Now open! EIT Food Fast Track to Market 2024

Your company is eligible to apply if you:

• Are a legally incorporated entity in one of the EU or Horizon Europe eligible country, and have been for at least 12 months;
• Have a technological product, service, solution that fits within one of the three EIT Food Missions;

• Are classed as small sized company, as defined in the EU recommendation 2003/361 (between 3 and 49 employees and less than 10 million turnover or balance sheet);

• Have at least 3 full time employees;

• You are past the ideation phase; you are generating revenues from paying customers and not only from pilots.

We ask that applicants have a clear case for a project lasting no longer than 12 months that can significantly accelerate their startup/SME’s commercial success, and that the proposed project must be able to have an immediate impact by bringing their products or services to the market.

Applicants already affiliated with EIT Food (FAN and Rising Food Stars) are also welcome to apply, provided they fulfil the eligibility criteria.

• The first webinar was held on the 21st of February 2024
• The second webinar was held on the 13th of March 2024

Please note: the programme has been updated since the previous window in April, and not all sections presented may still be relevant.

If you fit the above eligibility criteria, we encourage you to fill out an application form!

The application form must be completed and submitted by the application deadline of 26 November 2024 – 12.00 noon CET. It must be submitted via the Salesforce application portal, which requires previous registration before submission. Please allow sufficient time prior to submitting your application to register for an EIT Food Salesforce account. Please find the application form linked here.

Within the application form, you will be asked to submit the following:

• A fully-written company business plan and presentation (i.e., “pitch deck”)
• Reports attesting to your company’s financial statements and health
• A project plan outlining the activities to achieve next sales milestones
• A budget plan outlining the expected costs for the proposed project scope, in line with Horizon Europe regulations

Your company can apply for up to €250k in funding.

Your start up or SME will be the sole funding beneficiary of the funded project and must allocate the funding to eligible costs between the contract signature date for a maximum duration of 12 months following the project start date.

Selected Fast Track to Market startups/SMEs will need to comply with EIT Food’s Revenue Based Financing Agreement, which consists of a repayment based on the company’s revenue. Repayment is not dependent on the sales of the foreseen marketed innovation.

The Revenue Based Financing Agreement allows us to reinvest in our community.

Selected participants will begin their revenue-share payments directly after the anticipated completion date, with each payment amount equalling a negotiated percentage of the company’s top-line revenues of the 6 preceding months. These reward payments will be executed every month, based on the calculation of the company’s revenues which will take place every 6 months.The RBF will be in effect for a period of between 1 to 5 years. Participants will continue with their reward payments until a Maximum Threshold is reached, which increases for each year that the RBF is in place. The Maximum Threshold is equal to the total project award plus a premium of 8,50 per cent per year in which the RBF is still in place. There are no penalties should participants choose to pay an amount higher than the negotiated percentage of their company’s top-line revenues. Therefore, companies have the ability to reduce their obligation by increasing the size of their reward payments earlier