Background

The Pathfinder Helix has been established to gather entrepreneurs from across Europe, and to support them in developing breakthrough and deep technology innovations. Crowdhelix and Zaz Ventures work together to identify the most ambitious such projects, and to support those teams with the highest chances of successfully securing funding.

Funding Available

The European Innovation Council (EIC)’s programs are designed to support breakthrough and game-changing innovations that will create brand new markets and/or help address global challenges. In particular, the EIC’s “Pathfinder” programme offers both “Challenge” and “Open” funding calls that aim to support the development of high risk, high gain, and game-changing deep technologies.

The EIC Pathfinder is a highly competitive funding programme, and the Open and Challenge calls have significantly different eligibility criteria. All types of technologies are eligible for support under the Open calls, whereas specific Health, Digital, and Green Deal Challenge calls will be opened each year.

The integration of these programmes within the wider EIC unveils a novel market-driven approach starting in or from the lab. Pathfinder beneficiaries will also benefit from fast-track opportunities towards EIC “Transition” and “Accelerator” funding instruments that aim at bringing breakthrough ideas (TRL1) to market (TRL9). A single project can benefit from up to €24M in non-dilutive and dilutive EIC funding.

The new EIC Pathfinder instrument is similar to the previous “Future & Emerging Technologies” (Open and Proactive) instrument within the Excellence pillar under the Horizon 2020 programme.