Open now · HORIZON EIC Accelerator · HORIZON-EIC-2026-ACCELERATOR-01
Scope:
The EIC Accelerator supports companies (principally SMEs, including start-ups) to scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones. The EIC Accelerator provides a unique combination of grant and investment funding and Business Acceleration Services (see Section VII of EIC Work Programme 2026).
The EIC Accelerator focuses in particular on innovations building on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs (‘deep tech’) and where significant funding is needed over a long timeframe before returns can be generated (‘patient capital’). Such innovations often struggle to attract financing because the risks and time period involved are too high. Funding and support from the EIC Accelerator is designed to enable such innovators to attract the full investment amounts needed for scale up in a shorter timeframe.
The EIC Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scale up. The technology component of your innovation must therefore have been tested and validated in a laboratory and other relevant environment (e.g., at least Technology Readiness Level 5 completed). The EIC Accelerator looks to support companies where the EIC support will act as a catalyst to crowd in other investors necessary for the scale up of the innovation.
Applicants to EIC Accelerator can submit proposals through:
For further information please see the EIC Work Programme 2026.
| Item | Estimate | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Drafting effort | 3–4 weeks | single submission |
| Time to first payment | 6–9 months | cut-off → evaluation → grant agreement |
These are Bemzu's estimates from the call's structure (the number of stages and whether a consortium is required) not figures published by the Commission. Only the co-financing share is read from the call itself.
Two kinds of row. Most are the sentence we read the condition from, quoted out of the call itself. Some say plainly that they are not a quotation but the programme's own rule for this type of action, the EU portal publishes a table of contents where the conditions should be, so for a Research and Innovation Action the rate comes from the rulebook rather than from the fiche.
| Condition | Quoted from the call, or the rule behind it |
|---|---|
| Consortium size | Not quoted from this call — EIC Accelerators under the Horizon Europe rules are a single company applies on its own — there is no consortium requirement. |
| Funding rate | Not quoted from this call — EIC Accelerators under the Horizon Europe rules are the grant component covers 70% of eligible costs. |
| Maturity | , at least Technology Readiness Level 5 completed). |
Eight questions, no account, nothing sent anywhere. You will know which of the 1526 open calls you can actually enter before you finish your coffee.
Check my fit
