On October 27th we held a webinar on the new funding instruments of the EIC (European Innovation Council) in Horizon Europe.
In the session, we highlighted the boost that Horizon Europe wants to give to the European Innovation Ecosystem, and in particular to the newly created European Innovation Council (EIC), which will act as a one-stop shop to “support cutting-edge or disruptive innovations with expansion potential that are too risky for private investors”. In the webinar we told attendees that the CEI will be fully operational from 2021 after a pilot phase between 2018 and 2020 in which many SMEs and research organizations have already benefited from Pathfinder and Accelerator Pilot grants.
It is worth noting that approximately half of the SMEs that have obtained funding are young startups with less than 5 years and less than 10 employees, which indicates the European Commission’s commitment to investments with high risk but also with a high potential for market impact.
In the second part of the session, we explained in detail the new features of the CEI grants, which will have three complementary instruments to accompany the development of innovations from the idea to the industrial and commercial scaling of the product, through all stages of maturity of the technology: Accelerator, Pathfinder and the new Transition Funds that are introduced in Horizon Europe to shorten the distance between the idea and the project in which to invest to launch a product or service to the global market.
In addition, we were able to review the new procedures for the submission and evaluation of project proposals and he highlighted the European Innovation Council Fund as a key body for companies to access not only grants of 2.5-3 million euros but also venture capital of up to 15 million euros: “the EIC Fund will be a temporary friendly investor with an exit strategy when the company reaches break-even, which will allow the company’s partners to negotiate freely and even reject the investment if necessary”.
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