies. While it is possible to estimate the chances, the level of randomness during the evaluation process and the unknown variables introduced by the company during the proposal writing process render any estimate to be speculative.

If the company has an excellent technology, a great team, a scalable business model and is aligned with EU interests then the EIC Accelerator is worth pursuing.

Here is a list of general considerations for an ideal project: A Winning EIC Accelerator Candidate

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, Phase 2, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator, Success

EIC Accelerator 2022 October Results: Funding Rates and Circu Li-ion & Iris.AI Success Cases

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) has recently closed its last funding round of 2022 (see Deadlines). Following the multi-step grant application process, the last Step 2 deadline was set on October 5th while the interviews for Step 3 were being conducted in December (see Interview Preparation Process).

Designed for startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME), the EIC Accelerator awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity financing per project (maximum of €17.5 million total). This article provides an overview of the latest cut-off results as well as useful information for professional writers, freelancers or consultants (see Eligible Applicants).

While the previous cut-off’s have seen high levels of competitiveness with success rates of approximately 5% for all three evaluation steps, this article analyses the success rates for the latest cut-off (see June 2021 & May 2022).

The October 2022 Cut-Off

In general, the total success rates are obscured through the 3-step application process where not all steps are associated with a deadline and not all applicants successively apply to the next steps. Since there is a possibility for re-submitting proposals and skipping application deadlines, the calculations in this article should be viewed as approximate (PDF, article).

Step 1

The exact success rates are difficult to assess but based on past data, an average success rate of 67% can be assumed (June 2021).

Step 2 & 3

Out of 1,092 Step 2 applicants, 240 were invited to the Step 3 interviews (22%) while a total of 78 companies were successfully selected for funding. This yields a total EIC Accelerator success rate of 7.1% starting at Step 2 and an interview selection rate of 32.5% for Step 3.

Multiplying the Step 2 and 3 success rates with the average success rate for Step 1 yields an approximate total success rate for the complete EIC Accelerator application process of 4.8%.

Funding Breakdown

  • Grant-only: 12 funded companies (15.4%)
  • Grant-first: 21 funded companies (26.9%)
  • Equity-only: 1 funded company (1.3%)
  • Blended finance: 44 funded companies (56.4%)

The total budget allocated to the 78 winners is €470 million which corresponds to an average EIC Accelerator ticket size of €6.03 million.

Circu Li-ion Receives the EIC Accelerator Funding

Circu Li-ion (Luxembourg) is addressing one of the greatest challenges of the coming decade: Sustainable battery energy storage. Renewable energy installations, electric vehicles, power tools, micromobility and utility systems all depend on battery storage but Lithium is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive.

With large quantities of batteries reaching their end-of-life after only a few years of operation, Circu Li-ion has identified that there is an urgent need to establish an upcycling ecosystem that is able to scale with the exponential industry growth.

By reusing end-of-life batteries and giving them a second life, Circu Li-ion is addressing a major industry pain point through its automated, data-driven and AI-controlled upcycling technology.

Note: Circu Li-ion was supported by Segler Consulting throughout the entire application process.

Iris.AI

Special congratulations to Iris.AI (Norway) which has received the EIC Accelerator financing as well and was supported by Segler Consulting in some of the application stages.

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

The New EIC Ecosystem, Fast-Track and Pilot Plug-In Schemes (2023 EIC Accelerator Work Programme Part 8)

The EIC Accelerator funding (grant and equity, with blended financing option) awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity financing per project (€17.5 million total). It is a popular funding instrument specializing in DeepTech startups and small mid-caps which aim to finalize their product developments, enter the market and scale globally.

The EIC’s 2023 Work programme

While the European Innovation Council (EIC) has remained silent regarding the 2023 Work programme that is yet to be released, ScienceBusiness has published the second draft of the highly anticipated document dated July 2022. This article series is exploring some changes and interesting aspects of the EIC Accelerator that are relevant for startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) and for professional writers, freelancers or consultants.

ScienceBusiness has likewise published the entire library of Horizon Europe documents by the European Commission (EC) that are mostly in draft form and can be found here.

All the information and conclusions provided in this article are subject to change and the opinion of the author. The following statement by the EIC is part of the 2023 EIC Work Programme draft that this article is based on:

“This document represents a working draft of the EIC work programme for the purpose of feedback and comments from members of the Horizon Europe Programme Committee for the EIC and European Innovation Ecosystems. This draft has not been adopted or endorsed by the European Commission. Any views expressed are the views of the Commission services and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the Commission. The information transmitted is intended only for the Member State or entity to which it is addressed for discussions and may contain confidential and/or privileged material.”

The EIC Ecosystem

In 2021, it was leaked that the EIC is aiming to create an ecosystem not only for DeepTech companies but also for investors, consultancies, coaches and other relevant stakeholders.

“The idea of the platform is to allow […] any applicant at a given moment where he needs […] support from someone […] access to an ecosystem platform […] where he will find different actors but also those private companies, consultants who want to partake into the exercise to be referenced in this in the system and to offer their service. Now, they will have to pay something, a fee to be referenced.”

