EIC Scaling Club: Europe’s curated push to turn deep tech scale-ups into global champions

Brussels, September 16th 2024

Summary

›The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded, curated community that brings together more than 120 European deep-tech scale-ups with investors, corporates, mentors and public actors.
›Membership is by nomination with no open call and selection is based on company maturity and needs.
›The Club bundles networking, tailored mentoring, investor outreach and market-readiness services that build on the European Innovation Council ecosystem and its €10 billion funding envelope.
›The initiative reports measurable outputs from EIC Business Acceleration Services but faces common European scaling constraints such as capital gaps, fragmentation and unclear long term metrics.

EIC Scaling Club: a curated ecosystem for Europe’s deep tech scale-ups

Launched inside the European Innovation Council’s Business Acceleration Services, the EIC Scaling Club is a curated community designed to accelerate high‑growth deep tech companies across Europe. The initiative assembles scale-ups, investors, corporates, mentors and public partners into a programme that mixes tailored coaching, investor and corporate matchmaking, peer learning and targeted visibility. The Club is built explicitly on the EIC portfolio and the broader EIC ecosystem that includes the EIC Fund and a range of acceleration services.

How the Club is structured and who runs it

Core concept:A curated membership network of deep tech scale-ups and stakeholders where handpicked companies gain access to investors, corporate partners, mentors and peer-to-peer learning to accelerate scaling. The Club aims to reach over 120 scale-ups across 10 market opportunity groups.

The EIC Scaling Club is funded through the EIC and implemented in partnership with a group of ecosystem operators. Coordinator and partners named in communications include Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu, EurA and IESE Business School. Public communications also reference EISMEA and the EIC Fund as part of the wider EIC architecture.

Selection and membership process:There is no open call. Companies are proposed by Club stakeholders and invited to join based on demonstrated maturity and specific scaling needs. The Club concentrates companies by market opportunity groups rather than by open application.

Who benefits and what the Club offers

The Club positions itself as a bridge between deep tech teams and the resources they need to scale. For scale-ups the pitch is practical. Members receive curated introductions to investors and corporate partners, one-to-one mentoring and coaching, curated peer learning and public exposure through pitching and media channels. For stakeholders including VCs, corporate venture arms and public agencies the Club offers an entry point to vetted deal flow, opportunities to co-design programmes and featured visibility through Club reports and events.

Core services offered to members:Tailored mentoring and coaching, investor matchmaking, corporate partnership identification and matchmaking, pitching and visibility at events, peer learning cohorts, and access to EIC Business Acceleration Services such as procurement support and global expansion programmes.

Service area	What it entails	Reported outputs or examples
Investor outreach	Introductions, pitching sessions and investor-readiness support	EUR 350 million raised through investor outreach since 2021
Corporate matchmaking	Pilots and partnership pipelines with corporates and procurers	22 ongoing and 16 completed pilots supported with EUR 1.93 million
Procurement support	Training and tender matching for public and private buyers	EUR 7.7 million raised through innovation procurement support out of EUR 28.4 million in tenders submitted since March 2024
Skills and coaching	Tailored coaching, leadership programmes and pitch training	Over 2,400 awardees and applicants coached and 90% positive outcome reported for women leadership alumnae

Numbers and early metrics

The EIC Business Acceleration Services publish a set of outputs that the Scaling Club builds on. Since 2021 the ecosystem reports more than 20,000 one-to-one meetings between EIC awardees and corporates or investors, 595 deals, and an aggregate €1.2 billion raised by EIC Scaling Club members since joining. Trade fair participation is credited with €42 million in turnover since 2024. Those figures are evidence of activity. They do not by themselves prove long term scaling success.

EIC Fund and the broader financing context:The European Innovation Council as an instrument is backed by a large budgetary envelope and an investment arm called the EIC Fund. Public communications reference a budget in the order of €10 billion that the EIC can deploy across instruments. The EIC Fund acts as patient capital aimed at bridging gaps in funding for high risk, market-creating deep tech companies. The Scaling Club is built to feed into that wider funding ecosystem while relying on private investors and corporate partners to complete the funding picture.

Cohorts, market groups and example members

The Club initially selected 48 companies for cohort 1 and later expanded to target a curated set of 120 scale-ups across 10 market opportunity groups. The first cohort covered four market groups: Next-Gen Computing, Digital Security and Trust, Smart Mobility and Renewable Energies. Communications mention additional groups such as Batteries and Energy Storage, Clean Fuels and Hydrogen, New Space and New Biotech Platforms.

