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. It supports recipients of the Seal of Excellence in their pursuit of funding from alternative sources and helps other funding bodies take advantage of the respected Horizon Europe evaluation process for their own funding decisions. Under Horizon Europe, the EIC awarded 302 Seals of Excellence.Background informationDepending on the decision of the jury responsible for hearing the management team of a start-up/ SME carrying out the corresponding innovation project, excellent proposals submitted to EIC Accelerator or EIC Transition scheme that meet all the selection criteria, but cannot be funded under the available call budget, may be awarded an EIC Seal of Excellence.Usually, the Seal of Excellence certificate is delivered to companies when they receive their evaluation results.