The EIC Accelerator is the European Innovation Council‘s (EIC) main programme for SMEs. It was lauched in 2019 as a pilot project within the Horizon 2020 initiative. The EIC Accelerator is designed for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMES) with radically new ideas underpinned by a business plan for rolling out marketable innovation solutions and with ambitions to scale up.

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’).

It targets for-profit SMEs only, including young companies and start-ups, from any sector – there are no set topics. From 5 June 2019 only single companies (as opposed to consortia) can apply for EIC Accelerator.

EIC Accelerator – Business acceleration services and coaching

EIC Accelerator helps you develop your business concept further into a market-ready product, service or process aligned with your company’s growth strategy. The EIC offers free coaching, business acceleration services and mentoring to help your business scale up and grow. These are open to all small businesses that are EIC clients, simultaneously to their grant.

Funding

From 5 June 2019 the EIC Accelerator offers not only grants but also blended finance in the form of an optional investment in equity in addition to the grant, to single for-profit SMEs. Projects will receive between € 0.5 and € 2.5 million in the form of grants. The maximum of investment in the form of equity is € 15 million.