– Nicolas Sabatier (General Counsel & Adviser to the EIC/EISMAE) via AI Tool EIC Training for NCPs 11th12th March 2021, quoted at 1:52:09

While the vision of a subscription-based service might still be far in the future, its first iteration is on the way.

“From 2023, the EIC BAS services will be expanded through EIC Ecosystem Partners which can include, for example, investors, business angels, mentors and coaches, innovation agencies, business associations, clusters, accelerators, incubators, technology transfer offices, venture builders, etc. EIC BAS services provided by Ecosystem Partners includes access to existing incubation and acceleration programmes as well as services specifically designed in collaboration with EIC.”

Especially the search for co-investors is an exciting prospect for applicants since it can help them gain access to EIC Financing without being forced to find private lead investors by themselves.

“The EIC will also continue to directly manage a core set of business acceleration services which provide a clear added value, which include: A platform for EIC Accelerator companies in receipt of equity investment to find co-investors”

Fast Track and Pilot Plug-in Schemes

The EIC’s 2023 Work Programme continues to offer fast-track and plug-in schemes whereas a company funded under specific EU grant or equity financing projects can cross-migrate into the EIC Accelerator application process without having to start from scratch.

“Full proposals to the EIC Accelerator stemming from the Fast Track scheme will be assessed as set out in Section IV, and will be treated in exactly the same way as all other full proposals.“

“In 2023, the funding bodies and schemes which are eligible for the Fast Track for EIC Accelerator cut-off dates are:

  • The EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition projects (including under EIC pilot);
  • The Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT);
  • The Eureka secretariat for SMEs supported under the Eurostars-2 Joint Programme and the Partnership on Innovative SMEs;
  • Companies supported by the WomenTech.EU programme.”

“Under the Plug-in scheme, applicants do not apply directly to the EIC Accelerator call (Section IV). Instead, a project review is carried out by the certified national or regional programme to assess the innovation or market deployment potential of an existing project supported by the programme, and to decide whether the project is suitable for support under the EIC Accelerator.”

Both mechanisms seem beneficial to applicants on the surface but they are, unfortunately, of limited use. Fast track and plug-in schemes only allow applicants to skip the first of the three evaluation steps (i.e. the Step 1 short application) but this is also the easiest step in the entire process.

If a company can skip Step 1 which consists of a pitch deck, a video and a written proposal then this also means that there is no video for the project that the Step 2 evaluators and the Step 3 jury can look at which can be a disadvantage (read: EIC Accelerator Pitch Video).

Of course, a company can decide to upload a Step 1 video retroactively even if they have been allowed to skip this step which is highly recommended.

“Applicants will then be invited to prepare a full proposal for the EIC Accelerator to one of the cut-off dates within the next 12 months following initial review. […] Full proposals to the EIC Accelerator stemming from the Plug-in scheme will be assessed as set out in Section IV (above) and will be treated exactly the same way as all other full proposals.”

Note: The term “full proposal” refers to the Step 2 application consisting of a detailed business plan.

What further questions the usefulness of the fast track and plug-in programs is the fact that the Step 2 application re-uses a substantial amount of the text from the Step 1 application. In fact, one can use 100% of the text written in Step 1 for the Step 2 application which means that, even if a company skips Step 1, they still have to fill all of these Step 2 sections from scratch.

Considering the limited effort required for the preparation of a Step 1 proposal, their high success rates and the fact that the text, video and pitch deck would need to be prepared for Step 2 anyways, the fast track and plug-in schemes are of little practical benefit. An exception would be a case where a company has significant time restrictions and must unlock the Step 2 EIC Accelerator template in the online platform as soon as possible to meet the next cut-off.

Outlook

A truly useful fast track or plug-in scheme would allow a direct application to the Step 3 interviews especially if the plug-in scheme has already performed additional due diligence on the project specifically for the EIC Accelerator. Step 2 is the most difficult step of the EIC Accelerator program but it is understandable that the EIC aims to retain the integrity of the full application process since it could otherwise compromise the quality of projects reaching the Step 3 interviews.

This article is part of a series whereas the remaining articles can be found here, once published:

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

The EIC’s 2023 Strategic Challenges and Topics (2023 EIC Accelerator Work Programme Part 7)

The EIC Accelerator funding (grant and equity, with blended financing option) awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity financing per project (€17.5 million total). It is a popular funding instrument specializing in DeepTech startups and small mid-caps which aim to finalize their product developments, enter the market and scale globally.

The EIC’s 2023 Work programme

While the European Innovation Council (EIC) has remained silent regarding the 2023 Work programme that is yet to be released, ScienceBusiness has published the second draft of the highly anticipated document dated July 2022. This article series is exploring some changes and interesting aspects of the EIC Accelerator that are relevant for startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) and for professional writers, freelancers or consultants.

ScienceBusiness has likewise published the entire library of Horizon Europe documents by the European Commission (EC) that are mostly in draft form and can be found here.

All the information and conclusions provided in this article are subject to change and the opinion of the author. The following statement by the EIC is part of the 2023 EIC Work Programme draft that this article is based on:

“This document represents a working draft of the EIC work programme for the purpose of feedback and comments from members of the Horizon Europe Programme Committee for the EIC and European Innovation Ecosystems. This draft has not been adopted or endorsed by the European Commission. Any views expressed are the views of the Commission services and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the Commission. The information transmitted is intended only for the Member State or entity to which it is addressed for discussions and may contain confidential and/or privileged material.”

