The EIC awarded Seals of Excellence to 160 companies who submitted their applications for the EIC Accelerator March 2022 cut-off.  These companies’ proposals were judged by independent experts to meet all the EIC’s highly quality standards and deserve funding, but did not get it only due to budget limits.Seal of Excellence, the now well-known quality label, recognises the value of the proposal.

The EIC Accelerator, with a unique offer of grants, blended finance and equity investments, has proven to be of high interest for start-ups and SMEs since its launch in March 2021. In particular with the current market context showing a withdrawal of new deep-tech investments by Venture Capital groups, the role of the EIC Accelerator is becoming increasingly important to provide early-stage support to promising start-ups and crowd-in other investors.

The EIC Accelerator funding scheme targets deep tech startups with radically new ideas underpinned by a business plan for rolling out marketable innovation solutions and with ambitions to scale up.It offers up to €17,5 million in financing, blending grants and equity-based investments. Running as a pilot programme within Horizon 2020 (2014-2020), the EIC has become one of the most successful funding schemes worldwide.It will continue to run for the forthcoming Horizon Europe (2021-2027), with the EU pledging over €10 billion.

In an effort to strengthen the European area, the European Commission appears to be ready to take all investments to the next level. With the implementation of European projects under massive financial frameworks such as Horizon 2020 and its heir Horizon Europe, we can see a massive change happening.After the crisis of the Coronavirus Covid-19, all investments appear to be turning towards innovative projects that can play a game-changing role in the European area. The aim is to create a sustainable and human-centric digital future.