EIC Accelerator and Horizon Europe: 2026 funding

Horizon Europe is the EU’s framework programme for research and innovation for 2021–2027. Its best-known instrument for companies is the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator. It funds a single start-up or SME whose innovation can create an entirely new market or disrupt an existing one. The funding is a grant, an equity investment or both.

Who can apply?

You apply for the EIC Accelerator on your own. No consortium is needed. The applicant can be:

a start-up or SME (including spin-offs) from an EU Member State or a country associated with Horizon Europe
a person or entity planning to set up an SME
a small mid-cap (up to 499 employees), but for the investment component only.

The innovation must be high-risk, the kind private investors do not yet fund on their own. The funded work sits at technology readiness levels 6–8 (TRL), that is, from demonstration towards a market-ready product. A company can have only one EIC Accelerator application at a time.

How much funding is available?

Grant: a lump sum below €2.5 million. It covers innovation work, and the project is carried out within 24 months.
Investment: direct equity or quasi-equity from the EIC, such as a convertible loan, of €1–10 million. Larger investments go through the STEP Scale-Up route.
Blended finance: a grant and an investment from the same call. A company with the capacity to scale up can apply for a grant only. This option is available once during Horizon Europe.

In 2026 the budget for the EIC Accelerator Open is €414 million and for the thematic Challenges €220 million.

When can you apply?

You can submit a short application at any time. Applications are batched for evaluation on the first Tuesday of each month. The full application is submitted for one of the year’s six cut-off dates.

The 2026 cut-off dates are 7 January, 4 March, 6 May, 8 July, 2 September and 4 November 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time. The last cut-off of the year is therefore 4 November 2026. The 2027 dates are published in the EIC Work Programme, so check the current calls on the EIC website.

How the application works

Short application: a 12-page form, a pitch deck of up to ten slides and a video of up to three minutes. Feedback arrives in about 4–6 weeks.
Full application: a 20-page form and annexes, such as an implementation plan, financial information, letters of intent from customers and a freedom-to-operate (FTO) analysis of patents. Results arrive in 8–9 weeks.
Interview: the best applicants are invited to an interview with the EIC Jury. The result arrives within 2–3 weeks.
Agreement: for the grant, a grant agreement is signed. The investment decision and the due diligence before it take 2–6 months.

Other Horizon Europe routes for companies

EIC Transition: validating and demonstrating a research result, with a grant of up to €2.5 million. The applicant can be a single SME, start-up or research organisation, or a small consortium. The 2026 deadline was 16 September 2026.
EIC Pathfinder Open: early-stage breakthrough research in a consortium of at least three partners, with a grant of up to €4 million. The 2026 deadline was 12 May 2026.
Collaborative projects: thematic calls in European consortia. The maximum funding rate is 100% of costs in research and innovation actions and 70% for a company in innovation actions.

In Finland the Horizon Europe National Contact Points (NCP) work at Business Finland and the Research Council of Finland, and their advice is free of charge.

What we do

The EIC Accelerator is a Europe-wide competitive call, and the application is a demanding package. We find out whether your project suits the EIC Accelerator or whether it is better to start with national funding. We write the application and annexes, prepare you for the interview and handle the contact with the funder. Bureaucracy is our problem.

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Horizon Europe and the EIC Accelerator