Women TechEU targets early-stage deep tech startups founded, or co-founded, by women holding a top management position (CEO, CTO or equivalent). Women should hold at least 25% of the shares in the company at the time of submission. The company must be registered and established in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe Pillar III Associated Country for at least six months and a maximum of five years from the time of submission to the eligibility cut-off.

Under Horizon Europe, a 'startup' should be understood as an SME in the early stage of its life cycle, including those that are created as spin-offs from university research activities, which aims to find innovative solutions and scalable business models, and which is autonomous within the meaning of Article 3 of the Annex to EU recommendation 2003/361:

• An "autonomous enterprise" is any enterprise which is not classified as a partner enterprise within the meaning of paragraph 2 or as a linked enterprise within the meaning of paragraph 3
• Employ fewer than 250 persons
• Have an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million, or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million

Their legal form must be of a commercial entity (thus not a Foundation or NGO). Furthermore they must be at a stage before reaching a high fidelity Minimum Viable Product (between TRL4 and TRL6, both included) as well as having raised less than 1M€ in equity.

The startup should be a deep tech company aiming to provide concrete solutions to our societal problems by finding its source in a deep interaction with the most recent scientific and technological advances and by seeking to produce a profound impact in the targeted application areas. Women TechEU welcomes applications from all deep tech fields of activity. If your deep tech innovation includes AI, please note that the stage of development of your AI will be the determining factor of whether you are eligible or not for the Women TechEU programme.Neither the application as a whole nor any parts of it should have already benefitted from a previous Women TechEU initiative or EIC Accelerator.     

Missing any single one of the above criteria will immediately render your application as non eligible.

The applicable list is the one published by the European Commission at the time of submission: Associated countries. 

The Women TechEU project is funded under Pillar III (EIC Work Programme), therefore only those countries that are associated to the entire Programme or to Pillar III are considered as eligible. Currently, these are:

Eligible EU countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Eligible associated countries: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine and United Kingdom.

Yes. The UK is associated to the entire Programme, with the only exception of the EIC fund, which is part of the EIC Accelerator of Horizon Europe that provides investment through equity or other repayable form.