The newly-adopted 2024 work programme of the European Innovation Council (EIC) is opening over €1.2bn in funding opportunities, essentially targeting deep tech startups and SMEs.
Under the brand new intention, the EIC Fund will pick up a capital injection of €585mn to spend money on EIC chosen firms, leveraging over €2 billion in new investments.
Almost the final funding addresses all fields of technology, but €420mn is devoted to startups and SMEs creating tech for strategic industries, in conjunction with Generative AI, rental, serious uncooked supplies, semiconductors, and quantum. Here’s in line the bloc’s initiatives equivalent to the Chips Act, the Secure Zero Trade Act, and the AI Act.
Specifically, EIC’s work programme for next twelve months is split into three funding domains:
- EIC Pathfinder: €256mn for analysis with the doable to consequence in technological breakthroughs — with grants up to €4mn.
- EIC Transition: €94mn to flip analysis from lab to fab, following the results from Pathfinder, the European Analysis Council Proof of Thought projects, and Horizon Europe. Here, grants trudge up to €2.5mn.
- EIC Accelerator: €675mn for startups and SMEs to kind and scale enhancements that could well assemble new markets or disrupt existing ones — with grands no bigger than €2.5mn. Out of the final amount, €405mn of investments shall be managed by the EIC Fund, which could pick up a further €180 to total investments in firms chosen in old Accelerator calls.
The new work programme additionally comes with a series of makeovers, which could — confidently — address the considerations plaguing EIC since its birth in 2021: from funding difficulties and delays to tensions with the Commission and even the abrupt shutdown of the Accelerator submissions portal in July.
“We are committed to making Europe essentially the most comely build to kind applied sciences and grow deep tech firms,” stated Commissioner Iliana Ivanova. “The new EIC work programme with €1.2 billion for 2024 and improved rules, to boot to the restructured EIC Fund, are designed to attain appropriate that.”
No matter the hurdles, EIC’s toughen has to this level yielded a alternative of spectacular results. Its portfolio contains 500 of Europe’s most promising startups and high enhance firms and counts 12 unicorns and 112 centaurs.
