Call for Proposals: Women TechEU Project

160 talented women entrepreneurs from all over the European Union and Horizon Europe associated countries will be receiving direct support. With funding (non-diluting finance) and a personalized business development programme, the project will be paving the way for these innovators to shine as leaders in deep tech innovation across Europe.

Programme of Service

• This unique Women TechEU Service offers a 6-month package where the beneficiaries can select from:
  • Service 1 Female mentors (one meeting per month during 5 months): As part of the programme, they will offer women entrepreneurs access to carefully selected, and experienced women mentors who will provide guidance, support, and valuable insights tailored to each founder and designed to help them succeed in their business ventures. Through the Sploro platform, they will enable specific matchmaking of and connections and mentorship sessions between women, fostering a supportive network that can help overcome the unique challenges women entrepreneurs often face. Research has shown that positive influence from successful women can play a crucial role in the success of other women-led businesses.
  • Service 2 Investor outreach and pitch preparation: They will open doors and make introductions to investor entities (business angels, VCs, funds) in their networks who are positively welcoming women entrepreneurs. Their experts will provide pitch presentation review and rehearsal support providing guidance and feedback to improve confidence in delivery. This will help the startups overcome the challenge of raising early investment that women founders often face.
  • Service 3 Investor and Export Readiness Check: Using a structured approach with questions on the core business areas, the startups will be assessed on team, product, market, finance, operations and IP in order to determine if they are ready to pitch in front of investors, or present to potential clients. Women entrepreneurs tend to doubt themselves a million times more than male counterparts so practising with one of their experts will build confidence, and if there are areas that need attention, they will be helped to address those before pitching. Connections with EIT Food programme in internationalization RocketUp will be sought, when possible.
  • Service 4 – Soft Skills Training: Since the Women TechEU startups are at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey, the women entrepreneurs will be offered development content on soft skills areas like public speaking, presentation, leadership skills, improve productivity by using AI,  and more. Given that they come from the deep tech sector, their hard skills will be top-notch, but they want to train them to become an all-rounder with their blended courses (mix of in-person and recorded sessions).
  • Service 5 – Sales Strategy & Execution: The go-to-market strategy is the area where most companies fail. They see this in front of investors as well as in the pitches to the juries at the EIC Accelerator sessions. Here at Women TechEU they expect the companies to be even more embryonic in their understanding of how to find leads, how to fill their pipeline, when and what to say upon follow up and even how to tune the pricing models to the right target group of clients. Women entrepreneurs tend to be less aggressive in their sales strategy and they want to instil in them the knowledge and confidence that it is ok to ask for money for services and products.
  • Service 6 – Environmental Impact Assessment: The environmental impact of technology and business models from entrepreneurs is a growing area of interest to investors. Women TechEU will offer the service of climate impact projections to support women entrepreneurs to understand the environmental impact of their innovations and help them design sustainable and impactful business models from the outset. The service leverages an online tool designed for startups, based on the benchmark Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. Users can explore new options to make a positive climate impact reducing CO2eq emissions of their business model and deep tech innovation. It can also measure health, ecotoxicity, and resource depletion like rare earth minerals.
  • Service 7 – Corporate Access: Leveraging the large network of corporates provided by EIT KICs, this service provides a platform for women-led startups to connect with potential partners and customers. As women are underrepresented in the corporate world, this service offers a great opportunity for women-led startups in Europe to expand their reach, showcase their innovative solutions, and secure valuable partnerships that can help them achieve their business goals.
• At the moment of submission, the applicant will select her top three services that she would like to get from Women TechEU project. During the execution of the Programme of Services selected services from the EIC Business Accelerator Service will also be offered.

Funding Information

• This third call boasts a total budget of €3,000,000. Beyond the equity-free funding of €75,000 per startup, Women TechEU extends support through a Programme of service.

Eligibility Criteria

• Established country: the applicant must be established in a EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country.
  • Early-stage startup:
    • The legal entity should be established at least six months prior to the opening of the call.
    • The ‘startup’ should be compliant with the definition of SME, according to the EU definition of SMEs according to the EU recommendation 2003/361.
    • Early-stage refers to the phase of startup development generally preceding the rapid growth phase. As an indication, the following criteria will be considered, amongst other to define an early-stage startup:
      • Startups that have been established and operating for not more than 8 years counting backwards from opening of the call date and,
      • Startups that have raised limited funding (up to 1 M € in equity),
      • Before reaching a high fidelity Minimum Viable Product .
  • Women leadership: Women legally recognized as founders or co-founders of the company. The founder or co-founder of the company must also currently hold a top management position (CEO, CTO or equivalent) within the same company. It will be also required that women hold at least 25% of the shares in the CAP table (capitalization table) of the company.
    • Important Notes:
      • Women TechEU supports women in all their diversity. The word “woman” equates to a cis woman, or a transgender woman who is legally defined as a woman.
      • The lead applicant of the submission must be a woman.
      • The means of verification will be the Identity Card issued by the country of their nationality.
  • 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, or chemistry. However deep tech also includes, among other, artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning. Women TechEU welcomes applications from all deep tech fields of activity.
  • Not previously funded for the same activities by another EU Programme: To avoid double funding, neither the full application of any of its parts have benefited from any other EU Programme such as Women TechEU initiative, EIC Accelerator or similar initiatives (i.e.: Horizon Europe – EmpoWomen).
  • Not part of Women TechEU beneficiaries: Women TechEU consortium partners, their affiliated entities, employees, and subcontractors are not allowed to submit a proposal and therefore to receive any financial support through the open calls.

Evaluation Process

• The evaluation process consists of three phases:
  • Eligibility check: A semi-automatic filter will consider 10 criteria that all applicants must comply with to be eligible. The eligible proposals will then be assessed using a points system that emphasizes desirable criteria. Points will be awarded based on specific and measurable criteria, with only the highest-scoring applications proceeding to experts’ remote evaluation.
  • Experts’ remote evaluation: The proposals that pass the eligibility check and get a high-score will move to the remote evaluation stage. Applications will be assessed by a group of external and independent evaluators with an entrepreneurial, investment or innovation background. Two evaluators, one with technical and another one with commercial business background, will assess the proposals based on 3 different evaluation criteria (Impact, Excellence, and Implementation).
  • Score normalisation: This method ensures a more balanced distribution of scores and reduces the possibility of biases and distortions. At the event that a divergence greater of 20% persists, the two evaluators will hold a consensus meeting.
  • Final Selection: All proposals are ranked based on their remote evaluation scores. In the event of a tie, a series of rules will be followed that will make it possible to reach a tiebreaker.

For more information, visit European Commission.