Apart from the initial EUR 160 million funding, an extra EUR 150 million budget was approved by the European Commission, with the aim to fund the best start-ups and SMEs who applied to the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator Pilot under the March cut-off.

Almost 4000 start-ups and SMEs applied and over 1000 of them present innovations related to the coronavirus outbreak. All the applications have been evaluated remotely, and the highest ranked applications were invited for live interviews from 11 to 20 May 2020, where experts in specific coronavirus-relevant fields have been especially recruited to help select the strongest proposals.

This support to start-ups and SMEs is part of the European Commission’s coordinated coronavirus response.