The European Commission (EC) has unveiled a new cohort of companies set to receive significant scale-up investments through the EIC Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale-Up call.
A total of €171M has been proposed for equity investments in these innovative firms, which will now undergo further evaluation by the EIC Fund before final investment decisions are made.
Investment from €10M to €30M per company
The EIC STEP Scale-Up scheme is set to provide investments ranging from €10M to €30M per company, aiming to attract private co-investment and enable financing rounds that could reach between €50M and €150M, or more.
According to EC, this initiative is crucial in addressing the funding gap necessary for scaling up breakthrough innovations across Europe.
Out of 51 companies that submitted proposals, 36 were invited to present their ideas to independent high-level experts in interviews. Ultimately, eight companies met the stringent selection criteria and are now under consideration for funding by the EIC Fund.
The selected companies are pioneering advancements in a variety of strategic technologies essential for Europe’s future. They include:
- Aldoria (France): Focused on optimising and securing space operations.
- Focused Energy (Germany): Innovating with laser-driven fusion technology.
- Leyden Laboratories (The Netherlands): Developing solutions to combat respiratory viruses.
- Marvel Fusion (Germany): Building a laser-driven fusion power plant.
- Nexwafe (Germany): Creating next-generation solar wafers.
- Qphox (The Netherlands): Designing scalable, high-performance quantum processors.
- Quandela (France): Working on photonic quantum computers.
- Smart Photonics (The Netherlands): Producing next-generation chips.
In addition to the eight selected firms, another 21 companies demonstrated exceptional potential but could not be awarded funding due to the constraints of the STEP budget.
Consequently, the 29 companies will receive the STEP Seal, which will aid in accessing additional funding sources and EIC Business Acceleration Services.
The EIC STEP Scale-Up call is set to continue with a budget of €300M for both 2025 and 2026.
This initiative, which has attracted high demand, aims to provide larger investments in companies developing strategic technologies to bring them to the market and reduce strategic dependencies.
The STEP Scale-up scheme aims to help selected companies accelerate growth by boosting the financing rounds that will scale breakthrough critical technologies in Europe.
The call will remain open for submissions on the Funding and Tenders portal, with evaluation sessions scheduled quarterly.
