European Innovation Council
EIC Accelerator
Grant up to €2.5M plus an EIC Fund investment of €1M to €10M for deep-tech companies too risky for private investors alone.
Check whether you're eligible for EIC Accelerator, and what else you can apply for. 30s, no email. Check my match →About the EIC Accelerator
The EIC Accelerator is the European Innovation Council's instrument for single companies rather than research consortia, and it is built around a specific market failure: a deep-tech company with a technology that works in the lab, needs years and a lot of capital to reach the market, and is therefore too risky for private investors to fund alone. Its answer is blended finance. A grant of up to €2.5 million covers the innovation activities that get a technology from roughly TRL 5-6 to market readiness, and the EIC Fund can take a direct equity stake of €1 million to €10 million to fund the scale-up that follows. Applicants can request the grant on its own, the equity on its own, or both. Eligibility is restricted to SMEs and startups established in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe associated country, and a single natural person intending to found such a company can also apply. The call runs in two strands: Open, which is bottom-up and accepts any technology field, and Challenges, which are top-down themes set each year in the Work Programme around strategic technologies such as AI, semiconductors, quantum, biotechnology, advanced materials and clean energy. Evaluation runs in three stages and each is a hard filter. A Short Application, submittable at any time, carries a brief written pitch, a slide deck and a video. Companies passing that are invited to submit a Full Application against one of a small number of cut-off dates per year, which is a full business plan assessed remotely by expert evaluators. Those passing go to a jury interview in front of investors and entrepreneurs, and that jury makes the funding decision. Overall success rates sit below 5%, and the two later stages do most of the cutting. The scheme is explicit about what it is not for: incremental improvements, consumer software without a deep technology core, and products entering a market that already exists and works.
Key facts
- Instrument
- Grant plus equity, either or both
- Max grant
- €2.5M
- Investment
- €1M to €10M via the EIC Fund
- TRL required
- 5 or above at start
- Stages
- Short application, full application, jury interview
- Strands
- Open (any field) and Challenges (annual themes)
- Success rate
- Under 5% overall
Who is eligible?
- •An SME or startup registered in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe associated country, or a single person intending to establish one
- •A market-creating or market-disrupting innovation with a genuine deep-technology core
- •Technology Readiness Level 5 or above at the start, validated in a relevant environment rather than only on the bench
- •A credible route to commercialisation within roughly three to five years
- •Capital needs and time-to-market risk high enough that private investors will not carry the project alone, this is the market failure the instrument exists to correct
- •Not eligible: incremental product improvements, consumer applications without deep technology, and companies already generating substantial revenue from the innovation
How to apply
1. Decide between Open and a Challenge
Challenges are set annually in the Work Programme and carry their own ring-fenced budget. If your technology sits squarely inside one, that is usually the better odds. A forced fit into a Challenge you only partly match reads worse than a clean Open application.
2. Short Application, submittable any time
A short written pitch, a slide deck and a video presenting the team. There is no cut-off for this stage, so it can be submitted whenever it is ready. Evaluators are looking for a technology with a real deep-tech core and a team who can name their market.
3. Full Application against a cut-off
Passing the short stage unlocks a Full Application, which goes in against one of a small number of cut-off dates each year. This is a complete business plan: technology, market, competition, go-to-market, financials, team, use of funds, and the risk analysis behind the funding request.
4. Remote expert evaluation
Independent evaluators score the full application on excellence, impact and implementation. A pass here is what gets you an interview slot, and this is where most full applications end.
5. Jury interview in Brussels or remote
A jury of investors, entrepreneurs and technical experts hears a short pitch followed by hard questioning. Founders present in person. The jury decides funding, so this is not a formality on top of a written score.
6. Due diligence and contracting
Successful companies enter grant agreement preparation, and where equity was requested, a separate EIC Fund due-diligence process that runs on its own timeline. Expect roughly six to nine months from Short Application to signature across a clean run.
How proposals are evaluated
- •Excellence: how far beyond the state of the art the technology is, and whether the innovation is genuinely breakthrough rather than incremental
- •Impact: the scale of the market the innovation would create or disrupt, and the strategic value to Europe
- •Implementation: the quality and completeness of the team, the realism of the plan, and the use of funds
- •Level of risk: whether the risk profile actually justifies public money, a project private investors would happily fund alone is a poor fit
- •Financing need: whether the requested grant and equity are proportionate to the stated milestones
- •Team credibility, judged hardest at the jury interview where founders answer directly
Success rate by panel
- Overall
- Below 5%, one of the most competitive instruments in Horizon Europe
- Where applications die
- The full application and jury interview stages do most of the filtering, the short application is a comparatively wide gate
- Open vs Challenges
- Challenges carry ring-fenced budget for the year's strategic themes, so a genuine fit to a Challenge usually faces a smaller field than Open
What sets winning proposals apart
- ✓Lead with the market failure, not the technology. The instrument exists because private capital will not fund this alone, so make that case explicitly rather than leaving the jury to infer it.
