108 innovative projects will get support from the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot to bring their innovations faster onto the market. The total amount to be distributed to the projects under the EIC Accelerator and the Fast Track to Innovation strands of the EIC pilot is €210.216 million. Each project will receive between €0.5 and €3 million. With this funding and extra business acceleration support, innovative companies will be able to finance their close-to-market innovation activities and get on the market faster.
The selected projects include a hybrid simulation platform for neurosurgery, a recyclable kitchen countertop stone, a technology replicating the rain process to supply sustainable drinking water, an anti-metastatic cancer vaccine, a kite collecting wind energy, a technology to map air quality with high-spatial resolution and a periscopic stereo depth camera.
96 small companies get support to speed up the pace of their innovation with €177 million
The European Commission will support 96 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 20 countries under the EIC Accelerator. The total amount to be distributed between the SMEs working on 94 projects is € 176.975 million. Under this strand of the EIC pilot, each project will receive up to €2.5 million to finance innovation activities like demonstration, testing, piloting and scaling up. The companies will also benefit from 12 days of free business coaching and acceleration services.
Further to an application on paper, 192 candidates pitched their innovations to a Jury of professional investors, entrepreneurs and business experts that evaluated the solidity of their project and selected 94 innovations for funding.
French SMEs were the most successful with 11 companies selected for funding. They were followed by 10 companies from Spain and 9 businesses Israel. Most selected companies are active in the field of ICT, health and engineering.
14 innovative projects get support to access the market faster with €33 million
In addition, the European Commission is awarding €33.241 million to 14 innovative projects, involving 56 partners in 19 countries. The selected projects will receive around €2 million each within the Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) strand of the EIC pilot.
FTI supports mature innovative concepts that have already been tested. On offer is up to €3 million per consortia involving three to five partners, including SMEs and a majority of industry participants. The participating SMEs also have access to free business coaching and acceleration services.
Background
The EIC Accelerator and the Fast Track to Innovation are a central part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot, targeting radically new, breakthrough products, services, processes or business models that open up new markets. Between 2018 and 2020 the EIC pilot will provide €2.7 billion to breakthrough, market-creating innovations, under Horizon 2020 – the EU’s multi-annual Research and Innovation Programme. From now on, the EIC Accelerator (SME Instrument Phase 2) will offer optional equity investment in addition to a grant. Innovative companies can apply for a grant only or up to 17.5 million in combined grant and equity financing to scale-up quickly and effectively.
The grants available will be between € 0.5 and 2.5 million and equity investment can amount up to €15 million. The next cut-off date for EIC Accelerator and Fast Track to Innovation are respectively on 09 October 2019 and 22 October 2019.
More information
Map of all projects funded under the EIC Accelerator SME Instrument
Map of all projects funded under FTI
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.