EIC and Startup Europe join forces to help digital and deep tech startups scale

On 10 June 2021 the European Innovation Council launched a Horizon Europe Coordination and Support Action call to strengthen synergies with Startup Europe. The call, published under the code HORIZON-EIC-2021-STARTUPEU-01-01, carries an indicative budget of €6 million and is intended to finance cross-border projects that link local startup ecosystems, particularly in digital and deep tech, to financing, procurement and market opportunities across Europe.

What the call funds and how it is structured

The instrument is a Coordination and Support Action. It is designed to fund consortium projects that act as ecosystem builders and that then distribute financial support to third party startups. The Commission signalled that projects will typically run for two years and that the call expects to fund three to four grants. Applicants must allocate a large majority of their project budget to financial support to third parties, and they must set up monitoring and reporting systems to track the impact of that support.

Who can apply and what kinds of activities are expected

The call targets organisations that build and connect startup ecosystems. Eligible applicants include startup ecosystem builders, business angel organisations, venture capital entities, accelerators, incubators and startup associations. Eligible applicants must be established in Member States or in countries associated to Horizon Europe. Projects are expected to strengthen cross-border acceleration, help startups soft-land in new markets, connect startups to investors and corporate customers, and encourage access to innovation procurement opportunities. Special attention is requested for ecosystems in Widening countries that historically receive less venture capital.

Target technologies and priority outcomes

The call focuses on strategic digital and deep tech technologies linked to competitiveness and strategic autonomy. Projects should concentrate on developing market-ready applications in domains where Europe wants to build or retain strength.

Application, evaluation and monitoring

The topic was published on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal as a single-stage call for Coordination and Support Actions. Admissibility rules follow standard Horizon Europe procedures. Applicants must register and submit through the portal. Proposals are evaluated against the usual Horizon criteria of excellence, impact and quality and efficiency of implementation. The Commission asked applicants to put in place systems to monitor the benefits received by third party startups and to report on impact. Projects should be visible on the Startup Europe one-stop-shop and should feed learnings into the EIC Business Acceleration Services and the EIC Forum.

Background on Startup Europe and institutional roles

Startup Europe is a European Commission initiative that aims to connect startups, scaleups, investors, accelerators, corporate networks, universities and the media. It is implemented through a portfolio of EU funded projects and policy actions such as the EU Startup Nation Standard, the Innovation Radar and the Digital Innovation and Scale-up Initiative, DISC. The EIC runs targeted funding instruments for breakthrough technologies and scaleups and is implemented operationally by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, EISMEA. The EIC Fund handles co-investments for growth rounds.

Context and critical perspective

The call is intended to address a persistent problem in Europe. Deep tech projects and early stage research need both ecosystem support and patient capital to move from prototypes to market. Linking local accelerators and regional ecosystems to pan-European funding and procurement channels is sensible. The Commission also explicitly prioritised Widening countries which typically receive less private funding and have weaker scaleup ecosystems.

At the same time the budget is modest. €6 million for three or four two year projects is unlikely to solve structural funding gaps across Europe. The requirement that 75 percent of the budget goes to financial support to third parties means most of the grant will be spent as pass-through money to startups. That is useful for direct support but limits how much can be invested in deeper capacity building, long term partnerships or sustained institutional strengthening. Measuring impact in a two year window is ambitious given the long sales cycles in many deep tech fields and the time it takes to close procurement deals with public buyers and corporates.

Other practical risks should be acknowledged. Coordination-heavy consortia can suffer from administrative overhead, and smaller ecosystem builders may struggle to manage the required legal and financial compliance. There is also a danger of overlap with other instruments in Horizon Europe, InvestEU or national programmes unless projects clearly coordinate and avoid duplication. Finally, distributing money across many small startups can create high administrative costs and dilution of impact if selection criteria are not tightly managed.

Practical advice for applicants

Applicants should design clear selection criteria for which startups receive funds, set measurable milestones for uptake and procurement, and document how they will reach ecosystems in Widening countries. Proposals that demonstrate links to Digital Innovation Hubs, the Digital Europe Programme, national programmes and the EIC community are more likely to show credible pathways to impact. Put simply, judges will look for project plans that move beyond one-off grants to demonstrable routes to scaling markets, procurement and follow-on investment.

Key documents and where to find them

Core reference material for applicants included the EIC Work Programme 2021 entry on the topic, the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement for CSAs and the call specific guidance document. Administrative procedures were handled through the EU Funding and Tenders Portal where applicants must submit proposals and manage grant preparation.