EIC PilotHow to succeed in the EIC Accelerator 2020 calls

26 March 2020

Stéphane Ouaki

DG RTD TF.3 Financial Instruments

Head of unit

• Breakthrough innovation

• Creates new markets or disturbs existing ones

• High risk, high growth and high market potential

• Great management team

• Clear ambition to scale-up

• Demonstrated knowledge of the target market

• Convincing commercialisation plan

• Non bankable

Who are we looking for?

• Inability to attract sufficient funding

• To full deployment of the commercial

potential

• Due to the high risk or market failure

• Previous investments do not imply

‘bankability’

What is non-bankable?

Who assesses bankability?

• External experts

• In business and finance

• Direct, substantial funding to high-potential innovators

1. Grant funding of up to €2.5 million 70% of total project costs

2. Option of additional equity investment (blended) of up to €15

million

What do we offer?

• Simple, open to all areas of innovation

• Mainly bottom-up

• No prescriptive topics to grasp interdisciplinary

• Flexible, to address political emerging priorities

• No geographical constraints

What do we offer?

• Agile, pro-active management

• Continuously open

• Quick response

• Business language

• Programme managers

What do we offer?

• Innovator centric

• Tailor made support for SMEs & start-ups

• Grant and blended support (grant + equity)…

• Business Acceleration Services: mentoring, coaching, advice,

corporates, overseas fairs

What do we offer?

How do we select?

Blended finance only

• The European Commission takes the investment decision

• Up to €15 million

• Different forms of equity type instruments: shares, convertibles,

other equity types

• Non-intrusive equity

• EIC Fund advisor: EIB Group

Equity investment: the EIC Fund

• Impact investment, rather than maximizing return on the investment

• Patient capital, with a long average perspective on return on the investment

(7-10 years) with a maximum of 15 years.

• The exit strategy on a case-by-case basis: may include IPOs, management

buyouts, secondary sales or liquidations.

Investment strategy

• A community of trusted VCs and investors

• The company will be presented to VCs that may express the

interest to invest

• The company will have a final say

• Investors could replace the EIC Fund, co-invest alongside the EIC

Fund or provide mentoring

Match-making co-investors to crowd-in

• Performed by the EIC Fund

• Goal: define tailor-made investment fitting company and project

needs

• Focus on: governance & quality of the company’s management,

capital structure and financial planning, business strategy and

competition

Due diligence

• Two remaining cut-offs in 2020

19 May Green Deal dedicated cut-off Proposals contributing to one or more of

the (eight) sustainability goals

Substantial budget (€303 million)

7 October Bottom-up cut-off

• Woman-led companies 19 May, 7 October

• Women CEO or equivalent position

• Excellent proposals invited to interviews

Latest novelties

• Two cut-offs: 9 October 2019 and 8 January 2020 (+20 March 2020)

• Around 1,900 proposals per cut-off (3,699)

• 170-180 proposals invited to interviews

• 119 selected proposals (3.24% success rate so far)

• 63 grant-only

• 56 blended (average €2 million grant + €4 million equity)

Lessons learned so far

• Exceptional last (20 March) Accelerator (SME Instrument) cut-off

3,895 proposal

+100% compared to previous cut-offs

Exceptional response to the Covid19 related proposals invitation

The Commission will ensure fast processing of Covid19 selected proposals

Lessons learned so far

Topics by keywords

29

26

18

6 6 6 5 4 3 2 2 2 1 1 00

5

10

15

20

25

30

1st Main Keyword

Cut-offs: October 2019 and January 2020

Retained proposals by country

1413 13 13 13

7 76 6

5

3 3 3 3 32

1 1 1 1 1

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Number of proposals

Cut-offs: October 2019 and January 2020

• A very high level of participation submitted from more than 40 different

countries

• Strong demand for blended support

• A high proportion of high quality proposals deemed to be financed: 33.4% of

proposals passed the thresholds (Seal of Excellence)

• The programme remains very highly competitive

Lessons learned so far

Thank you

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