High demand of European start-ups and SMEs for equity financing from the European Innovation Council (EIC)

Almost 500 companies requested blended financing (grant and equity) totalling €2.8bn - with equity representing, on average, two thirds of the requested amount per application. Grant support of €2.4bn was requested from approximately 1,350 companies. More than 2/3 of the latter have mentioned their agreement for a possible counter-offer in terms of forms of financial support (i.e. blended finance).

Companies from Spain (228), Italy (173), Israel (164), Germany (142) and France (134) submitted the largest number of proposals, with Israel (80), Spain (78), France (37), Germany (35) and Italy (34) submitting the largest number of blended finance applications.