The EIC Accelerator Open and Strategic Challenges

The 2023 Work Programme of the EIC is outlining the newest Strategic Challenges for the EIC Accelerator. These are renewed every year alongside the new Work Programme implementation and have separate allocated budgets. It is common that the EIC Accelerator Open and the EIC Accelerator Challenges have a comparable budget while the chances of success could be higher in the thematic challenges due to the strict topic limitations.

This is due to the smaller number of applicants compared to the EIC Accelerator Open which has no thematic restrictions but this might be irrelevant since the EIC has announced that the Strategic Challenges budget will be transferred to the EIC Accelerator Open if there are not enough applicants available. Of course, the applicants for the Strategic Challenges still retain first priority for their respective budgets.

“However, if there is insufficient applications selected for funding for a Challenge, the budget will be transferred to the other Challenges. In case there is insufficient applications selected for all the Challenges, the remaining budget will be transferred to the Accelerator Open.”

As given in the EIC’s draft Work Programme 2023, the seven new EIC Accelerator Challenges are:

Challenge 1: Novel biomarker-based assays to guide personalised cancer treatment

Specific objectives

“The overall goal of this Challenge is to support and accelerate the preclinical validation and/or clinical phase 1 work carried out by innovative SMEs (including start-ups, spinouts) and small midcaps to develop novel predictive, prognostic and companion diagnostic assays to guide cancer treatment. This Challenge has the following specific objectives:

  • develop novel companion diagnostic assays , including through liquid profiling; to identify who, among cancer patients, is more likely to benefit from a given treatment (guided treatment);develop novel predictive biomarker-based assays to identify who, among patients with potentially precancerous lesions, is more likely to develop cancer;
  • develop novel prognostic assays including through liquid profiling to identify who, among the cancer patients who underwent treatment, is more likely to recur;
  • develop novel companion diagnostic assays, including through liquid profiling to identify who, among the cancer patients receiving treatment, is more likely to develop side effects as a result of the treatment and
  • to develop novel monitoring biomarker-based assays to effectively monitor the clinical course of the disease.”

Expected outcomes and impacts

“As expected outcomes from this Challenge, clinicians will be able to:

  • Identify, who among cancer patients, is more likely to benefit from a given treatment (guided treatment)
  • Identify, who among patients with potentially precancerous lesions, is more likely to develop cancer
  • Identify, who among the cancer patients having underwent treatment, is more likely to recur
  • Identify who among the cancer patients receiving treatment, is more likely to develop side effects as a result of the treatment, affecting their quality of life and
  • More effectively monitor the clinical course of the disease”

Challenge 2: Aerosol and surface decontamination for pandemic management

Specific objectives

“The proposals should target the development and commercialisation of technological solutions facilitating social interaction in the context of pandemic emergencies, by means of one or more of the three following approaches:

  • Full systems for high-efficiency aerosol capture, pathogen deactivation and air circulation management in closed-environments (e.g., office space, in-flight, retail stores, etc.), including advanced air-filtering architectures and dynamic air circulation optimisation.
  • Next-generation face mask technologies with smart filtration materials to exceed N95 performance at low airflow resistance, with improved retention/rejection of sub-micron particles.
  • Rapid surface decontamination devices beyond state-of-the-art UV-C irradiation systems and biocidal agent dispersion.

Where advantageous, pathogen profiling sensors and sub-systems could be integrated with air renewal systems, face masks or surface decontamination devices to provide quasi- real-time information on pathogen presence for rapid decision making and/or autonomous optimisation of air circulation.

The proposals should provide preliminary evidence demonstrating that social distancing can be avoided or substantially reduced, under realistic pathogen infectivity assumptions, with the targeted technologies.”

Expected outcomes and impacts

“By reducing the need for social distancing in the event of infectious pandemics, this Challenge will empower society at large to sustain unaltered economic and social dynamics in the event of pandemic outbreaks.”

Challenge 3: Energy storage

Specific objectives

“This Challenge targets groundbreaking innovations in any field of technology that have a high potential to meet the following goals:

  • to store electric and/or thermal energy at low cost, high density, high charging/discharging efficiency and enhanced durability.
  • technological approaches (chemical, electrical, electrochemical, mechanical, thermal) for energy storage at different scales (centralized at large industrial facilities premises or distributed and at small scale level – mobile electronics), duration (short – millisecond to day, medium – days to month and long term – months to seasons) and uses (from stationary to mobile).
  • technologies that, without using critical raw materials or ensuring their full recycle/reuse, minimize their carbon footprint measured through a life-cycle analysis (including cost and social impact evaluation). The proposed technologies could also address the smart operation and control of storage assets, their integration with demand response strategies, predictive maintenance, load forecasting and decentralized renewable energy technologies.”

