European Innovation Council (EIC Fund)

The EIC Fund is the venture capital investment arm of the European Innovation Council, a €10 billion EU programme under Horizon Europe. With a capitalisation of over €4 billion, it bridges the gap between public and private financing by providing patient equity and quasi-equity capital (convertible loans, SAFE notes, preferred shares) to Europe's most promising deep tech startups and SMEs — from seed stage through Series B/C — across all sectors and all EU Member States and Horizon Europe associated countries. Investments range from €0.5M to €10M under the EIC Accelerator and €10M to €30M under EIC STEP Scale Up, with a long-term horizon of 7–10 years. The Fund operates as a strategic impact investor, taking minority stakes (typically ~10%, up to 25%) and explicitly seeking to crowd in private capital — targeting at least 3x leverage of additional co-investment for every euro deployed. It focuses on disruptive, market-creating innovations in critical technology areas including quantum computing, semiconductors, AI, advanced materials, biotech, energy storage, and space technologies, with the dual mandate of accelerating Europe's deep tech ecosystem and protecting EU strategic interests in key technology domains.