Blended Finance

The EIC Fund was incorporated in June 2020 and operational in September 2020 during the EIC pilot phase (2018-20). Since the creation of the EIC Fund under the Horizon 2020 programme, 341 companies have been selected for equity investment in the form of blended funding or equity-only funding. However, only 89 of these companies have managed to sign a deal with the EIC Fund. Why do companies have...

At Winnovart, we are currently researching the impact of blended funding programmes on the European innovation & investment ecosystem. We believe that blended funding (mixing grants & equity investments) is the most interesting development in the European grants-funding ecosystem for many years, promising to reshape its future.

The EIC Fund is Europe's flagship blended funding programme, combining EC innovation grants with equity investments from private investors (typically VCs). The biggest programme of this kind in Europe with a substantial multi-annual investment budget. There is, however, a significant gap between its promise and current delivery.This is our series of Explainers, aiming to clarify key aspects of...

The investment gap refers to the difference between the number of companies that have been selected for equity investment by the EIC Fund and the number of companies that have signed a deal. There is limited public information on the number of companies that have signed a deal with the EIC Fund under Horizon Europe. This data is available for companies that signed deals during the pilot phase...

The European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund is the investment vehicle of the EIC Accelerator programme - the EC's flagship innovation funding programme. With a budget of €3 billion from 2021-2027, the EIC Fund is positioned to be one of Europe's largest deep-tech venture capitalists (VCs) during this period. Through the structure of the fund, a minimum of €3 billion of private funds will be...

This is a new blended funding opportunity for private investors and SMEs on the UK market. 

Programme name: Transforming food production: series A investor partnership.

Innovate UK (IUK) offersGBP 7 million in grants-funding for a new Investor Partnership Programme in the UK Transforming Foundation Industries/ Investor Partner selection 2020. 

Private investors have a new funding opportunity to partner with Innovate UK for the healthy ageing investor partnership programme that is looking to invest in high growth potential small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that aspire to find solution addressing the issues associated with ageing well.

Public- Private funding schemes or blended schemes combining private funding and grants have the potential to change (for good!) the grants-funding market space in the UK (and Europe).

Public-Private funding schemes or blended schemes combining private funding and grants have the potential to change (for good!) the grants-funding market space in the UK (and Europe). At Winnovart, we believe this is the most interesting thing happening in this market-space for many years in Europe, promising to reshape its future. We would like to understand the views of private investors on...