EIC Accelerator success

Recommendations for Selected Changes on the EIC Accelerator Platform (SME Instrument)

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The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) has transformed greatly in 2021 and its new AI tool has been used by thousands of applicants in a matter of weeks. While the previous article pointed out some of its shortcomings and the overall experience, the following article aims to make suggestions for its improvement (read: Reviewing the EIC Platform). From a business perspective, startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME)’s have to, by necessity, pursue a realistic and business-focused approach to succeed in their venture but if a grant application forces them to create a project analysis that is neither relevant for their business nor to investors or customers then it cannot be a useful approach overall. From the public funding agencies perspective, the great challenge of creating a framework for grant applications is to encourage the right companies to apply but to also have sufficiently high barriers in place that can filter based on factors other than the budget alone (i.e. we do not want to fund you vs. we do not have enough money for you). Many companies look at the EIC Accelerator and immediately dismiss it because it is time-consuming and the chances for success are too low for the current stage of their business. They need to protect their time and resources since what they work on is cutting-edge and has a high risk of failure. There is a risk that competitors are getting ahead and it can often be more valuable for the company to convince risk-averse Angel investors or customers as opposed to spending many months in filling out EIC form fields just to fail because the CEO has the wrong gender, an evaluator does not understand the 1,000 characters on the customer pain or the Technology Adoption Lifecycle (TALC) just makes no sense for their particular commercial model. While many great companies have been funded by the SME Instrument and EIC Accelerator, there clearly is room for improvement for the European Innovation Council (EIC) and European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). Here are some suggestions as to what could make the process easier of applicants and evaluators: Guidelines and Templates While working with an official proposal template for the EIC Accelerator is now redundant since the EIC platform acts as an on-the-fly guideline, there is still a need for further explanations as to what is needed in each section. What is a suitable gender equality strategy in the eyes of the EIC? Since this is not taught in MBA’s and practically no VC would ever ask this question – what does a DeepTech cutting-edge business working on a disruptive innovation need to display to satisfy the EU? How does the EIC want applicants to quantify their cash flow projections for The Chasm or The Gap between Early Adopters and the Early Majority? How is the space between two market adoption segments meant to be quantified in the eyes of the EIC? What market activities are needed before TRL8 in comparison to market activities in TRL9 as these are mandatory? How should the mandatory project management differ between TRL5-8 and TRL8-9? These are examples of questions that could be addressed in a grant application template or guideline which helps applicants to address questions they, frankly, will never need to answer outside of the European Commissions (EC) funding arms. Being More Reader and Writer Friendly When the EIC announced that it would create an AI Tool and interactive application platform that aims to make everything easier – it seemed like a great idea. Writing a business plan was tedious and took a lot of time which meant that applicants had to spend valuable resources on writing that could have been spent on growing their business or technology. Adding video pitches, a short application as a teaser and integrating an automated AI assessment that screens patent and scientific databases seemed like great news for applicants. For a brief moment, it seemed like many applicants could finally prepare great applications on their own without the reliance on professional writers or consultancies. But this turned out to be a very short-lived scenario. As opposed to making the applications more writer- and reader-friendly, it became even harder to read and to write. Instead of adding more audiovisual content to the applications, heavily relying on graphics and making things easy to digest, the EIC removed all of the images, formatting, hyperlinks and headings to yield an application that is 99% plain text. No formatting. No colour. No graphics. No hyperlinks. No references. Just plain text. More Images The solution is simple: Allow the upload of graphics and illustrations in key sections. Do you have a software with a UI? Upload up to 5 screenshots, please. Do you have a reactor? Please provide photos of the prototype. Do you have an AI-driven infrastructure innovation? Please upload a schematic view that conceptualises your product. Do you have competitors? Please upload a comparison table. Note: There is an auto-generated competitors table on the Step 2 platformin but it only shows checkmarks or crosses – no nuance. It comes as a surprise to many that allowing image uploads was not in the top 5 of features to be added to the EIC Accelerator platform as soon as it was launched. Yes, there is a pitch deck and yes, there is an Annex in Step 2 of 10 pages but there is no guarantee that the evaluators will read the text and then search for a relevant graphic in the other documents. In fact, graphics are supposed to compliment the text as it is being read. They should not be an afterthought. It is hard to believe that the EIC consulted their evaluators regarding the AI platform in any way. No evaluator would have ever supported the removal of all visual support materials just to end up with a 99% plain block of text. Minimize the Text What is urgently needed is to remove text segments that have … Read more

