Today sees the official launch of the EIC Scaling Club website, and we’re delighted to lift the veil off our exciting plans.

The EIC Scaling Club is a European Innovation Council (EIC)-supported initiative that promotes and facilitates the sustained growth and impact of a select group of 100 high-potential European deep tech companies to a ‘unicorn’ valuation (i.e. €1 billion) and beyond. 

The EIC Scaling Club is gearing up to establish a curated community that provides hand-picked, promising European deep tech companies with smart mentoring and access to vetted investors, partners and talent while communicating about the market impact they deliver. 

The objective, as a Club of Members, is to bring together active investors with a focus on Europe, innovative corporations, sovereign funds or agencies, mentors, clusters and media companies, in order to create a permanent, impactful pan-European deep tech network.

Innovation and industrial policy background

Before the Summer 2023 recess, the European Commission kicked into gear fresh initiatives to help homegrown deep tech champions scale up and play their part in achieving the European Union's ambitious digital and green objectives.

This is in line with the ‘New European Innovation Agenda', a multi-faceted strategy to stimulate innovation across all sectors of the EU economy that was launched in July 2022.

The EIC Scaling Club follows in the footsteps of the EIC ScalingUp TOP50, with an even more ambitious vision in bolstering the growth of Europe’s highest-potential deep tech startups and scale-ups.

What comes next

Established in May 2023, the EIC Scaling Club is ready to start on-boarding selected members from across the European deep tech sector, including prominent and committed:

• Private capital investors, including venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms
• Corporate venturing or external/open innovation units
• Sovereign funds, government agencies or networks 

Furthermore, an open call for mentors (nominated by Club members) will be launched later in 2023.

Investors, corporate innovation leaders and national and regional deep tech or scale-up experts with an interest in taking part in this high-level network can (and should) keep an eye on the EIC Scaling Club’s social media channels (LinkedIn and Twitter), and subscribe to our newsletter to stay abreast of all future updates!

The first group of European deep tech companies will be invited to the EIC Scaling Club in February 2024 after careful selection and consideration, based on their maturity (the focus will be on late Series A, Series B and C-stage companies) and the overall market opportunity.

The initial cohort will be selected from the fields of ‘Digital’, ‘Energy & Climate’, and ‘Health’, and the EIC Scaling Club will tap from top-performing awardees of EIC financial schemes, as well as other national and European agencies and funds.

More about the selection process will be shared later!

Aside from the 100 curated European deep tech companies, the EIC Scaling Club will select 100 active investors, 100 corporations with innovation units, 100 'agencies, clusters and media', and 100 independent, experienced scale-up mentors.

Who is behind this?

The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.

The partners were selected through an open call for applications launched under the EIC Work Programme 2022.

Commentary

Jean-David Malo, Director of the European Innovation Council (EIC) and the EISMEA Executive Agency, commented: 

“We eagerly awaited the launch of the EIC Scaling Club, and look forward to further strengthening the EU deep tech ecosystem in the coming years by supporting the growth of 100 amazing technology scale-ups. 

At the start of this exciting journey, I would like to emphasise the critical role the Club can play in supporting the high ambitions of the European Innovation Council (EIC) to reinforce breakthrough technologies and innovations, built in Europe with the potential to scale up globally. We look forward to the first tangible results as the EIC Scaling Club gears up to start inviting members, companies and mentors to the fold in the coming months.”

William Stevens, CEO of Tech Tour, and Teresa Cunha, EIC Scaling Club coordinator, added: 

“We are hard at work building the EIC Scaling Club to help boost the growth of Europe’s most promising European deep tech companies. Through an ambitious programme and a carefully curated community, our aim is to provide 100 select scale-ups with significant, measurable value that will support them in their ambitions to scale their businesses.

We will be laser-focused on connecting these high-potential deep tech scale-ups with leading Europe-centric investors, corporations, sovereign funds, government agencies, business experts and mentors, and more. 

Europe has a thriving deep tech ecosystem already, but there is potential to grow its value tremendously in the coming years. With the EIC Scaling Club, we will do our part to create more Europe-born deep tech champions in the future, and share their success stories with the world.”