Should you apply for a Eurostars or Fast Track to Innovation grant?

During the long years of product development, keeping your company financially healthy can be challenging, especially when you cannot rely on a steady stream of revenues. During this period, a strategic mix of non-dilutive funding can give you just that financial boost to reach the market.

Yet, the number of funding opportunities can be overwhelming, and choosing the right subsidy at the right time is difficult. Providing an entire strategy to select all the right opportunities from beginning to end cannot be done in simple text, but requires a detailed analysis by an expert. What we can do right here and right now is set you on the right path.

Is Eurostars or FTI the grant for you?

Here are 4 questions that will help you decide whether a Eurostars or Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) is the grant for you.

Are you performing R&D to develop a new and innovative product?

Eurostars and FTI are designed to support R&D for new and innovative products/services. If you want to do research, find out fundamentals, slightly improve on an existing product, combine different existing products, or want funding to increase sales on an already completed product or service, Eurostars and FTI is not for you. If you are developing something new, based on exiting new (research) findings, or innovative engineering, Eurostars and FTI will help you bring your product to the market.

Can you already fund part of the product development costs?

Non-dilutive funding is a great help to finance your R&D and product development, but you can never fully rely on it. Owing to European regulations on State Aid, governments (at all levels) are only allowed to fund a part of product development. Therefore, you need starting budget before applying either for Eurostars or FTI. If you have that money, both Eurostars and FTI are great ways to double that budget!

Do you like collaborations in a consortium construction?

Both Eurostars and Fast Track to Innovation grants require you to apply for funding as a consortium. Eurostars consortia start at 2 partner from two different countries, and FTI consortia start at 3 partner from three different countries. If you want to remain completely in charge of all your IP, assets, and know-how, applying for Eurostars and FTI may not be for you. However, if you want to benefit from the expertise and knowledge of other companies and universities throughout Europe, are enthused by jointly developing something new, and like the idea of spreading the risk involved in product development, Eurostars and FTI are for you.

Choosing between Eurostars and FTI: what is your expected time to market?

If you have answered yes to all three questions above, you are ready to apply for Eurostars or FTI, but which one should you choose? If you are relatively early in development, still have to tackle significant technical risks, and time to market approximately 5 years, Eurostars is for you! Eurostars will help you to go from innovative idea to a prototype product. If your new product is already relatively mature, you already have a functioning prototype product, and were able to tackle the major technical risk, FTI is the way to go! You can then use the FTI funding for certification, quality control, scaling up production, and closing the value chain to the market.

More information

Hopefully this guide helped you decide whether to apply for Eurostars or FTI. Are you still unsure and want more information? Do you have questions? Our experts have extensive experience in life sciences and biomedical applications to these calls. Send us a message and find out what we can do for you.