The Profile of a Company That Should Not Apply for the EIC Accelerator (SME Instrument)

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The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) is a highly competitive but also highly popular grant and equity financing scheme by the European Innovation Council (EIC). Many startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) in the EU but also in associated countries such as Israel or Norway are interested in applying to the funds but many would be better off seeking out other options. While grant consultancies and professional writers all have different approaches to the selection of suitable EIC Accelerator applicants, there are some common themes that are shared among success-oriented grant consultants. Since the official grant proposal template for the EIC Accelerator does not clarify such nuanced points in-depth, the following article aims to give an overview of the types of companies that should not apply. For any startup or scaleup that is recognising themselves in any of the points listed below, it would be advisable to refrain from hiring a writer or consultant since time and resources can be better spent elsewhere. Note: The EIC does not primarily select great companies, it primarily selects companies that fit a certain mould. Having low chances for success under the EIC does not mean that the company or project are bad. The EIC would have never financed social networks like Facebook or Twitter and even industry-specific unicorn companies like Epic Games or Instacart. Yet, these are all success cases on a level the EIC dreams of. The list below is designed to highlight the first impression that consultants and grant writers often face when a client first comes into contact. Since the demand for grant writers is generally very high, this first impression will likely define how interested the consultancy is in a particular project. How do they present their company or technology? Why do they need EIC Accelerator support? What needs to be financed? 1. An Inquiry Uses a Gmail or Similar Domain Address While this is not a strong red flag – it suggests that the company or project is not fully formed yet. Buying a domain and creating a private email account usually precedes even the company registration since it is so simple (and cheap). If an inquiry lacks a private domain then this is usually a sign that a project is in the idea stage. Very few founders would contact investors or customers with a Gmail address which means that any inquiry from such an address is a tell for an ineligible project. Since 2021, the EIC Accelerator also funds non-incorporated natural persons but, due to the competitiveness of the grant, this does not mean that a single person without backing, traction or support networks will be able to be successful. Every inquiry that comes from a domain that is not privately hosted and is not attached to a Corporate Identity (CI) will likely be ignored by selective consultancies. 2. The Prospect EIC Accelerator Applicant is in the Idea Stage The new EIC’s AI platform aims to display the journey from Ideation towards Go-to-Market but that does not mean that a natural person can be successful with a pure idea. The Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) clearly outline the stage a technology has to be in with TRL5 being the minimum for the EIC Accelerator and lower TRL’s only being possible in EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition programs. The current diagnostics and ideation parts of the EIC Accelerator application are misleading since they can give the impression that projects can still be in the idea stage and is then transformed into a commercial product once Step 3 is reached but this is not the case. The applicant’s project will not make significant changes from Step 1 to 3 – the only thing that will change is the amount and depth of data that is provided to the EIC for evaluation purposes. The EIC Accelerator, also a misleading name, is not a traditional accelerator that aims to help startups succeed by helping with product development, investor relationships or customer contact. The primary resource, outside of limited coaching, will be financial which means that the applicants need a business plan, the right commerial strategy and must have all it takes to implement the project. The EIC will not hold the beneficiaries hands albeit they will aim to create networking opportunities if it matches current political agendas such as the Green Deal, COVID-19 relief or similar trends. Having an idea and reaching out to a consultant with a half-formed business plan will likely be insufficient and be ignored by most selective writers. 3. The Company has no Website or Social Presence It is understandable that many companies are in stealth mode especially when it comes to DeepTech products in the area of biotechnology or pharmaceuticals where large competitors spend billions on R&D and could copy a technology quickly – patented or not. Still, even if a company has no interest in marketing itself or in publicising its technology, every company that has sufficient seed funding and the degree of traction needed to succeed in the EIC Accelerator should have a website and a LinkedIn page at the very least. There can be exceptions but no presence at all often means that founders view this project as a side business or are not invested in its success. One additional exception to this is a newly formed company that is a University spin-off or subsidiary of another company. In the latter case, the prospective applicant can usually provide a website link for the parent company while, in the former case, they could be too early stage for the EIC Accelerator but can be eligible for the EIC Pathfinder. 4. Based on Research that is not Theirs (a University Non-Spin-Off) What can often be encountered is a company that is basing its technology on University research that is not theirs but also does not exist in the market yet. This, in and of itself, does not mean that it is ineligible for the EIC Accelerator but … Read more

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