The companies were selected through a highly competitive process that saw a total of 476 applications from across Europe. 

The first 2023 EIC Accelerator cut-off, which did not include the EIC Accelerator Challenges calls, saw 159 companies being interviewed by juries of experienced investors and entrepreneurs.

€196M in grants and equity

The 32 selected companies will receive close to €196M in a combination of grants and equity investments, with the equity investments being made through the EIC Fund. 

The selected companies have a geographical spread spanning 14 countries. 94 per cent of recommended funding is for beneficiaries in EU Member States, of which 17 per cent is for widening country applicants.

EIC says that 40 per cent of the selected companies have a female CEO, CTO, or CSO, which is the highest share to date. 

While the blended finance (grants combined with equity investments) recommendation remained broadly the same as in recent cut-offs (53 per cent), grant-first recommendations rose again (38 per cent) with grant-only recommendations moving in the opposite direction (9 per cent).

The European Innovation Council (EIC) also announced that most of the companies that have applied for grant financing will receive their funds within the next two to three months, while investment decisions will be made within two months. 

Seal of Excellence

The 126 applications which have successfully met all the criteria at the remote evaluation stage and were assessed positively by the EIC jury, although not recommended for funding, will be awarded a Seal of Excellence. 

This initiative aims to support these promising projects in securing alternative sources of funding, including the Recovery and Resilience Funds and European Regional Development Funds, adds EIC. 

New cut-off closed

Alongside this, a new cut-off closed on 22 March with 551 full proposals has been submitted. 

Of these, 468 were submitted to the Open topic and 83 to the Challenges topics. 

The proposals’ requested amount of funding is over €3.3B and the applicants come from 34 countries, of which 15 are from widening countries. 

Proposals are now being evaluated by independent experts. The most promising companies will then be invited to pitch in front of a jury of investors and business experts in May, with selection decisions expected in the second half of June.

In addition, the EIC Fund continues to progress in taking investment decisions on companies selected by the EIC Accelerator in 2021 and 2022, and has now taken 93 decisions worth €574.7M.

EIC Accelerator

The EIC Accelerator programme supports individual Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), particularly startups and spin-out companies, to develop and scale ground-breaking innovations. 

The programme offers startups and SMEs grants of up to €2.5M combined with equity investments through the EIC Fund ranging from €0.5M to €15M. 

In addition, EIC-selected companies also receive coaching, mentoring, access to investors and corporates, and other opportunities.

Since its launch in March 2021, more than 6,500 startups and SMEs have sent their ideas, and over 3,330 have submitted full applications.

The next cut-offs for full applications are June 7, 2023, and October 4, 2023.

Link to original article can be found here.