Expected outcomes and impacts

“The possibility to store electrical or thermal energy at low cost, high density, high charging/discharging efficiency and for different duration (from short to long) will:

  • enable a strong penetration of intermittent renewable energy resources by addressing the spatial and temporal mismatches between generation and demand,
  • set up decarbonized, interconnected, sector-coupled and flexible energy systems.
  • Increase Europe’s energy independence from unreliable suppliers”

Challenge 4: New European Bauhaus: Digitisation for sustainable and inclusive built environment

Specific Objectives

“The call aims to enable a paradigm by supporting deep tech ventures that can deliver disruptive new products and services for a digitised value chain with a focus on:

  • Computational design. ventures that develop and scale radical new products for mass-adoption of parametric, generative and algorithmic design, pushing the boundaries of physical simulation, digital twin;
  • Alternative materials. ventures active in the development, production, advanced application of alternative building materials, or building concepts, building elements, design+fabrication concepts (e/g stereotomy 2.0) based on advanced uses of alternative materials.
  • Digital fabrication. ventures developing and commercializing scalable 3Dprinting, robot assisted composites, factory and field robotics, automation products, digital molds, distributed building factories.”

Expected Outcomes and Impacts

“The overarching objective of this Challenge is to provide transformative digitally enabled solutions for the construction sector that can help it achieve climate neutrality while providing inclusive and high quality products.

The focus will be on achieving a reduction in embodied rather than operational carbon emissions. Socio-economic impacts include higher productivity, higher product quality, reduced material consumption and waste, improved construction logistic in the urban environment and increased economic impact without compromising on quality or safety.

This approach will also lead to higher quality jobs in a more progressive and appealing sector that can deliver a step-change in the overall quality of the social experience with the built environment.”

Challenge 5: Quantum computers hardware and real environment quantum sensors

Specific objectives

“The objective of this Challenge is to support ground-breaking innovations that have a high potential to develop:

  1. Next-generation fault-tolerant quantum computer(s) with:

    1. improved performance;
    2. significantly simplified QC integration with control electronics;
    3. scalable control systems (scalable to tens of thousands of qubits, needed for meaningful practical applications);

  2. Quantum sensors to function in real/harsh environment for various application areas, such as ecotoxicology, pharmaceuticals, biomedical, space, corrosion detection in power plants, gas/oil tanks, raw material detection, medical imaging, automotive and many more.”

Expected outcomes and impacts

“This Challenge is expected to support EU in taking a leading role in the development of cutting edge quantum computing and quantum sensors that can be used in real environment and deployed in various areas such as medical devices, pharmaceuticals, materials science, defence, space, etc.

In mid and long term, this challenge is expected to expand the quantum capabilities of Europe, underpin its economic resilience and digital sovereignty. It should pave the way for Europe to be at the cutting edge of quantum capabilities by 2030 as envisioned by the 2030 Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade.”

Specific conditions

“Applications to this EIC Accelerator Challenge may request an investment component of above EUR 15 million in duly justified cases.”

Challenge 6: Sustainable and resilient agriculture

Specific objectives

  1. “Design, development and evaluation of interdisciplinary solutions for regenerative agriculture and soil health in the areas of

    1. Fertilisation
    2. Crop protection
    3. Irrigation
    4. Tillage
    5. Soil and crop management

  2. Radical innovations in precision fermentation for the food sector, including but not limited to mycoproteins.

  3. Radical innovations in the area of natural solutions for carbon management and valorisation (carbon farmingcarbon stock in the soil, etc)

  4. Novel processes, materials, equipment, crops and microorganisms adapted to harsh environments, climate adaptation needs and resource scarcity.”

Expected outcomes and impacts

“This Challenge aims to improve the resilience and security of the European food supply chain, notably by maintaining and improving crop yield with environmentally friendly technologies, all while regenerating and increasing soil health. By aiming to valorise crop residues, this Challenge also aims to contribute to better carbon and nitrogen management practices, to mitigate climate change.

In doing so, the results arising from this challenge will foster the EU technological autonomy and leadership via focused support of innovations in the areas of sustainable and resilient agricultural production, food security, biodiversity and environmental protection. The challenge also aims to reduce the EU dependency from critical supply chains and strengthen the EU innovation ecosystem competitiveness in the strategic sectors of ecologic transition and clean, secure and cheap energy provision.”

Challenge 7: Customer driven, innovative space technologies and services

Specific objectives

“The overall goal of this challenge is to ensure Europe is able to service and protect its own Space infrastructure, avoiding the risk of losing its strategic autonomy over its own space assets, while enhancing the competitiveness of its space industry through encouraging the emergence of innovative, interoperable, scalable, and autonomous “customer-driven” innovative space technologies.

In terms of technological developments, the specific objectives of the call are:

  • To have the means to inspect spacecraft in orbit, to augment satellite capabilities and resilience;

  • To develop autonomous and in-space collision avoidance capabilities e.g., use of AL/ML for collision avoidance manoeuvres, space debris positioning data and develop in-space mobility propulsion capabilities;

  • To further mature self-assembly of spacecraft in orbit with different applications (e.g., in-orbit, cis-lunar exploration, Earth observation, space debris inspection, space situational awareness, etc.);

  • To collect and recycle space debris or recovering intact components from nonoperational satellites or cut dysfunctional satellites turning them into metal rods for potential fuel;

  • To refurbish upper stage of launchers and transform them into microgravity platforms;

  • To design and construct a R&I low Earth orbit unmanned modular platform assembled in orbit and to host in-orbit microgravity experiments or collect/reuse space debris;

  • To develop innovative technologies for Earth observation, navigation, satellite communications (SATCOM), space science, space situational awareness (SSA) and in-space logistics needing in-orbit demonstration and in-orbit validation (IOD/IOV).”

