European Commission EIC Accelerator 2024

The EIC Accelerator supports companies (principally SMEs, including start-ups) to scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones. The EIC Accelerator provides a unique combination of funding from EUR 0.5 to EUR 17.5 million and Business Acceleration Services.

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.

The EIC Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scale up. The technology component of your innovation must therefore have been tested and validated in a laboratory and other relevant environment (e.g.,at least Technology Readiness Level 5). The EIC Accelerator looks to support companies where the EIC support will act as a catalyst to crowd in other investors necessary for the scale up of the innovation.

Applicants to EIC Accelerator can submit proposals through:

• EIC Accelerator Open, which has no predefined thematic priorities and is open to proposals in any field of technology or application;
• EIC Accelerator Challenges in predefined areas of emerging and strategic technologies.

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded? 

• The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 675 million. EUR 375 million of the total indicative budget will be allocated to EIC Accelerator Open and EUR 300 million to EIC Accelerator Challenges.
• The EIC Accelerator provides:
  • grant component only (‘Grant Only’)
• blended finance support which is composed of:
  • An investment component usually in the form of direct equity or quasi-equity such as convertible loans via an investment agreement.
  • A grant component, that will take the form of a lump sum contribution
• investment component only (Equity-Only) support to non-bankable SMEs, including start-ups, which have already received an eligible grant support.

Criteria

• To be an eligible applicant to EIC Accelerator, you must apply as one of the following eligible entities:
  • a single company classified as a SME, and established within a Member State or an Associated Country
  • a single company classified as a small mid-cap (up to 499 employees) established in a Member State or an Associated Country, but only for exceptional cases for rapid scale up purposes; or
  • one or more natural persons (including individual entrepreneurs) or legal entities, which are either:
    • from a Member State or an Associated Country intending to establish an SME or small mid-cap (as defined above) in a Member State or Associated Country by the time of signing the EIC Accelerator grant agreement or, in case the equity only is awarded, at the latest at the date of signature of the agreement on its investment component;
    • intending to invest in an SME or small mid-cap established in a Member State or an Associated Country and may submit a proposal on behalf of that SME or small mid-cap, provided that a prior agreement exists with the company. The grant agreement and/or the investment agreement will be signed with the beneficiary/ final recipient of funding company only; or
    • from a non-associated third country intending to establish an SME (including start-ups) or to relocate an existing SME to a Member State or an Associated Country. Your company must prove its effective establishment in a Member State or an Associated Country at the time of submission of the full proposal.

For more information, visit EC.