Market group	Selected cohort companies (first 48 cohort examples)
Digital Security & Trust	Hadrian Security, Probely, QuoIntelligence, Salv, Sekoia.io, SettleMint, Sherpa.ai, ThreatMark, Tilkal, UMNAI, VaultSpeed, XXII GROUP
Next-Gen Computing	.lumen, Axelera AI, Basemark, Dispelix, GScan, Multiverse Computing, QuiX Quantum, Quobly, Quside, sensiBel, VisIC, XTPL
Renewable Energies	Aerones, bound4blue, CorPower Ocean, Eneida, Eologix-ping, Focused Energy, GA Drilling, Heimdall Power, Modvion, ROSI, SWEETCH ENERGY, Sympower
Smart Mobility	Daze, Dronamics, Easelink, Elaphe Propulsion Technologies, KONUX, Manna Drones, SHIPPEO, Tallano Technologies, Teraki, Transmetrics, Vay Technology, Vianova

Partners and implementation actors named for the Club include Tech Tour as coordinator, with delivery partners such as Bpifrance, Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu, EurA and IESE Business School. The initiative also references collaboration with public agencies and the EIC Fund to connect companies with finance.

Events and visibility: Ignition Forum and Scale 100 Forum

The Club organises invitation-only and public-facing events. The Ignition Forum was held on 9 and 10 April 2024 in Brussels and Leuven and served as an initial convening. Members also prepare for a larger Scale 100 Forum. The Scale 100 Forum was scheduled for October 21 and 22, 2024 at the National Bank of Greece in Athens. These events are positioned as high-value convenings for pitching, networking and policymaker engagement.

Event audience and format:Events gather EIC representatives, VCs, corporates, mentors, media partners and the Club companies. Formats include pitching sessions, one-to-one meetings, panel discussions and press briefings.

What stakeholders gain

Stakeholders such as investors, corporate innovation teams and public agencies are offered curated access to vetted deep tech companies together with opportunities for visibility in featured reports and priority at events. The Club highlights the potential to co-design pilots and accelerate procurement-led innovation. Communications also promise collaboration opportunities with a broader network of more than 170 Club members and partners.

Critical perspective and risks to watch

The Scaling Club assembles important resources and relationships in a concentrated format. That said, curated programmes carry particular challenges that warrant scrutiny. Selection by nomination can speed deployment and avoid low‑quality applications but can also reproduce network biases and reduce transparency. Reported outputs are activity signals and are not direct proof that companies will scale into sustainable, market‑leading firms.

Europe’s structural scaling constraints remain. These include a shortage of late stage and patient private capital compared with the United States, fragmented national ecosystems that complicate cross‑border hiring and market entry, complex regulation for hardware and biotech products, and procurement practices that are still conservative in many public buyers. The Club can reduce friction but cannot by itself solve macro market failures.

Measuring impact will be crucial. Activity metrics such as meetings, deals and money raised are useful. They need to be complemented by medium and long term indicators such as revenue growth, international market penetration, successful pilots scaled to commercial contracts and survival through follow‑on rounds. Public stakeholders should make those metrics public if the initiative is to justify continued EU funding at scale.

Potential duplication and coordination issues:The EIC ecosystem offers many overlapping instruments across countries and EU programmes. Careful coordination with national innovation agencies, regional ecosystems and complementary EU programmes such as EIT activities will be necessary to avoid duplication and to maximise impact.

Why this matters for European innovation policy

Deep tech companies are often capital intensive, require long development times and depend on access to specialised infrastructure and customer pilots. Europe’s industrial policy goals include strategic autonomy on critical technologies and the green transition. A curated programme that combines patient capital, procurement pathways and corporate partnerships addresses many practical scaling barriers. The question is whether a cluster of curated interventions can be scaled and combined with private markets to create durable European champions.

What to watch next

Follow whether the Club and the EIC publish more detailed, longitudinal impact metrics. Watch how many Club members convert pilot contracts into commercial revenues. Track the evolution of the EIC Fund co‑investment activity and whether private VCs follow the Fund into repeat investments. Also observe whether the Club broadens geographic representation across Europe and reduces selection bias as it grows toward the targeted 120 members.

Upcoming touch points and opportunities to engage:Scale 100 Forum, Athens, October 21 to 22, 2024. Other channel points include the EIC Community Platform, the EIC Business Acceleration Services, and partner events such as the Ignition Forum, Ambition Forum and national corporate days organised by the EIC BAS calendar.

Practical information and how to follow

There is no open application to join the Club. Members are proposed by stakeholders and selected for fit with predefined market opportunity groups. To follow the Club or receive updates, the organisers recommend subscribing to the EIC Scaling Club communications, following their LinkedIn and X accounts, and checking the EIC Community Platform and the Scaling Club website for news and reports.

Public partners and implementers mentioned:European Innovation Council and its EIC Fund, EISMEA, coordinator Tech Tour, partners Bpifrance, Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu, EurA and IESE Business School. The project communications cite EU grant agreement number 101114582.

Sources and disclaimer

This article restructures public information presented by the EIC Scaling Club, the EIC Business Acceleration Services and related EIC communications. Quotations and figures referenced in this text come from the public communications of those bodies. The analysis and critical perspective are journalistic and do not represent the official view of the European Commission or any implementing partner.