Expected outcomes and impacts

“This Challenge aims at developing:

  • an EU servicing and re-use/recycling capability for servicing EU space infrastructure, while contributing to the management and reduction of space debris;

  • timely and cost-effective Space Traffic Management services for on-time collision avoidance manoeuvres;

  • the re-use, refurbish or recycling of a spacecraft components or launchers upper stages scientific and technological solutions for in-orbit services and reuse/ refurbishing and recycling of old spacecraft (e.g. satellites, rockets upper stages, etc.);

  • Innovative propulsion solutions for in-space mobility of spacecraft”

Specific conditions

“Where relevant, companies supported under this Challenge will have access to in-orbit demonstration and testing facilities financed under Horizon Europe.”

This article is part of a series whereas the remaining articles can be found here, once published:

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

Cancelling Funding and Changing Grant Requests (2023 EIC Accelerator Work Programme Part 5)

The EIC Accelerator funding (grant and equity, with blended financing option) awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity financing per project (€17.5 million total). It is a popular funding instrument specializing in DeepTech startups and small mid-caps which aim to finalize their product developments, enter the market and scale globally.

The EIC’s 2023 Work programme

While the European Innovation Council (EIC) has remained silent regarding the 2023 Work programme that is yet to be released, ScienceBusiness has published the second draft of the highly anticipated document dated July 2022. This article series is exploring some changes and interesting aspects of the EIC Accelerator that are relevant for startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) and for professional writers, freelancers or consultants.

ScienceBusiness has likewise published the entire library of Horizon Europe documents by the European Commission (EC) that are mostly in draft form and can be found here.

All the information and conclusions provided in this article are subject to change and the opinion of the author. The following statement by the EIC is part of the 2023 EIC Work Programme draft that this article is based on:

“This document represents a working draft of the EIC work programme for the purpose of feedback and comments from members of the Horizon Europe Programme Committee for the EIC and European Innovation Ecosystems. This draft has not been adopted or endorsed by the European Commission. Any views expressed are the views of the Commission services and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the Commission. The information transmitted is intended only for the Member State or entity to which it is addressed for discussions and may contain confidential and/or privileged material.”

Cancelling Approved EIC Accelerator Funding

Horizon 2020 has been plagued by a variety of high-profile fraud cases such as two companies which were beneficiaries of 56 projects funded under the EU’s FP7 and/or Horizon 2020 research programmes. It is only natural that the EIC has implemented clauses which enable them to cancel issued grants or to decline an investment in case certain inconsistencies are encountered during the due diligence.

“In such a case, the Commission may also request amendments or, in the cases of misrepresentation, submission of false information, non-submission of information, suspicion of fraud or any other ground listed in the EIC Accelerator contract, it may terminate your initial EIC contract covering the grant component. The EIC Accelerator contract may also be terminated if the non-investment is likely to affect the implementation of the action or puts into question the decision awarding the financial support.“

For applicants, this presents a certain risk since it is known that the European Investment bank (EIB) and the EIC are very slow when it comes to the issuance of equity investments (read: Inside the EIC Fund). If a company has requested blended finance and is asked to stay in the due diligence process for 12 months, then they might decline the EIC Fund investment but this could jeopardise their received grant financing according to the EIC.

The EIC should make an official and binding commitment that, if an applicant is well-financed from other sources (different from the EIC), they should be allowed to decline the EIC Fund investment while retaining the grant. This should be a company’s right if the due diligence by the EIB is too slow for the speed at which a company has to perform. Slow due diligence can even be detrimental to the company’s financial health if other investors could act faster.

Converting Funding Requests

The EIC’s 2023 Work Programme outlines the option for a conversion of funding modalities whereas the Step 3 EIC Jury can decide that the requested amount or funding type, which has passed Step 1 and Step 2 already, is inappropriate and can change it on-the-fly.

This likewise expands towards the EIC Accelerator Open and Strategic Challenges as well as the funding modes, namely grant-first, grant-only, equity-only and blended financing.

For the EIC Accelerator Open and Strategic Challenges, the Step 3 jury and the Step 2 evaluators can make changes to the proposal:

“If in the course of the interview the jury assesses that your proposal falls within the scope of one of the Accelerator Challenges which is open at the cutoff and meets the relevant criteria for the Challenge, then your proposal may be transferred to be funded under the relevant Challenge.”

“If your application at the full application stage is assessed to be outside the scope of the Accelerator Challenges to which is it is submitted, then it will be transferred to the Accelerator Open.”

To the detriment of the applicants, this can also include the substitution of a grant with a repayable loan.

“Should the jury find the level of risk to be lower than initially identified by the applicant, the jury may also recommend another combination of components, including substitution of the grant component by a reimbursable advance.”

