Barocal’s €2.45 million EIC Accelerator project
Barocal was awarded a €2.45 million grant in the October 2024 EIC Accelerator funding round to further develop their breakthrough cooling and heating technology. We heard from Florian Schabus, Chief Commercial Officer at Barocal, about the EIC Accelerator award and collaboration with Catalyze.
Barocal’s solution to global cooling demand
Founded in 2019 as a spinout from the University of Cambridge, UK, Barocal is revolutionising the heating and cooling industry with cutting-edge technology based on solid barocaloric materials. Their platform technology has a solid-state organic material-based compressor system for a wide range of applications, including heat pumps, air-conditioners, and refrigerators. This innovative approach offers a low-emission alternative to traditional vapor-compression methods by utilising Barocaloric materials and applying pressure to change its temperature.
Barocal’s vision is to create a sustainable future by transforming how we heat and cool our work and living spaces. The global heating and cooling sector is a major contributor to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for approximately 40% of global end-use energy consumption. It is also the fastest growing source of overall emissions. Barocal’s solid refrigerants are safe, have zero global warming potential, and aim to reduce CO2 emissions by 75% compared to the market standard by 2026, achieving >2 times higher energy efficiencies.
Florian remarks on their technology: “Barocal’s technology is based on 15 years of research at the University of Cambridge. The team discovered the first solid materials with the same thermal performance as conventional refrigerant gases. This was a big science breakthrough published in prestigious journals like Nature or Science.”
Barocal’s €2.45M EIC Accelerator project
Barocal is committed to developing ultrahigh energy efficiency, low-emission systems that benefit its customers, the industry, and the planet. Barocal’s EIC Accelerator project will develop their advanced balocaloric systems to be ready for sustainable commercial cooling applications.
Florian comments, “The grant funding helps Barocal to further develop it’s technology, deploy first field pilots and design the system for mass manufacturing.”
Collaborating with Catalyze
Catalyze provided support through the application process towards the development of the Barocal EIC Accelerator proposal. We are proud of our successful collaboration towards bringing this project to life. Florian shares more about the experience:
“Working with Catalyze has been fantastic and really helped us to secure the grant. Their dedication, EIC-specific insights, and hands-on support really played a crucial role and enjoyed the enthusiasm of the grant writers, their, direct feedback and structured approach which made sure the process is on track at all times.”
Learn more about Barocal
What is the EIC Accelerator?
The EIC Accelerator, part of Horizon Europe, is a funding programme designed by the European Innovation Council to support (deep-tech) start-ups and SMEs that:
- Develop innovative, game-changing products, services, or business models with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones in Europe and beyond.
- Demonstrate the ambition and commitment to scale up their business.
- Require significant funding to grow, but whose high level of risk makes it difficult to attract private investment alone.
This highly competitive programme helps you to develop your business concept further into a market-ready product, service or process aligned with your company’s growth strategy. Want to learn more about the EIC Accelerator programme and the different services Catalyze Group can provide? We tell you all about it on this page.
And do you want to get the most out of your EIC Accelerator proposal? Make sure to download our EIC Accelerator guide to help you secure funding.
Catalyze is an official partner of the EIC
Catalyze is proud to be an official EIC Partner and member of the EIC Ecosystem Partnership and Co-investment Support programme. All EIC supported projects and companies get access to coaching, mentoring, partnering and other EIC Business Acceleration Services from partners as part of the programme.
Learn more about EIC Ecosystem Partnership and Co-investment Support programme.
About the European Innovation Council (EIC) Programme
The European Innovation Council (EIC), launched under the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, has a budget of €10.1 billion to support breakthrough innovations, covering the full journey from early research and proof of concept to technology transfer, funding, and scaling up start-ups and SMEs. The EIC aims at identifying and supporting breakthrough technologies and game-changing innovations with the potential to scale up internationally and become market leaders. 70% of the entire budget is ear-marked for SMEs, which shows the focus of EIC on supporting SMEs. There are 3 sub-programmes that form the basis of the EIC programme: EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition and EIC Accelerator.
About Catalyze
At Catalyze we commit ourselves to accelerate innovations that have a positive impact on the world. We are the driving force for innovations across the fields of Life Sciences and Sustainability. Our offering of strategic consulting services, funding consulting, project management and more, deliver impactful expertise for all development stages. With a proven track record and the highest quality and success rate in the industry, we aim to be the consulting partner of choice to drive the success of meaningful innovation projects.
