EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for HORIZON-EIE-2026-01-CONNECT-02 "Expanding Investment Ecosystems"

1. Friction-Free Entry to the EU Single Market

• Gives start-ups from “emerging/moderate” regions direct passport to 450 + million consumers and 23 million SMEs.

• Enables later-stage investors to deploy capital across 27 Member States under one set of freedom-of-capital rules.

• Facilitates cross-border customer pilots, procurement and public–private partnerships without tariff or data-localisation barriers.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Mandatory mixed consortia (≥ 1 strong/leader region + ≥ 1 moderate/emerging region) institutionalise deal flow pipelines EU-wide.

• Pan-European roadshows, peer-matching and investor syndication build trust and co-investment habits that a single country could not reach.

• Access to specialised talent pools (deep-tech researchers, regulatory experts, sectoral clusters) otherwise absent in underserved regions.

3. Full Alignment with Key EU Strategies

• Green Deal, Digital Decade, EU Chips Act, Farm-to-Fork and Circular Economy Action Plan map onto the grant’s “5 burning challenges”.

• Projects that solve these priorities become fast-tracks for additional EIC Accelerator, Innovation Fund or Mission calls.

• Contribution to Innovation Cohesion under the New European Innovation Agenda (Action 2 & 4).

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• Uniform EU prospectus & AIFM rules simplify venture-capital fund passporting; guidance repositories lower legal entry costs by 30-40 % versus navigating 27 regimes alone.

• Single GDPR framework removes data-transfer friction for digital-health and cybersecurity scale-ups.

5. Plug-in to Europe’s Innovation Infrastructure

• Direct interfaces with EIT KICs, EEN, Euroclusters and 400 + Digital Innovation Hubs.

• Access to 9 000+ public technology testbeds and living labs co-financed by structural funds.

• Fast-lane introductions to European University Alliances and ERA hubs accelerates R&D-to-market cycles.

6. Gender & Inclusiveness Upside

• EU gender-lens investing objectives raise visibility of women-led scale-ups; programmes can tap the €500 m InvestEU Gender Smart initiative.

• Cohesion policy focus allows rural, outermost and candidate-country innovators to connect with tier-1 VC networks for the first time.

7. Multiplier Funding Synergies

• InvestEU guarantees + EIB Growth Capital Facility de-risk follow-on rounds.

• Cohesion Policy and Recovery & Resilience Facility can co-finance physical accelerators or proof-of-concept lines created by the project.

• Blending possible with EIC Fund equity, offering tickets up to €15 m per start-up post-project.

8. Scalability, Replicability & Spill-overs

• Lump-sum CSA allows consortium to create open repositories, playbooks and policy recommendations that any EU region can reuse.

• Standardised toolkits enable rapid replication in candidate countries (Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova) consolidating EU influence.

9. Strategic Positioning for Deep-Tech Leadership

• Pan-EU investor syndicates can pool large tickets (Series B/C €20-50 m) indispensable for semiconductor, biotech and climate-tech scale-ups.

• Integration with the EU Chips Joint Undertaking and upcoming Deep-Tech Talent Initiative builds long-term strategic autonomy.

10. Added Value vs. National-Only Approaches

• National schemes rarely provide critical mass of later-stage deals; EU pooling increases pipeline size fivefold.

• Cross-border exits (dual-listing, trade sales) command valuations 20-30 % higher, improving fund performance and recycling more capital into EU ecosystems.

• Shared EU branding (‘Seal of Excellence’, ‘InvestEU-backed’) enhances credibility with global LPs and strategic corporates.

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Actionable Opportunities for Applicants

1. Position the consortium as the go-to “EU Gateway” for foreign investors by integrating all 10 activity types and at least three burning challenges.

2. Formalise co-investment protocols with EIC Fund and two EIT KICs to streamline deal-sharing.

3. Embed a policy hackathon with national innovation agencies to co-draft the recommended regulatory reforms, ensuring uptake.

4. Secure letters of intent from InvestEU implementing partners to unlock guarantee envelopes for participating VCs post-project.

5. Deploy a multilingual digital platform interoperable with EEN databases to sustain the ecosystem beyond the 2-year CSA.