The ability to convert funding requests is likely one of the reasons why the grant-first success rates exceeded other modalities since some blended financing (grant and equity) applicants were converted into grant-first applicants without the EIC officially acknowledging it or releasing this information (read: EIC Accelerator 2022 Results).

While the EIC Jury and Step 2 evaluators can make a counter-recommendation in Step 2 and 3, respectively (i.e. convert blended financing to grant-first or change the topic), this can also be done during the due diligence phase. To understand the impact of this approach, the EIC should release the statistical data of all anonymized beneficiaries with timelines and funding amounts which aids in managing the expectations of future applicants.

“Should the outcome of the due diligence conclude that the innovation or your company is not yet mature for equity investment, the EIC Fund may recommend to the Commission that you start with the grant component first, and that the investment component will be subject to reaching defined milestones that will be included in the contract for the grant component via an amendment.”

This article is part of a series whereas the remaining articles can be found here, once published:

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

The Conditions for EIC Equity Investments (2023 EIC Accelerator Work Programme Part 3)

The EIC Accelerator funding (grant and equity, with blended financing option) awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity financing per project (€17.5 million total). It is a popular funding instrument specializing in DeepTech startups and small mid-caps which aim to finalize their product developments, enter the market and scale globally.

The EIC’s 2023 Work programme

While the European Innovation Council (EIC) has remained silent regarding the 2023 Work programme that is yet to be released, ScienceBusiness has published the second draft of the highly anticipated document dated July 2022. This article series is exploring some changes and interesting aspects of the EIC Accelerator that are relevant for startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) and for professional writers, freelancers or consultants.

ScienceBusiness has likewise published the entire library of Horizon Europe documents by the European Commission (EC) that are mostly in draft form and can be found here.

All the information and conclusions provided in this article are subject to change and the opinion of the author. The following statement by the EIC is part of the 2023 EIC Work Programme draft that this article is based on:

“This document represents a working draft of the EIC work programme for the purpose of feedback and comments from members of the Horizon Europe Programme Committee for the EIC and European Innovation Ecosystems. This draft has not been adopted or endorsed by the European Commission. Any views expressed are the views of the Commission services and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the Commission. The information transmitted is intended only for the Member State or entity to which it is addressed for discussions and may contain confidential and/or privileged material.”

Equity Financing under the EIC Accelerator

Equity financing is limited to a €15 million contribution by the EIC Fund but it is possible to request higher amounts in certain cases and especially those linked to the EIC Accelerator’s Strategic Challenges.

“The minimum investment component is EUR 0.5 million and the maximum is EUR 15 million. A more than EUR 15 million investment request is allowed in duly justified cases for: proposals in technologies that are strategic for the Union; where there is a global competition; and where the funding needs significantly exceed what is available in Europe.”

In the past, the EIC Fund had a variety of problems since applicants were not aware of how the equity financing would be implemented (read: An Inside Look into the EIC Fund). Successful EIC Accelerator blended finance applicants were under the assumption that the granted funding would be issued without additional conditions only to be asked to find their own lead investors. This became detrimental to some companies in this first batch because a lack of investor interest was why they applied to the EIC Accelerator in the first place and this is also what they explained in the application.

The EIC Accelerator required companies to justify why they cannot be funded elsewhere but then demanded they find funding elsewhere. Of course, the nuances are now clearer and the EIC has become more transparent which is of great benefit to applicants. The application template now clearly outlines the role the EIC aims to take and the conditions are well-described.

What is interesting is that the rule that the EIC Fund wants to invest with an external co-investor might change in the future, at least from the perspective of the applicant.

“The investment component of the EIC is designed to fill the funding gap for high risk innovations to a stage where they can be co-financed or financed under the InvestEU programme or by private investors alone. As the EIC accelerator is designed to bear the risk of potential breakthrough market creating innovations in order to attract alternate private investors in a second stage, the lack of such investors at the initial stage would not prevent the EIC investment to be agreed.”

While the definitions of the first and second stages are not clear (i.e. grant and equity, respectively), it can be interpreted as the EIC Fund investing in a company without any co-investors as a general rule. This could be in the form of a convertible note or loan as it was implemented previously or entail a direct equity investment.

Finding Co-Investors

The EIC has already outfitted their online platform with a list of investors and it is likely that the EIC wants to become a one-stop-shop for the full investment lifecycle. Especially past co-investors who have undergone due diligence alongside the EIC and European Investment Bank (EIB) can be collected and repurposed for future investments, thus generating a large network of compatible and strategic investors over time.

“You will also be offered the opportunity to share certain data and information with investors who have undergone a prior EIC due diligence process and who may wish to invest in your company or project and assist you in developing your idea into a business plan. You will also be asked to agree to share your relevant data with alternative funding bodies of your Member State or Associated Country.”

The language of developing your idea is interesting since the support of a strategic investor (i.e. those offering strategic support alongside financing) is very beneficial in early-stage projects stemming from Universities and other scientific institutions. If the EIC manages to build a network of strategic investors based on thematic areas (i.e. battery technology, ICT, medical devices, etc.) then this can greatly enhance the success of the funded projects and turn the EIC Accelerator into an actual business accelerator and not just in name.

