Women TechEU - Call 2

Women TechEU is a two-year EU-funded project funding and supporting women leading deep tech startup companies from Europe. Across the two years, the consortium will launch a total of four calls for applications. Applicant startups will undergo a rigorous evaluation and a total of 160 winner startups will receive €75k in non-dilutive grants as well as a personalised business development programme including mentoring, coaching and training.

Call #2 deadline: 30th September 17.00 CEST (Brussels Time)

The main objective of the project is to create a targeted programme of support for women founders and entrepreneurs leading deep tech start-ups from Europe to grow into tomorrow’s tech leaders and to put women at the forefront of deep tech in Europe.

During 2 years the project will give out a total of 12 M€ in non-diluting finance over 4 different competitive calls. Each cohort of successful entrepreneurs will then be also invited to use the menu of business development services that will be provided over a period of 6 months. Constant contacts and checkups of the KPIs that will be jointly developed by the entrepreneurs and their coaches will ensure that there is a smooth ongoing scaleup of their businesses, in order to prepare the winners to eventually also apply for the EIC Accelerator scheme.

Your application must include a three-minute video – full application requirements and details are at the link below.

Who can apply?

The applicant must be established in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country (this includes the UK).

The legal entity (company/startup) should be established at least six months prior to the deadline of the submission date. The ‘start-up’ should be compliant with the definition of SME, according to the EU definition of SMEs (EU recommendation 2003/361).

Early-stage refers to the phase of start-up development generally preceding the
rapid growth phase. As an indication, the following criteria will be considered,
amongst other to define an early-stage start-up:

• Start-ups that have been established and operating for not more than 8
  years counting backwards from submission date and,
• Start-ups that have raised limited funding (up to 1 M € in equity),
• Before reaching a high fidelity Minimum Viable Product

Women must be legally recognised as founders or co-founder of the company. The founder or co-founder of the company must also currently hold a top management position (CEO, CTO, CSO or equivalent) within the same company. It will be also required that women hold at least 25% of the shares in the CAP table (capitalization table) of the company.

Your startup must not have previously been funded for the same activities by another EU Programme.

Deep tech definition

Sectors which are most fertile for deep tech applications are life-science, computing, food and agri-tech, aerospace, energy and clean-tech, industrial technologies, telecom, new materials, or chemistry. However deep tech also includes, among other, artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning. Women TechEU welcomes applications from all deep tech fields of activity.