EIC Pre-accelerator - Widening

Forthcoming

This is the status published by the official source.

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Expected Outcome:
This call will increase the innovation potential of deep-tech startups in the Widening countries and enable them to better attract private investments and scale up. It will further strengthen the innovation dimension of the widening component and increase the overall competitiveness of these countries.
The specific outcome expected of this action is increased business, investor, and technology readiness of high potential deep-tech startups in Widening countries to a level where they will:

• be successful in applying and attracting the EIC Accelerator funding and/or;
• manage to secure other private investment and/or;
• attract successfully national or regional funding as alternative funding sources (e.g. through Seal of Excellence programmes). Scope:
This action focuses on early-stage deep-tech startups which 1) have high-impact innovation technology, product, service, or business model that could create new markets or disrupt existing ones, and 2) have the ambition and commitments to scale up.
The successful applicants need to work on deep tech innovation. Such companies often struggle to attract financing because the technology and investment risks are too high.
In the framework of this call, deep-tech[1] is technology that is based on cutting-edge scientific advances and discoveries and is characterised by the need to stay at the technological forefront by constant interaction with new ideas and results from the lab. Deep-tech innovations are understood to be those that have the potential to deliver transformative solutions, rooted in cutting-edge science, technology, and engineering, including innovation that combines advances in the physical, biological and digital spheres. Deep-tech is distinct from ‘high-tech’ which tends to refer only to R&D intensity[2].
This EIC Pre-accelerator - Widening call is designed to enable promising deep-tech startups to develop further their innovations (from TRL 4 to TRL 5/6)[3], attract the investment amounts needed for scale up in a shorter timeframe and successfully apply and attract funding from EIC Accelerator or other sources.
The applicants are expected to demonstrate in their application that they:

• have developed technology validated in the lab (at least TRL 4);
• possess the necessary Intellectual Property Rights to ensure freedom to operate and adequate protection of the idea;
• have a clear vision on the intended pathway and route to market. This includes specific milestones together with concrete and verifiable KPIs to assess progress towards the market. The support will be in awarded by grants max at 70% funding of the eligible costs. 30% co-funding to be covered by the beneficiary through its own resources.
An amount between EUR 300.000 and max EUR 500.000 in the form of a lump sum for a period of up to 2 years is considered appropriate.
The requested grant is expected to be used for:

• addressing the investor and market readiness towards commercialisation and deployment (market research, value proposition, business case and business model, prospects for growth, intellectual property protection, competitor analysis etc.) and if relevant, aspects of regulation, certification and standardisation, aimed at getting both the technology and the business idea investment ready and/or;
• the maturation and validation of novel technologies beyond proof of concept to viable demonstrators of the technology in the intended field of application (i.e., from minimum TRL 4 up to TRL 6). At the end of the EIC Pre-accelerator project, it needs to:

• demonstrate that the technology component of their innovation has been tested and validated in a laboratory and other relevant environment (e.g. at least completed all aspects of TRL 5);
• be ready to apply for EIC Accelerator and/or to seek other investors or sources of funding, to enter licensing or collaboration agreements with third parties, or other routes to market deployment. Successful applicants and those awarded the Seal of Excellence will be granted free access to the EIC Business Acceleration Services[4], such as coaching and specific events tailored to their needs (e.g. for improving investor and market readiness).
This will be complemented by access to the EIC Accelerator Fast Track for submissions to the Accelerator programme following a project review in the second half of the project.
[1] Deep-tech ventures have the following characteristics: positioning at the knowledge frontier with long and uncertain R&I cycles; relates to tangible products and industrialisation processes; linked to the ecosystem and especially higher education institutions, problem orientated, or mission driven, focused on the creation of an option space and a dynamic de-risking cycle.
[2] Ratio of a firm’s R&D investment to its revenue.
[3] Completed TRL 5 (Technology validated in relevant environment – industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies) or TRL6 (Technology demonstrated in relevant environment -industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies).
[4] See EIC Work Programme 2027. More information is available also here: https://eic.ec.europa.eu/eic-funding-opportunities/business-acceleration-services_en.

Status

Forthcoming

Deadline

18 November 2027 (time not stated)

Opens

5 May 2027

Published

12 December 2025

Total budget

€40,000,000

Grant range

€500,000 – €1,000,000

Country

European Union (EU-wide)

Programme

Horizon Europe (HORIZON)

Funder

European Commission

Official page

Open at the source portal

What applying involves

15 steps, all of them taken from this call's own documents.

Understand the call

• Read the call on the source portal and download its documents
• Write the proposal against the award criteria and thresholds

  Seals of Excellence will be awarded to applications exceeding all of the evaluation thresholds set out in this work programme but which cannot be funded due to lack of budget available to the call. are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes — conditions §5a

• Check the grant's legal and financial set-up standard for this programme

  Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025) . The funding rate is 70 % of the eligible costs. described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes. Specific conditions … — conditions §6

• Note the opening date — a proposal cannot be submitted before it
• Check the amount you plan to request against the call's range

Check you are eligible

• Check your organisation is a type this call funds

  The source names: SMEs. — ai_results.eligibility

• Check your country of establishment is eligible

  The source scopes this to one country only. — ai_results.eligibility

• Confirm your technology readiness level against the range the call states
• Check every partner is established in an eligible country standard for this programme

  described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide . In WIDERA calls, the countries eligible for hosting coordinators of widening actions are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary … — conditions §2

• Meet the call's other eligibility conditions

  Applications may only be submitted by one legal entity (mono-beneficiary). The following additional eligibility criteria apply: Beneficiaries must be a small and medium enterprise (SME) established in a Horizon Europe Widening country. described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes — conditions §3

• Be able to show financial and operational capacity standard for this programme

  described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes — conditions §4

Prepare the documents

• Prepare Part B of the Application Form standard for this programme

  Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. — conditions

• Complete the detailed budget table standard for this programme

Submit

• Check the submission and evaluation process

  The following additions to the general award criteria apply: The proposals will be evaluated by 3 independent evaluators following the award criteria for EIC Transition Open at first evaluation step, EIC Work Programme 2027. These are: Excellence (Threshold: 4/5) Technological breakthrough: Does the technology have a high degree of novelty and higher performance compared to other technologies available or in development? Does the technology indicate high commercial … — conditions §5b

• Submit before the closing date shown above

  The source states the closing day but no closing time — check the portal before the last day. — calls.deadline

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