The term idea is used very loosely by the EIC since TRL1 projects at the idea stage are not funded. It would be advisable if the EIC removes the term idea from the online platform as well since any company that is developing an idea from Step 1 into a business plan in Step 2 of the EIC Accelerator for the first time would likely not be successful.

The language should reflect that the project is far beyond the idea stage and has reached at least Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 or 6 and Business Readiness Level (BRL) 5 or 6.

Aligned with the approach of building an index of strategic investors, the 2023 Work Programme draft likewise outlines that the EIC will actively search for co-investors for the applicant.

“During this stage, and in particular if you have not yet secured other investors, the EIC Fund or the Agency will also look for other investors. You will be asked for your consent before other investors are contacted or engaged in negotiations.”

Loans from the EIC Fund

While the equity investments made by the EIC Fund already use in-direct modalities such as convertible notes or loans, it is still lagging behind in realising loans as a standard investment mode. Loans are expected to be released in 2022 or 2023 although these are of the same amount as the grant funding and seem to replace it with a repayable loan while their issuance is at the discretion of the jury in the Step 3 interviews of the EIC Accelerator.

“Reimbursable advances may be introduced during the course of 2022/23 in which case the terms and conditions will be made available on the EIC website. Once introduced, they would be considered by the jury in cases where the innovation cycle (market deployment) is short. The amount would be limited to a maximum of EUR 2.5 million and will reimburse up to 70% of the eligible costs of innovation activities. The reimbursable advance will have to be paid back to the EU on an agreed schedule as an interest-free loan. In case you are not able to reimburse or do not want to reimburse, the reimbursable advance will be transformed into equity. In case of bankruptcy, the reimbursable advance will be considered as a grant and hence written off.”

This approach seems to be a way of converting grant requests into loans which allows the EIC to fund more projects that they would have otherwise rejected (i.e. not innovative and DeepTech enough but a good business model or strong financial health).

It also allows the EIC to openly fund projects with lower risk profiles which is beneficial for Public Relations (PR) since these companies are more likely to be successful and funded by the EIC at no real cost.

It can also be a way to have more female CEO’s funded under the EIC which has been a priority and challenge for many years as well as allowing more funding for UK companies who are currently limited to grant-only support (read: UK Participation & Female Entrepreneur).

On the other hand, it is unfortunate that grant applicants now face the risk of receiving a loan after spending months in the application process and reaching the less than 10% of companies that make it to the Step 3 interviews. It would be reasonable if such counter offers are only formed in case the initial application has been officially rejected in Step 3 instead of the jury forcing a company to accept a loan in the interview prior to making a decision.

This article is part of a series whereas the remaining articles can be found here, once published:

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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:

EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, SME Instrument / EIC Accelerator

How Grant-First Projects get Equity Investments (2023 EIC Accelerator Work Programme Part 2)

The EIC Accelerator funding (grant and equity, with blended financing option) awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €15 million in equity financing per project (€17.5 million total). It is a popular funding instrument specializing in DeepTech startups and small mid-caps which aim to finalize their product developments, enter the market and scale globally.

The EIC’s 2023 Work programme

While the European Innovation Council (EIC) has remained silent regarding the 2023 Work programme that is yet to be released, ScienceBusiness has published the second draft of the highly anticipated document dated July 2022. This article series is exploring some changes and interesting aspects of the EIC Accelerator that are relevant for startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) and for professional writers, freelancers or consultants.

ScienceBusiness has likewise published the entire library of Horizon Europe documents by the European Commission (EC) that are mostly in draft form and can be found here.

All the information and conclusions provided in this article are subject to change and the opinion of the author. The following statement by the EIC is part of the 2023 EIC Work Programme draft that this article is based on:

“This document represents a working draft of the EIC work programme for the purpose of feedback and comments from members of the Horizon Europe Programme Committee for the EIC and European Innovation Ecosystems. This draft has not been adopted or endorsed by the European Commission. Any views expressed are the views of the Commission services and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the Commission. The information transmitted is intended only for the Member State or entity to which it is addressed for discussions and may contain confidential and/or privileged material.”

Financing Modes

The introduction of new funding modularities such as grant-first, grant-only, equity-only and blended financing has created confusion and added a variety of conditions that need to be considered (read: 2021 EIC Accelerator Work Programme). These especially relate to the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) and timelines expected from the applicants (read: Technology Readiness Levels). The success rates have historically differed among these options based on data published by the EIC (read: 2022 Results) although these statistics are incomplete due to the ability of the Jury to change the funding request during the Step 3 interviews (read: Changing Grant Requests).

Grant-First Financing

An interesting development of the EIC Accelerator is the introduction of the grant-first application. As opposed to grant-only applications which foresee applicants to reach TRL9 at the end of the project (read: Funding TRL’s), grant-first is designed for very risky projects which need to define and reach important milestones before follow-up equity financing can be issued. The outcome of the grant-first project is expected to be TRL8 and should be accompanied by a milestone which can be assessed and allows the applicant to become eligible for equity investments by the EIC Fund.

