On 14 November 2023, EBN provided its members with the fifth e-Training Pill on how to reach cascade funding within different EU programmes for startups and SMEs. ANCES, as RESOURCE partner and as EBN Member attended to share this knowledge to RESOURCE pilot projects and partners .
What is Cascade funding? It is a mechanism of the European Commission to distribute public funding to help SMEs and startups in the uptake or development of product and service in a specific domain, through a system of Open Calls, managed by a consortium, which acts as an intermediary between the beneficiaries and the European Commission.
In this online session, two organisations SPLORO and Funding Box, as intermediate associations, explained how startups/SMEs can use these Open Calls to access European funding opportunities. Cascade fundings can finance startups/SMEs from the development of business ideas to the acceleration of innovation process, or even at further scale, within different areas (AI, Next generation internet, industry 4.0, Internet of Things, Robotic, Big Data and Photonics, agri-food, manufacturing, etc.)
RESOURCE pilot projects and circular economy projects, can check the Funding Box or Sploro open calls, regularly launched and renewed, that are usually focusing on IA, NGI, DIH, Manufacturing, Tech-transfer, Digital business, and some are focusing also on Circular economy topics.
An important comment and recommendation was made at the end of the session: startups and SMEs should keep an eye on these great and simple funding opportunities and keep in mind that there is no limitation, they can apply to several open calls at the same time.
For more information check out:
- Funding Box open calls: https://fundingbox.com/
- Sploro: https://sploro.eu/cascade-funding/