WOMEN TechEU is a 2-year EU-funded project supporting women leading deep tech start-up companies from Europe. 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.

160 talented women entrepreneurs from across the European Union and Horizon Europe associated countries will be receiving direct support. With 75k€ grant (non-diluting finance) and a personalised business development programme, the project will be paving the way for these innovators to shine as leaders in deep tech innovation across Europe.

ELIGIBILITY

Women TechEU targets women-led early-stage deep tech start-ups, that fulfill the following criteria:

1. ESTABLISHED COUNTRY:the applicant must be established in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country. The list of Horizon Europe Associated Countries as published by the European Commission on the submission date can be foundhere.
2. EARLY-STAGE START-UP:

• The legal entity 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 according to the 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:

o   Start-ups that have been established and operating for not more than 8 years counting backwards from submission date and,

o   Start-ups that have raised limited funding (up to 1 M € in equity),

o   Before reaching a high fidelity Minimum Viable Product

Important Notes:

• Foundations, associations, federations or other type of legal entity different from private company will not be eligible.
• Applications with TRL 7 (Technology Readiness Level 7 – system prototype demonstration in operational environment) or above will be considered after Minimum Viable Product.

3. WOMEN LEADERSHIP:Women 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.

Important Notes:

WOMEN TechEU supports women in all their diversity. The word “woman” equates to a cis woman, or a transgender woman who is legally defined as a woman. The lead applicant of the submission must be a woman. The means of verification will be the Identity Card issued by the country of their nationality.

4. DEEP TECH:Deep tech innovation aims to provide concrete solutions to our societal problems by finding its source in a deep interaction with the most recent scientific and technological advances and by seeking to produce a profound impact in the targeted application areas.

The 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.

Using technology and being a deep tech company are very different concepts. Just because one is adopting industry standard technologies or slightly modifying content, materials, integration of existing components etc., does not make the company a deep tech one.

For way of example, the following are NOT deep tech:

• eLearning platforms where the content is the innovative part and not the technology;
• eCommerce apps where the innovation is the business model/pricing and not the technology;
• Gaming apps which use industry standard components;
• Online information portals where the news and articles are the innovative component.

5. NOT PREVIOUSLY FUNDED FOR THE SAME ACTIVITIES BY ANOTHER EU PROGRAMME:To avoid double funding, neither the full application or any of its parts have benefited from any other EU Programme such as WOMEN TechEU initiative, or similar initiatives (ie: Horizon Europe – EmpoWomen).

6. NOT PART OF WOMEN TechEU BENEFICIARIES:WOMEN TechEU consortium partners, their affiliated entities, self-employees, and subcontractors are not allowed to submit a proposal and therefore to receive any financial support through the open calls.

APPLICATION

Submissions will be done ONLY via the Sploro platform, and it will be the unique entry point for all application submissions. Applications submitted by any other means will not be considered nor evaluated. Only the documentation included in the submission will be considered by evaluators.

The application reception will close on 30/09/2024, 17:00 CEST, Brussels time.

Learn more about the application criteria and other information in the official website: https://eit.europa.eu/our-activities/opportunities/call-applications-women-tech