EIC Impact Report 2025: what the numbers say and what they do not

At its fourth anniversary summit on 2 and 3 April 2025 the European Innovation Council unveiled the EIC Impact Report 2025. The agency frames the EIC as an emerging anchor investor for European deep tech and as a bridge between research institutions and scaleups. The report bundles program metrics from the Horizon Europe EIC portfolio and from earlier pilot phases and presents a set of headline results on investment leverage, company growth and technology creation.

Headlines and scale

Key figures presented in the report describe a fast moving and large activity footprint. The EIC Fund has completed more than 150 investment rounds into startups and SMEs since its establishment in 2020 and reports 60 rounds in 2024 alone. The Fund says its direct investment has catalysed approximately €2.6 billion of additional equity from private investors and others, an equivalent of more than €3 of follow on investment for every euro of EIC direct investment. Across the Horizon Europe portfolio covered by the report the EIC counts roughly 706 start-ups, 402 advanced research projects and 183 Transition projects funded in 2021 to 2024. The extended portfolio that includes the pilot phase goes wider and longer.

How the EIC delivers support

Sector focus and strategic priorities

The report highlights concentrated activity in technology areas that map to European policy priorities. The EIC reports portfolio allocations and funding for sectors that include quantum and semiconductors, AI, energy, advanced materials and biotechnology. These allocations are framed as contributions to EU strategic goals such as the Chips Act, climate and energy transitions, and industrial competitiveness.

Performance signals and early outcomes

EIC-backed companies are reported to have strong early stage performance. The document records average employment growth of about 52.5 percent and operating revenue growth of about 56.6 percent in the two years after receiving EIC awards. The portfolio valuation cited in the report exceeds €30 billion and more than 70 EIC-backed firms have achieved 'centaur' status with valuations over €100 million. The EIC Fund highlights that private investors have subsequently invested roughly €12 billion into EIC companies following selection.

Geography and investor flows

The report emphasises cross-border capital flows. It states that more than 80 percent of the equity rounds catalysed by the EIC involve at least one non-domestic investor and that around 70 percent of those flows are cross-border within Europe. The Fund lists co-investors from France, the United States, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands among others and counts investments with the 25 largest European VCs. This cross-border activity is presented as evidence of Europe wide capital integration in deep tech.

Claims to interrogate and methodological caveats

The report offers a wealth of quantitative claims but leaves room for further scrutiny. Key points that need independent verification or fuller methodological disclosure include the sources and dates of company valuations, the time window for counting co-investment and whether figures are gross or net of write downs. The reported average growth figures are encouraging but may reflect selection and survivorship bias. Early stage valuation increases do not guarantee later stage exits, domestic retention or broad economic spillovers. The report recognises the problem that some promising European tech companies are later acquired or relocate outside the EU, and states policy measures intended to address this through larger later stage instruments. Observers will want to see more transparent, independently verifiable datasets on survival, exits, follow-on funding and employment over longer horizons.

Policy context and next steps

The EIC Impact Report arrives at a moment when the Commission and member states are debating the structure and size of future funding programmes. The report is explicit that the EIC should be expanded and that the forthcoming EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy will be a milestone for simplifying rules and making scaling easier. Instruments such as STEP and the Scaleup Europe Fund are presented as intended to close financing gaps for late stage rounds and to improve retention of strategic companies.

Where to read the full report and supplementary material

The EIC published a full Impact Report 2025 and a shorter factsheet summarising the main numbers and case studies. The report focuses on the Horizon Europe portfolio covering the period 2021 to 2024 and also discusses longer term impacts by incorporating data from the EIC pilot phase and predecessor programmes. The EIC and EISMEA websites host the full documents and downloadable PDFs.

Conclusion

The EIC has quickly become one of Europe’s most visible instruments for early stage deep tech finance and ecosystem building. The numbers in the 2025 Impact Report indicate substantial activity in deals, co-investment and early growth among supported companies. The organisation is also moving up the value chain by assembling investor networks and proposing larger instruments to support scaling. At the same time the report leaves important questions open about long term additionality, measurement and company retention. If the stated objective is to produce robust, European deep tech champions, the next phase must show that the public investments translate into enduring commercial ecosystems rather than short term boosts in valuation and early hiring.