The EIC (European Innovation Council) will provide investments for a total amount of €300 million during 2025 to startups and SMEs, small mid-caps and investors.
The investments will be funneled through the EIC STEP (Strategic Technologies for Europe) scale-up call which will provide investments of €10 to 30 million for scaling up strategic technologies for Europe.
The 2025 call is targeting companies with traction and investment interest:
- The EIC is aiming to catalyse major funding rounds in the range of €50 to 150 € million, and at least 3-5 times the EIC investment.
- Applicants will be required to demonstrate that there is a pre-commitment from a qualified lead investor of at least 20% of the total target funding round.
Companies working on the following priority areas will be supported:
- Digital technologies, and deep tech innovations. This includes: advanced semiconductor technologies; artificial intelligence technologies; quantum technologies; advanced connectivity, navigation and digital technologies; advanced sensing technologies; robotics and autonomous systems; Deep tech innovations.
- Clean and resource efficient technologies, including net-zero technologies. This includes: solar technologies; onshore wind and offshore renewable technologies; battery and energy storage technologies; heat pumps and geothermal technologies; hydrogen technologies; sustainable biogas and biomethane technologies; carbon capture and storage technologies; electricity grid technologies; nuclear fission technologies, sustainable alternative fuel technologies; hydropower technologies; other renewable technologies; energy system -related energy efficiency technologies; renewable fuels of non-biological origin technologies; biotech climate and energy solutions; transformative industrial technologies for decarbonisation; CO2 transport and utilisation technologies; wind and electric propulsion technologies; other nuclear technologies; advanced materials, manufacturing and recycling technologies, technologies vital to sustainability such as water purification and desalination; and circular economy technologies.
- Biotechnologies, including medicinal products on the Union list of critical medicines and their components. Including DNA/RNA; proteins and other molecules; cell and tissue culture and engineering; process biotechnology techniques; Gene and RNA vectors; bioinformatics; and nanobiotechnology.
We praise the efforts of the European Commission in supporting European scale-ups and stopping the brain drain to other regions with more available scale-up capital such as the US.
At Strata we have been working with VCs and investor networks in these verticals as well as with deeptech, health-tech and cleantech startups raising funding. We have acquired funding through competitive programmes such as the EIC Accelerator for many companies across Europe as well as from investors from our network. We regularly organise investor pitch evernts and we also monitor more than 1,200 funds and investors through our platform Fundingtrip . You can read more about our activities here. If you are a startup aiming to raise your next round do not hesitate to call us.
Background
The Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) has been set up by the EU to support the European industry and boost investment in critical technologies in Europe. STEP raises and steers funding across 11 EU programmes to three target investment areas:
- Digital technologies and deep-tech innovation
- Clean and resource-efficient technologies
- Biotechnologies
STEP also supports projects growing the skills necessary to develop those critical technologies. STEP introduces a new STEP Seal – an EU label for high quality projects granting STEP projects visibility and facilitating their access to other possible sources of funding.
European Innovation Council
The European Innovation Council (EIC) promotes breakthrough innovation with scale-up potential at the global level. It focuses mainly on breakthrough, deeptech and disruptive innovation, targeting especially market-creating innovation.
The EIC also supports strategic technology and innovation challenges which will take into account the priorities of the Horizon Europe strategic plan.
The EIC provides funding through programmes such as Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator.
