Spain backs 19 EIC Seal of Excellence awardees with NextGenerationEU and regional grants

On 24 May 2023 the European Innovation Council (EIC) reported that 16 Spanish companies that had received an EIC Accelerator Seal of Excellence in 2022 were selected to receive around €30 million in grant funding from Spain’s National Recovery Plan financed through NextGenerationEU. In addition, the Comunidad de Madrid funded three more Seal of Excellence awardees through regional direct grants. The announcement highlights a growing practice in which national and regional authorities use the EIC evaluation as a way to prioritise and rechannel recovery funds toward promising deep tech and innovative small and medium sized enterprises.

What the announcement means in practice

EIC Seals of Excellence are awarded to proposals submitted under Horizon Europe activities that independent experts judged to be of high quality but which were not funded because of limited EIC budgets. The Seal is a portable, certified recognition intended to help recipients secure alternative financing. In this Spanish case the national Recovery Plan used NextGenerationEU resources to support a group of Seal holders, and the Madrid regional government used its own budget lines to support three Seal holders directly.

Where the money came from

The headline €30 million allocation comes from Spain’s implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the central instrument of NextGenerationEU, which channels grants and loans to member states for investments and reforms. The use of those national allocations is decided at member state level according to the approved Recovery and Resilience Plan. Separately, Comunidad de Madrid awarded regional direct grants to three Seal recipients.

Regional grants recorded in official registry

Regional public records confirm that Comunidad de Madrid awarded direct subsidies to three companies listed as Seal of Excellence awardees. These grants are published in the national and regional subsidy registries which provide the beneficiary name, date and amount. The three recorded awards and amounts are shown below.

The three regional grants sum to approximately €4.48 million. These entries appear in the Sistema Nacional de Publicidad de Subvenciones y Ayudas Públicas for Comunidad de Madrid. Regional public registers are the primary source for monitoring direct subsidy awards and offer transparency about beneficiary and amount.

How Seal holders can convert recognition into finance

The Seal is a tool to open doors, not an automatic funding instrument. Holders typically use the Seal and the associated evaluation summary to approach national or regional public funds, banks, venture investors and corporate partners. In practice funding outcomes depend on the availability of alternative public budgets, the firm’s readiness to scale, the maturity of the technology and the appetite of private investors to co invest or take equity risk. Combining grants with loans or equity is a common route but requires careful legal and financial structuring.

Context and caveats

A few important caveats apply. First, the Seal indicates that independent experts considered a proposal high quality at evaluation time. It does not guarantee technological feasibility, commercial success or proper execution by the beneficiary. Second, use of NextGenerationEU funds is decided by national authorities and can reflect strategic political choices as well as industrial policy priorities. Third, regional direct awards mean public money is being used to bridge funding gaps. This is a defensible industrial policy choice but it raises questions about selection transparency and long term monitoring of impact.

From a funding arithmetic perspective, Spain’s national allocation of €30 million for 16 companies implies an average of about €1.9 million per company. This is an average figure only and actual amounts will vary by project and contract terms.

Transparency, oversight and responsibilities

Public registers such as the national subsidy portal and regional bulletins are the primary transparency tools for these grants. Because NextGenerationEU funds are EU level instruments implemented by member states, they remain subject to monitoring and auditing by the European Commission and EU control bodies. Beneficiaries and authorities must comply with procurement, reporting and audit rules. Where funds are channelled through regional discretionary awards, auditors will look at justification and selection criteria to ensure proper use of public money.

Implications for Spain’s innovation ecosystem

Redirecting Recovery Plan funds to EIC Seal holders can be an effective way to accelerate scaling of deep tech companies and to capture value domestically. It shows a preference for leveraging a European evaluation process to reduce risks of poor allocation. At the same time this pattern highlights the structural funding gap the EIC itself cannot close given finite budgets. If national and regional authorities use Seals to top up support, that may improve outcomes for some firms but it does not solve the broader challenge of building deeper private investment markets for later stage deep tech in Europe.

Bottom line

Spain’s decision to allocate Recovery Plan funds to EIC Seal of Excellence awardees and Comunidad de Madrid’s regional grants are a pragmatic use of public resources to support promising innovative firms. The Seal is a useful quality signal but converting it into sustained growth requires additional financing, robust governance and follow up. Public transparency and auditing will be essential to ensure these awards deliver measurable economic and innovation outcomes rather than temporary budgetary support.

For readers who want to follow up, the EIC Work Programme and the Seals of Excellence page explain the Seal mechanism and eligibility, while national and regional subsidy registries provide the official records of the grants described above.