EIC Accelerator November 2023 cut-off: what was awarded and what it means

The European Innovation Council announced on 28 February 2024 that 42 companies were selected after the final EIC Accelerator cut-off of 2023. The awards combine grant funding and equity investments and total up to €285 million. The winners were chosen from 1,083 full proposals. Juries of experienced investors and entrepreneurs interviewed 242 of those applicants before making final selections.

The round at a glance

Those headline numbers show a highly selective process. The 42 successful companies will access a mix of direct grants and investments routed through the EIC Fund. According to the EIC, equity investments are channelled via the EIC Fund which then attracts outside co-investors. The EIC states that, on average, the EIC Fund’s investments are leveraged by over three times in follow-on private investment.

Representative companies in this cohort

The EIC highlighted a few selected companies from the cohort to illustrate the types of deep tech being supported. These examples reflect the programme’s emphasis on hardware intensive and applied deep tech.

Each example ties into a distinct area of European deep tech priorities. Alias Robotics addresses the growing but under-resourced area of robot cybersecurity as robots move beyond contained factory floors. IQM develops superconducting quantum processors and positions itself in the race toward error mitigation and later error correction, which are necessary steps for useful quantum advantage but are still technically demanding. Powerful Medical is positioned in digital diagnostics where algorithms must meet strict regulatory standards to be used in clinical workflows. Smart Farm Robotix targets agricultural automation with an emphasis on reducing herbicide use through autonomous mechanical weeding backed by AI vision.

Selection process and timelines

The EIC uses a multi-stage evaluation. Start-ups submit short proposals and, if shortlisted, full applications. For this November cut-off, 242 companies reached the pitch stage and were interviewed by juries composed of investors and business experts. Selection decisions for this batch were confirmed after those interviews.

Seal of Excellence and support for unfunded but high-quality proposals

In addition to the 42 funded companies, the EIC awarded a Seal of Excellence to 193 applications that passed remote evaluation but could not be funded because of budget limits. The Seal is a quality label intended to help companies access alternative funding, including national and regional instruments and EU structural funds.

The Seal can be helpful when seeking support from Recovery and Resilience Funds, European Regional Development Funds and national programmes. In practice the effectiveness of the Seal depends on the readiness of alternative funders to move quickly and the fit between the project and national spending priorities.

Fast Track and Plug In routes into the EIC Accelerator

The November round continued a trend of increased submissions coming through Fast Track and Plug In schemes. Both mechanisms allow projects already supported by other Horizon Europe or certified national or regional programmes to reach the EIC Accelerator full application stage directly, bypassing the short application stage.

These routes can speed access to EIC funding for projects already under national or EU programmes. They also raise questions for observers about transparency and equal treatment since proposals from certified programmes bypass an earlier screening step. The EIC says evaluators do not know whether a proposal was routed via Fast Track or Plug In and that full proposals are evaluated on an equal footing.

What the EIC Accelerator offers and how it fits into the EU innovation landscape

The EIC Accelerator is aimed at start-ups and SMEs developing high risk, high impact technologies. The standard EIC offer can combine a grant of up to €2.5 million with equity investments from the EIC Fund in a range typically from €0.5 million up to €15 million or more. Beyond finance, the EIC provides business acceleration services granting access to coaching, corporate contacts and investor networks.

Since its relaunch in 2021 the EIC has attracted thousands of applicants. The EIC says more than ten thousand start-ups have submitted ideas since then. The programme is a central pillar of EU efforts to boost deep tech scaleups and to improve the supply of non-dilutive and blended finance in Europe.

Analysis and implications

The round’s competitiveness reflects ongoing investor and policy interest in deep tech. With a sub 4 percent success rate at full proposal stage, the EIC Accelerator remains highly selective and functions as a strong quality signal in the market. The high take-up of blended finance signals that many teams need follow-on capital beyond grants and appreciate the EIC Fund’s role in structuring deals.

However several practical challenges persist. EIC-funded hardware and deep tech companies typically have capital intensive roadmaps and long time to commercial traction. Leveraging private capital at scale is difficult in markets that remain cautious about long horizon bets. The EIC Fund’s average leverage of more than three times is a useful headline but it obscures variance between sectors and deal cycles. For companies, attracting co-investors remains contingent on clear technology milestones, governance arrangements and an exit environment that supports venture returns.

The Seal of Excellence can smooth access to regional and national funding. That helps, particularly for companies in widening countries where early stage finance is scarcer. Still, converting a Seal into meaningful follow-on capital depends on local absorptive capacity and the alignment of projects with national spending priorities.

Geography and widening participation

The selected companies are spread across 15 countries and include three widening countries. Increasing geographic spread is part of the EIC’s policy objective to broaden Europe’s innovation base. In practice that goal requires continued investment in local ecosystems so that winners can convert grant and equity into sustained scaleups rather than one-off project success.

Practical next steps and dates

Most selected companies can expect grant payments in about two to three months. Initial EIC Fund investment decisions are expected within two months after that in many cases, though the exact timing varies with company urgency and the time required for due diligence.

The EIC also confirmed that the programme accepts proposals at any time. Short concept evaluations typically take four to six weeks. For companies that passed the November cut-off but were unfunded, the next EIC Accelerator full proposal cut-off announced in the 2024 work programme was scheduled for 13 March 2024.

Questions for observers and policymakers

The EIC Accelerator continues to be an important demand shaper for European deep tech. For policymakers and ecosystem builders, the key questions are how to sustain follow-on finance and infrastructure for capital intensive technologies, how to ensure that Seal of Excellence recipients can actually convert the label into funding, and how Fast Track and Plug In routes affect equal access and transparency.

For start-ups, the EIC remains an attractive route not only because of finance but also because of the credibility and investor access that accompany selection. For investors, the EIC provides a pipeline of rigorously evaluated opportunities but the ultimate test will be whether these companies reach commercial scale and deliver return profiles that attract continued private capital.

Where to find more information

The European Innovation Council publishes the full list of selected companies and submission results on its website. Further details on the EIC Accelerator model, EIC Fund investment guidelines and the Seal of Excellence scheme are available from EISMEA and the EIC pages of the European Commission.