The European Innovation Council (EIC) – sometimes called Europe’s answer to DARPA out of the U.S. – has announced a new €20 million of funding for Ukrainian “deep-tech startups and SMEs.” The EIC aims to back deep tech founders looking to scale “breakthrough” technologies from fully-working lab prototypes to market readiness within two to three years.
In a press release, the EIC said it wants the programme to build on “Seeds of Bravery” (UASEEDS) – an earlier-stage Ukrainian startup funding initiative from its 2022 Work Programme, which also parachuted €20 million into growing the Ukrainian tech ecosystem.
The goal for “Seeds of Bravery” (aka UASEEDS) was to boost the visibility of Ukraine’s deep-tech startups to a wider global tech investment landscape – offering EU economic support as a helping hand to the war-torn country. The latest EIC initiative continues this push for “economic resilience” and notes that “activities funded should be for civilian applications only.”
High tech can still end up being dual-use. Drones are the classic example of a consumer technology that’s been extensively repurposed for the battlefield. Ukraine’s armed forces have gained particular renown for retooling relatively cheap consumer gadgets to slow Russia’s advances. Fresh EIC support for civilian deep tech could thus trickle down and indirectly bolster Ukraine’s military resources over time, too, particularly since the programme is targeting a number of defense-adjacant categories such as artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, cybersecurity “and other priority areas for Ukraine.”
Pavlo Pikulin, co-founder and CEO of Deus Robotics, which builds robotics for warehousing and logistics, was one of over 100 Ukrainian deep-tech startups backed by UASEEDS. He said the programme helped his startup attract funding and scale internationally.
“The Seeds programme was incredibly valuable for us, particularly in terms of new connections,” Pikulin told Resilience Media. “We were introduced to many industry professionals who shared insights that helped us navigate unfamiliar territory.” Breaking into international markets alongside mentorship as two areas where it helped, he said.
Pikulin welcomed the follow-on EIC fund as a promising development for getting more Ukrainian innovations out of the lab and making a real impact.
Eligible companies can apply for grants of up to €500,000 to develop from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 – meaning with tech that’s fully lab-validated – to TRL 6-7, with the technology working outside the lab, such as in a realistic simulated environment all the way up to a real operational setting.
It expects the programme to back around 40 projects and is actively focussing on female-led companies.
“Deep tech is inherently capital-intensive at the development stage, and customers typically only want to pay for fully functional products. That’s why the EIC’s new follow-on funding programme is so crucial,” Pikulin said. “Today, there are virtually no alternative sources of grant-based funding at this level within Ukraine – so this support can fill a critical gap and have real impact.”
As well as receiving a chunk of funding, successful deep-tech startups will be given free access to EIC Business Acceleration Services – including coaching and pitch support. They will also be eligible for a fast-track programme to join the EIC Accelerator itself, which can provide access to larger grants and EIC Fund investments. The wider EIC hope is that all this polish will enable promising startups to pull in private investment to continue their push towards commercialisation.
Access to expertise, market and funding are the three main challenges facing Ukrainian deep-tech entrepreneurs, according to Sviatoslav Sviatnenko, founder and chairman of INNOV8, a Ukrainian venture builder which is part of the UASEEDS consortium. “We need mentors and experts on very specific points, from IP to financial management, to go to market, to sales,” Sviatnenko told Resilience Media.
“We also need more entrepreneurs to have, in a way, a pure community for deep tech. And that’s where Seeds of Bravery definitely brought a lot of value – connecting people who work on deep tech.”
With ongoing disruption inside Ukraine from the war it remains challenging for the country’s own companies or government to test experimental tech – so a critical component of UASEEDS focused on finding pilot customers in other markets, Sviatnenko said.
The programme could also help mobilise more private capital, from inside and outside Ukraine, by providing what Sviatnenko described as a “seal of approval” to help VC firms assess technologies in areas like quantum or robotics that may lie outside their own in-house expertise.
Pikulin re-emphasised the international aspect of the programme. Beyond funding, startups “urgently need access to European customers.”
