EISMEA extends tender deadline for business and investment insights to support EIC strategic intelligence

Brussels, August 19th 2024

Summary

›EISMEA extended the tender deadline for contract EISMEA/2024/OP/0013 to 13 September 2024 at 10:00 CEST.
›The contract will deliver business and investment insights to inform European Innovation Council strategic intelligence.
›Work is organised across three streams: Technology and sector overviews, company performance monitoring, and ad-hoc specialist reports.
›The procedure is open, runs for 48 months and has an estimated value of EUR 900 000 excluding VAT.
›Successful bids will need to combine market research, investment data, and longitudinal monitoring of EIC beneficiaries from two years pre-award to ten years post-award.

Deadline extended for EIC strategic intelligence tender

The European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) has extended the submission deadline for a call for tenders titled Business and Investment Insights for EIC Strategic Intelligence. The new deadline is 13 September 2024 at 10:00 CEST. The contract reference is EISMEA/2024/OP/0013 and the call is published on the EU Funding and Tenders portal and the agency e-Tendering facilities.

What the contract must deliver

EISMEA is procuring research services to produce business and investment intelligence to inform the European Innovation Council's strategic decisions. The brief defines three main streams of work that the contractor must deliver on a recurring and ad-hoc basis.

Stream A — Technology and sector overview:This stream requires granular market and financing analysis by technology and sector. Deliverables include private and public financing broken down by technology, venture capital activity and cross-border flows, startup and spinout trends, market sizing and growth projections, market share and competitive positioning across geographies, an assessment of incentives or regulatory barriers by geography, and comparative IP positioning for the EU.

Stream B — Company insights and tracking:Contractors will monitor the performance of EIC beneficiaries across a defined monitoring window from two years prior to award to ten years after award. Key indicators are subsequent funding rounds, employment and revenue growth, mergers and acquisitions, and major commercial contracts. The stream also covers competitor performance benchmarking by sector and technology.

Stream C — Ad-hoc specialist reports:The contractor must produce specialist deep dives on sectors or supply chains, including market sensitive items such as licensing deals and M&A activity. These reports should provide actionable competitive intelligence and break down value added across supply chains.

Work stream	Core deliverables	Examples of expected outputs
Stream A: Technology / Sector Overview	Market financing breakdown, VC flows, market sizing, regulatory landscape, IP comparisons	Quarterly sector financing dashboards and country comparative briefs
Stream B: Company Insights	Longitudinal performance monitoring of EIC beneficiaries, competitor benchmarking	Databases of Y-2 to Y+10 metrics and annual cohort performance reports
Stream C: Ad-hoc Specialist Reports	Deep dives on supply chains, M&A, licensing and competitive positioning	Targeted market entry analysis and confidential M&A intelligence notes

Procurement specifics

The procurement is an open procedure for research services. Duration is set at 48 months and the estimated contract value is EUR 900 000 excluding VAT. The call page is hosted on the Funding and Tenders Portal and tenders must be submitted through the official e-Tendering mechanism by the extended deadline.

Reference	EISMEA/2024/OP/0013
Publication date	30 July 2024
Deadline (extended)	13 September 2024, 10:00 CEST
Procedure	Open
Duration	48 months
Estimated value	EUR 900 000 excluding VAT

Why EISMEA and the EIC want this intelligence

The European Innovation Council needs structured, replicable evidence on market dynamics and the outcomes of its support to make strategic decisions about where to target funding and other services. Monitoring the trajectory of beneficiary companies through funding, growth and exit events helps measure program impact and informs portfolio management and investor outreach.

EIC beneficiaries:EIC beneficiaries are companies or projects that have received support through EIC instruments such as Pathfinder, Accelerator grants, or EIC Fund investments. Tracking these beneficiaries is intended to show whether EU support accelerates scaleup, follow-on financing, and market adoption.

Monitoring period (Y-2 to Y+10):The brief requests monitoring from two years prior to an award to ten years after the award. This longitudinal window is designed to capture pre-award momentum and long term outcomes such as late stage funding, exits or market traction, but it also raises practical challenges in data collection and attribution of causal impact to EIC support.

Practical and methodological considerations

Delivering the required intelligence will demand robust data access, clear methodology, and strong safeguards. The contract expects coverage of private market transactions, IP landscape analysis, and company level performance tracking. Each of these areas carries common limitations and risks that bidders should address explicitly in their proposals.

Data sources and quality:High quality outputs will need to combine public registers, proprietary databases such as Venture Capital and M&A trackers, patent databases, and primary research. Proprietary data can be expensive and may come with licensing restrictions that affect reuse and sharing. Bidders should be explicit about sources and data completeness.

Attribution and causality:Monitoring outcomes over a decade does not by itself prove the causal effect of EIC support. External factors like global VC cycles, national policies, or market shocks influence outcomes. Methodological transparency and the use of appropriate counterfactuals or benchmark groups are necessary to avoid overstating impact.

Confidentiality and sensitive information:Some requested items include market sensitive details such as licensing deals and M&A terms. Contractors will need strong confidentiality arrangements and to manage commercial sensitivities. The public procurement context also requires clear rules on handling and publishing aggregated or disclosable data.

Budget, scale and expectations

The estimated budget of EUR 900 000 over 48 months is modest relative to the scope of continuous sectoral surveillance, long horizon company tracking and bespoke deep dives across multiple technologies. Bidders should demonstrate how they will prioritise activities, leverage existing datasets, and combine automated data pipelines with domain expertise to deliver timely and reliable intelligence within the available resources.

Risks and procurement governance

When public agencies buy market intelligence there is a balance to strike between timely, proprietary analyses and transparency, independence and procurement rules. EISMEA will need to manage potential conflicts of interest if parts of the work rely on private data vendors or consultants with commercial ties. Evaluation criteria and contract management should require methodological disclosure, data provenance statements and safeguards on vendor dependence.

How to apply and next steps

Interested suppliers must submit tenders via the Funding and Tenders Portal and the Commission e-Tendering systems. The call page contains the detailed terms of reference, submission requirements and evaluation rules. The extended deadline for receipt of tenders is 13 September 2024 at 10:00 CEST.

Potential bidders should review the full call documentation on the Funding and Tenders Portal to confirm administrative requirements, deliverable schedules and contractual conditions before preparing proposals. Given the technical nature of the work, tenders should explain in detail data sources, analytical frameworks, staffing plans, and costs.

Where to find the original call

The official call is available on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal under reference EISMEA/2024/OP/0013 and on the European Innovation Council pages. The call was published on 30 July 2024 and public communications noting the deadline extension were released by EISMEA in August 2024.

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