In theory, the EIC Accelerator should only fund high-risk projects since the risk level is part of the evaluation criteria. In fact, the 2023 Work Programme writes:

“Financial support is provided through three main funding schemes: the ‘EIC Pathfinder’ for advanced research on breakthrough / game-changing technologies; ‘EIC Transition’ for transforming research results into innovation opportunities; and the ‘EIC Accelerator’ for individual companies to develop and scale up breakthrough innovations with high risk and high impact.”

This is its mission since low-risk and high-return projects are financed by private markets and banks. In reality, the Step 3 EIC Jury will often prefer lower-risk and high-impact projects of companies that are already interesting to private markets so it is common that a company financed by the EIC would have raised private capital anyways as well as cases such as a recently funded software company that has raised €30+ million in the past and then received grant-only support by the EIC in 2022.

It is difficult to imagine that such a company was unable to leverage financing below €2.5M from private markets after raising over €30M in the past.

It could be argued that grant-first support is the original vision of the EIC Accelerator since these projects are the riskiest and most groundbreaking projects that require a safety net in the form of milestones to assess the progress on-the-fly before further funding is committed.

“Grant First: Your innovation is based on a scientific discovery or novel technology and still requires significant work to validate and demonstrate in relevant environments in order to properly assess its commercial potential.”

If the commercial potential for high-risk grant-first projects is uncertain but, on the other hand, it is clear for other projects (i.e. equity-only, grant-only, blended) then the latter should be medium-risk at best by way of comparison since all projects must have functioning technologies already (i.e. TRL5/6:  validated/demonstrated in the relevant environment).

Path to Equity Financing

For grant-first projects, the new 2023 EIC Work Programme now outlines how a company can access the equity component which allows it to reach TRL9. What is interesting is that no re-application via the 3-step EIC Accelerator application process using the online template is required (i.e. at least it is not explicitly mentioned). Instead, a formal assessment is performed which is followed by due diligence conducted by the European Investment Bank (EIB).

“Grant First: Grant-first companies are eligible for a follow on equity component subject to a milestone assessment attesting that the innovation activities are well under way and that the innovation has the potential for deployment or the interest shown by potential strategic/lead investor(s) in co-investing with the EIC into the company, as a sign of maturity of the innovation and of deployment perspective.

If the milestone assessment for a Grant First proposal is positive, you will be:

  • required to demonstrate that you have sufficient financial means (e.g. revenue flow, existing investors or shareholders) to finance or any remaining innovation activities and the deployment and scaling up of your innovation; or
  • invited to enter due diligence and negotiations to receive an EIC equity investment, including to complement any other third party investments if insufficient. Allocation of the equity investment is conditional to the due diligence assessment.

In your proposal for grant-first support, you will have to include a milestone at mid-term or at the latest 6 months before the end of the project, for the EIC to assess and decide whether to proceed or not with the negotiation and the award of an investment component.”

Considering this process, it is reasonable for all new applicants applying for blended finance or grant-first to directly include the respective milestones in the applications albeit this can also be done after the Step 3 interview has been passed successfully.

Limitations of Grant-First Projects

What is interesting to note is that, while equity financing can be used for all activities from TRL5 to TRL9, grant-first applicants are limited to only the grant component which technically limits the maximum budget that can be requested to reach TRL8 to €2.5M (including loans if they become available in the future).

For a blended finance project, financing TRL5 to TRL8 can be supplemented with equity investments which makes the maximum budget to reach TRL8 significantly larger. Considering that grant-first applications are only for the highest-risk projects, this means that the EIC will prioritize the allocation of its budget to medium and low-risk projects that receive blended financing without additional milestones.

A company with high-risk developments for artificial organs or new cancer treatments at TRL5 will be difficult to finance under the EIC because of the substantial funding requirements at low TRL’s, the need for long and expensive clinical trials as well as the limitation of grant-first applications to only obtain a grant to finance the activities.

Even in a less capital-intensive field, a project that requires €10M to reach TRL8 could not be funded without loans from other sources since grant-first applications have a maximum budget limit of €2.5M. There are still cases where an applicant can ask for larger funding amounts but this is only available in rare cases and is unlikely to be significantly higher.

There are mentions of loans provided by the EIC but these will only be available in the future since it is still vaguely described in the Work Programme. In fact, the rule that grant funding can only cover 70% of the costs is still in place so a grant-first applicant also needs sufficient co-financing or a loan by default.

“To provide for the co-financing of TRL5 to 8 activities, the EIC may introduce the option for grant-first applicants to request in their full proposal an investment component to co-finance the 30% of the costs for their TRL5 to 8 activities not covered by the grant component. If and when this option becomes available, the application form will be modified accordingly.”

Grant Budget Amounts

The 2023 EIC Work Programme also outlines the conditions for the request of higher grant amounts and longer durations:

“The grant component should normally be less than EUR 2.5 million but may be for a higher amount in exceptional and well justified cases. The innovation activities to be supported should normally be completed within 24 months but may be longer in well justified cases. “

This article is part of a series whereas the remaining articles can be found here, once published:

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:

  • January 11th 2023 (only EIC Accelerator Open)
  • March 22nd 2023
  • June 7th 2023
  • October 4th 2023

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.

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.

Want to see all articles? They can be found here.

For Updates: Join this Newsletter!


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: