New call H2020 Industrial Leadership open for proposals

The European Commission has published a new Access to risk finance call under the main pillar Industrial Leadership of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation - Horizon 2020. The call Improving access by innovative SMEs to alternative forms of finance - H2020-ALFTI-2017 has a budget of € 2,500,000. The deadline for submitting proposals is September 7, 2017.

The specific challenge of the call is described as follows: Sources of finance for innovative SMEs should be as diverse as possible in order to cater for their varying needs at different stages of the firm life-cycle and the innovation process. However, more needs to be done to improve such SMEs' access to alternative forms of finance such as peer-to-peer lending, venture debt and convertible loans, equity finance provided by crowdfunding or business angels, and factoring and trade finance.

The maximum duration of a project is 24 months. The European Commission expects to fund between one and three proposals.

Access to risk finance helps companies and other types of organisations engaged in research and innovation (R&I) to gain easier access, via financial instruments, to loans, guarantees, counter-guarantees and hybrid, mezzanine and equity finance. The concrete goal is to support and facilitate access to sources of debt and equity financing by innovative companies of all sizes and also by research centres and universities, public-private partnerships, special-purpose companies or projects, and joint ventures.