The EIC is the EU’s flagship funder for supporting the development of breakthrough technologies and the growth of research-based small companies.

Launched in 2021 after a pilot phase, it was hailed as a key instrument to kickstart private investment in EU innovation. But its investment arm has been plagued by problems, building up a backlog of equity investments promised to companies.

The EIC fund provides equity investments of €500,000 to €15 million for companies through its Accelerator instrument for developing and scaling up innovations.

The Commission said on 6 July that since it launched, the EIC equity fund had approved 268 investments into deep-tech companies, totalling €1.4 billion. Of these, 147 companies have signed investment agreements.

Backlog reducing

The EIC fund was restructured in September 2022, with the Commission shifting its management to an external organisation. Since then, it has approved a total of 128 investments for deep-tech companies, worth more than €786m.

For the first quarter of 2023, the Commission said that the EIC was the largest venture capital investor in European deals by the amount invested, and the third largest in terms of number of deals.

“With this, the EIC Fund has made a significant progress in working away the backlog of equity investments,” the Commission said.

Some companies have waited up to about a year for equity-based investments from the EIC.

In December 2022, a Commission official said that the EIC Fund would clear its backlog of delayed investment decisions by the spring of 2023. Further delays were then announced in the spring, causing MEP Christian Ehler to describe the situation as “Kafkaesque”.