Welcome to Ajde! And congratulations to your initiative to research and learn a bit more about EU funding. To start off the blog I will present to you some of the available funding opportunities from the European funding landscape. These are open calls from EU funded projects where startups and innovators from the Western Balkans are eligible to apply. As a disclaimer you should always check if your country is on the Associated countries list before you apply and of course read the documentation.
Stay tuned for more content and of course any constructive feedback on how to make the content more valuable for readers is more than welcomed.
Certain EU funded projects offer free capacity building, acceleration or cascade funding to startups, and guess what? You being based in the Balkans, may be eligible.
In some of the calls below you will probably encounter a term called “cascade funding”. What is means is that, public EU funds are given to new companies to make them more awesome (enable for you to scale faster) by using digital technology to improve all of our lives.
If you are an aficionado of official definition then here it is “cascade funding is a European Commission mechanism aiming at distributing funding to create new companies and increase their scalability, create new SMEs or mid-cap companies and all that under the development of the digital innovation scheme.” [1]
All right, now lets get to the good stuff.
1. Covid-X, https://www.covid-x.eu/
Deadline: 27.01.2021
For market-oriented SMEs to provide innovative products to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. For further information read ANNEX 2:GUIDELINES FOR APPLICANTS.
Field: Healthtech, COVID-19
2. DIGI-B-CUBE, https://digibcube.eu/open-calls/
Deadline 03.02.2021
DIGI-B-CUBE project launched an open call for funding on 22nd April 2020, to support projects focusing on integrating digital innovations and disruptive technologies across the Medical Diagnostics and related value chains. Small and Medium Enterprises (including new start-ups) operating in the health, medicine, biotech, biopharma, IT or related sectors (robotics, automation, electronics, nanotech etc.) can apply for equity-free funding up to €60,000 through the DIGI-B-CUBE voucher scheme.
Field: Medtech, Heatlhteck
3. GATEKEEPER https://www.gatekeeper-project.eu/open-call
Deadline: 28.02.2021
The purpose of the call is to engage actively new technology members In the GATEKEEPER Ecosystem, supplying new AI and Big Data applications, tools or components which will be incorporated in the technology offering portfolio of GATEKEEPER to Pilots and Platform designers and developers The targets are: start-ups, SMEs, Midcaps, Industries and Research technology organizations. The budget is 600.000€, with a maximum of 10 projects funded (up to 60.000€ each project)
Field: AI, Bigdata
4. NGI ESSIF LAB, https://essif-lab.eu/open-calls/
Deadline 21.06.2021
Infrastructure-oriented Call” will target the provision of open source components, for example the SSI-Roles layer, the SSI Protocols or the Crypto layer. Interoperability, scalability or features that provide generic business benefits are required.
This call is open to innovators in SSI domain and will fund selected projects up to €155K
Field: Fintech
5. BlockStart https://www.blockstart.eu/
Deadline: Calls will be opened In 2021
BlockStart is a 3-stage partnership programme. Each DLT/ blockchain startup receives a grant (equity-free) of up to €20,000, tailored tech and business mentoring.
Field:Fintech, Retail, ICT
