Call for Applications: Women TechEU Project

Funding Information

• Each beneficiary will receive €75k grants (non-dilutive finance) as well as a personalised business development programme which includes mentoring, coaching and targeted training among other options.

Eligible Activities

• Taking into account your particular needs and requirements it is up to you (the applicant) to choose how you plan to allocate funds towards activities that will accelerate the development, growth and sustainability of your business. For example, you can spend this grant on business model upgrade, update and consolidation of business plan and growth strategy, business model validation, update of financial plan, certifications, IP strategy and freedom to operate, commercial plan, market analysis, customer validation and technical/clinical assessment, finding partners and investors, etc. Independent expert (s) will assess whether the proposed activities are most appropriate and required to support your company’s growth and development.

How do they define deep tech?

• Deep tech innovation aims to provide concrete solutions to their societal problems by finding its source in a deep interaction with the most recent scientific and technological advances and by seeking to produce a profound impact in the targeted application areas. Sectors, which are most fertile for deep tech applications are life-science, computing, food and agri-tech, aerospace, energy and clean-tech, industrial technologies, telecom, new materials, chemistry. However deep tech also includes, among other things, artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning. They welcome applications from all deep tech fields of activity. A deep tech company must:
  • be leveraging breakthroughs in scientific fields;
  • have their core technology based on recent scientific advancements or pushing boundaries in established fields;
  • have technology with the potential to disrupt the existing markets or create entirely new ones, and
  • have a solution that is genuinely innovative and not just an incremental improvement. Ideally, the technology can also be scaled efficiently and reach a broad audience, although this is not a defining characteristic and a technology that is not easily scalable can still be deep tech.

Eligibility Criteria

• Women TechEU targets early-stage deep tech start-ups founded, or co-founded, by women holding a top management position (CEO, CTO or equivalent). Women should hold at least 25% of the shares in the company at the time of submission. The company must be registered and established in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Associated Country for at least six months and a maximum of eight years from the time of submission.
• Under Horizon Europe, a ‘start-up’ should be understood as an SME in the early stage of its life cycle, including those that are created as spin-offs from university research activities, which aims to find innovative solutions and scalable business models, and which is autonomous within the meaning of Article 3 of the Annex to EU recommendation 2003/361:
  • An “autonomous enterprise” is any enterprise which is not classified as a partner enterprise within the meaning of paragraph 2 or as a linked enterprise within the meaning of paragraph 3
  • Employ fewer than 250 persons
  • Have an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million, and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million

For more information, visit Women TechEU.