So you have the best idea ever with huge potential, the only challenge is that you lack funding.
Well let me help you out and tell you how we did that. First of all let’s assume that you really have an innovation, be sure of that. This is due to the fact that almost no funding schema will provide you money for marketing and sales. Secondly your innovation has to be the best of the best in Europe.
For the marketing and Sales side my only advice is to go to the Startup Mentors from GrowthMentor and open an account. For me this was the best spent few Euros ever..:-).
For the EU funding part stay with me and let me guide you through.
First thing we did back in 2017 was apply for the Horizon SME instrument that is actually one of the very few funding schemes that would allow funding for marketing and sales..;-). With an excellent score of 13.85 out of 15 we did not get funded, but we did receive this prestigious Seal of Excellence for our MEDrecord platform.
Of course we were (very) disappointed and we considered this “sticker” (as my children would say) kind of worthless.
But in the end we found out that this “sticker” is helping us out in new proposals since it actually tells the reviewer at other funding schemes that a company having such a “sticker” should get the favor of being funded. So actually the “sticker” turned out to be of great value!
I will summarize the best options out there, but let me warn you about the first, the Horizon2020 funding scheme. We have had two projects in this scheme already, so we know what we are talking about to get a winner.
But let me warn you with the following story; earlier this year we applied for the H2020-SC6-TRANSFORMATIONS-2020 (PDF) call, together with Prof. Gianni Vercelli from the University of Genoa and Berta Paniagua. We ended at a final score of 14,5 out of 15. This is pretty close to perfect and we ended at place number 3. But ex aequo.
After final discussions it seems that the other proposal had better score distributions and therefore they got place number 3, we ended at the 4th place. This left us without funding at all. And that is actually what could happen with a funding schema with such fierce competition.
What I would advice is to check the following funding schemas:
- itea3 is a industry-driven programme in a domain of software innovation. It enables a global and knowledgeable community. For SMEs and start-ups this can be an easy starting point with the proper success rates.
- AAL has funded the development of many new products and services designed to help us continue to live our lives the way we want to as we get older. The success rate is really good and funding rate at 60%.
- Eurostars is a programme that supports research performing small and medium enterprises, which develop innovative products, processes and services in terms of gaining competitive advantage. Normally the consortium consists of 4 partners from 2 different EU countries. Our success rate for Eurostars is about 75%.
Have you already chosen the most suitable proposal funding scheme for your project?
Try to give it a go!