Transaction Costs Support for social finance intermediaries

Closed

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Expected Outcome:
The general objective of the call is to further develop the social enterprise finance market by supporting the social finance intermediaries to provide the needed capital to social enterprises and mission-driven enterprises.
In this direction, the call builds upon previous similar calls and aims above all to support social finance intermediaries who undertake long-term risk capital investments in social enterprises and mission-driven enterprises. Therefore, the key objective of the present call of proposals is to catalyse risk capital investments below EUR 1 000 000 that otherwise would not happen in the area of social enterprise finance. The call aims to support the transaction costs for these low value investment tickets and thus to help to overcome the identified market failure / mismatch in the social investment market.
The present call also encourages the European (trans-national) and innovative dimension of social finance schemes and support towards emerging social finance markets, e.g. via cross-border investments and cooperation, dissemination of good practices, etc.
Under this call for proposals, the transaction costs support scheme will take the form of a grant, and it can be combined with financial instruments as means to address the mismatch of needed and sustainable ticket sizes.
By transaction costs, this call for proposals understands the different costs linked to these investments, such as due diligence related costs, legal advice fees, travel costs, business development support costs, support towards establishing an impact measurement and management plan or system, etc.
Scope:
The action grants are aimed at financial intermediaries that undertake long-term risk capital investments in ticket sizes of less than EUR 1 000 000 in social enterprises and mission-driven enterprises in EU Member States and ESF+ Associated Countries.
The long-term capital investment can take the form of:

• equity, understood as the provision of capital to a firm, invested directly or indirectly in return for total or partial ownership of that firm and where the equity investor may assume some management control of the firm and may share the firm’s profits.
• quasi-equity, understood as a type of financing that ranks between equity and debt, having a higher risk than senior debt and a lower risk than common equity. Quasi-equity investments can be structured as debt, typically unsecured and subordinated and in some cases convertible into equity, or as preferred equity.
• or hybrid financing, understood as any flexible form of repayable finance combining the characteristics/features of at least two of the three financing instruments: grant, debt, and equity.The action grants should serve to cover part of the transaction costs for these small investment tickets and thus help overcome a market failure in the social enterprise finance market.
The long-term risk capital investment can reach per investee at maximum EUR 1 000 000 over a period of 18 months.
This means that if a second investment in the same social enterprise or mission-driven enterprise takes place within less than 18 months from the first investment and this raises the cumulative amount invested above the limit of EUR 1 000 000, the costs of the activities related to the first investment become ineligible for grant support, and any related payments already made by the Commission will be subject to recovery.

Status

Closed

Deadline

23 September 2026 (time not stated)

Opens

18 June 2026

Published

11 June 2026

Total budget

€4,700,000

Country

European Union (EU-wide)

Programme

European Social Fund + (ESF)

Funder

European Commission

Official page

Open at the source portal

What applying involved

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

This call is closed. The steps below show what applying involved, and are kept for reference only.

Understand the call

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

  Seee details in the call documents — conditions §5b

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

  Call document and annexes: Call document Application form templates Standard application form (ESF and SOCPL) — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System Model Grant Agreements (MGA) ESF and SOCPL MGA Additional documents: ESF+ Annual Work Programme ESF+ Regulation 2021/1057 EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509 Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant … — conditions §6

• Check the amount you plan to request against the call's range

Check you are eligible

• Check every partner is established in an eligible country standard for this programme

  described in the call document . EU Member States (and their overseas countries and territories); EEA countries, in accordance with the EEA Agreement; EU acceding countries, candidate countries and potential candidate countries, in line with the agreements concluded with them. Third countries having signed an agreement to participate in the strand or a third country listed in the EaSI work programme if necessary for the achievement of the objectives of an action. Do note … — conditions §2

• Meet the call's other eligibility conditions

  See in the call document for full explication per topics — conditions §3

• Be able to show financial and operational capacity

  See details in the call Document — conditions §4

Prepare the documents

• Prepare the declaration of honour standard for this programme

  ) Before signing the grant, each beneficiary and affiliated entity will have to confirm this again by signing a declaration of honour (DoH). — conditions

Submit

• Check the submission and evaluation process

  See details in the call Document — conditions §5a

• 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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