- ✓Send the founders to the interview. Juries of investors and entrepreneurs read a delegated pitch as a signal about the team, and team is one of the criteria.
- ✓Name your competitors honestly, including the ones who are close. A competition section that finds no serious rivals reads as poor market knowledge, not as a strong position.
- ✓Make the deep-tech core unmistakable in the first paragraph. Applications get filtered fast at the short stage, and a technology that could be mistaken for software integration rarely survives it.
- ✓Treat the financials as a real plan. Evaluators include investors who read business plans professionally, and a hockey-stick projection with no underlying unit economics is transparent to them.
- ✓Use the always-open short stage to test the pitch early rather than waiting to assemble a perfect full application.
Common reasons proposals are rejected
- ×Incremental innovation presented as breakthrough, the largest single rejection category
- ×A consumer or software product with no deep-technology core, the scheme is explicit that this does not qualify
- ×Market sizing done top-down from an industry report, with no bottom-up route to the first customers
- ×A team missing commercial capability entirely, technically excellent founders with nobody who has sold anything
- ×A funding request that does not match the plan, either a grant too small for the stated milestones or an equity ask with no scale-up case behind it
- ×An interview where the founders cannot answer questions about their own numbers, which the jury reads as the plan belonging to a consultant rather than the company
Curious who tends to win this grant?
See past EIC Accelerator awardees →Frequently asked questions
+Is the EIC Accelerator only for startups?
No. Any SME up to 250 employees and €50M turnover is eligible, as is a single person intending to establish one. In practice most funded applicants are early-stage deep-tech companies, because the instrument is aimed at the point where capital needs outrun what private investors will carry alone.
+Do I have to take the equity component?
No. You can request grant only, investment only, or both. Grant only is the right choice when €2.5M genuinely covers you to market. For capital-intensive hardware, biotech or energy projects the blended option is usually the realistic one, and asking for a grant that plainly cannot fund the plan is itself a weakness.
+How strict is the market-creating requirement?
Strict. Evaluators are looking for innovations that create a new market or seriously disrupt an existing one. Me-too products, incremental optimisation and consumer applications without a deep technology core are filtered out early and consistently.
+How long is the full process?
Roughly six to nine months from Short Application to a signed agreement on a clean run through all three stages. Where equity is involved, the EIC Fund due diligence runs on its own timeline and can extend that.
+What is the difference between the Open and Challenges strands?
Open is bottom-up and accepts any technology field. Challenges are top-down themes set each year in the Work Programme, typically around strategic technologies, and they carry their own ring-fenced budget. If your technology fits a Challenge cleanly, that is usually the better route, but a forced fit reads poorly.
+Can I reapply after a rejection?
Yes, though repeated failures at the same stage restrict further attempts within a period set by the Work Programme. Treat the evaluator feedback as the brief for the next attempt, resubmitting largely the same application is the most common way applicants use up their remaining tries.
+What TRL do I actually need to be at?
TRL 5 or above at the start, meaning the technology has been validated in a relevant environment rather than only in the lab. Companies below that are usually pointed at EIC Transition or EIC Pathfinder instead, which exist precisely to cover the earlier stages.
+Who sits on the jury and what do they ask?
Investors, entrepreneurs and technical experts. They question the business case as hard as the technology: unit economics, competition, why now, what happens if a key assumption fails, and what the money actually buys. Founders are expected to present and answer themselves.
+Can a university spin-off apply?
Yes, provided the company is incorporated as an SME in an eligible country. A research group cannot apply, the applicant is the company. Many successful applicants reach the Accelerator after an ERC Proof of Concept or an EIC Transition project matured the technology to TRL 5.
+Does the EIC take a board seat with the equity?
The EIC Fund takes a direct equity stake and acts as an investor, with the governance terms set through the due-diligence process rather than fixed in advance. Companies should go into the equity route expecting a real investor relationship, not a second grant.
+When are the EIC Accelerator deadlines?
The Short Application has no deadline and can be submitted at any time. The Full Application runs against a small number of cut-off dates each year, published in the annual Work Programme. Our live deadlines table tracks the current cut-offs.
Looking for proposal-writing advice?
Read the European Innovation Council writing guide →Related programmes
European Innovation Council
EIC Pathfinder
Up to €4M for visionary early-stage research on breakthrough technologies that don't yet exist.
European Innovation Council
EIC Transition
Up to €2.5M to take a proven lab result to a working prototype and a business case, alone or with partners.
European Research Council
ERC Proof of Concept
€150,000 lump sum for current and recent ERC grant holders to test whether an ERC result can leave the lab.
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