Image credits: Deftpower
The European Commission (EC) announced on Monday, October 30, that it has selected 47 companies to receive European Innovation Council (EIC) funding, following the third 2023 EIC Accelerator cut-off in June.
According to EIC, engineering and tech-based companies performed strongly, accounting for 25 per cent of the selected companies, which is close to the traditionally strong performance of health tech companies that make up 30 per cent of the total.
The companies spanning 15 countries were selected in a highly competitive process in which 140 companies were interviewed by juries of experienced investors and entrepreneurs out of 648 full proposals submitted.
The 47 selected companies will together receive nearly €350M of funding.
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A large majority of selected companies (68 per cent) will receive a blended finance option, which is a combination of grants and equity investments.
The equity investments will be made through the EIC Fund.
In most cases, the companies will receive the grant financing within the next two to three months, while the first investment decisions will be made within two months.
Additionally, 91 applications that were evaluated remotely and met all the requirements but were not recommended for funding will receive a Seal of Excellence.
It will help them secure funding from alternative sources such as the Recovery and Resilience Funds or European Regional Development Funds.
EIC Accelerator
The EIC Accelerator programme supports individual Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), particularly startups and spin-out companies, to develop and scale ground-breaking innovations.
The programme offers startups and SMEs grants of up to €2.5M combined with equity investments through the EIC Fund ranging from €0.5M to €15M.
In addition, EIC-selected companies also receive coaching, mentoring, access to investors and corporates, and other opportunities.
The next cut-off for EIC Accelerator full proposals will be announced in the EIC 2024 Work Programme, scheduled to be adopted in December 2023.
We have listed some innovative projects and companies from the Netherlands selected in the current cut-off. You can check out the entire list here.
Axelera AI
Founder/s: Fabrizio Del Maffeo and Evangelos Eleftheriou
Recommended finance type: Blended finance
Axelera AI provides Metis AI platform – a holistic hardware and software solution for AI interference at the edge – enabling computer vision applications to become more accessible, powerful and user friendly.
ChainCraft
Founder/s: Niels van Stralen
Recommended finance type: Grant first
ChainCraft develops and exploits proprietary fermentation processes to produce biochemicals from organic waste. ChainCraft uses an inventive fermentation method to replace fossil and palm oil-based compounds with circular chemicals made from food waste.
Skytree
Founder/s: Max Beaumont
Recommended finance type: Blended finance
Skytree uses direct air capture (DAC) technology to harvest CO2 from the surrounding air.
The DAC core technology from Skytree collects CO2 from ambient air onsite, filters it using a proprietary method, and then stores it in pressurised buffer tanks where it can be accessed and used by any company that often requires concentrated CO2.
Deftpower
Founder/s: Jacob Van Zonneveld, Marc Diks and Remco Tjeerdsma
Recommended finance type: Grant first
Deftpower is an AI supported SaaS-platform for EV Charging enabling people to access multiple charging stations and providing a compelling customer experience for EV drivers.
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