Enhanced EIC Accelerator Pilot (SME Instrument Phase 2)

Proposal template

Please follow the structure of the template when preparing your proposal. This template has been designed to ensure that the important aspects of your innovation and planned work are presented in a way that will enable the experts to make an effective assessment against the award criteria. 
Proposal Part B structure:
•	Document 1 – Proposal template (provided in .pdf):
o	Introduction, 
o	Section 1 – Excellence; 
o	Section 2 – Impact;
o	Section 3 – Implementation;
•	Document 2 – Annex 1 – 3 (provided in as single .pdf):
o	Annex 1 – Security and Ethics;
o	Annex 2 – CVs ; 
o	Annex 3 –Others;
•	Document 3 – Annex 4 – Financial and corporate information Excel file (provided as .pdf and .xls/.xlsx/.ods);
•	Document 4 – Annex 5 – Pitch-deck (provided in .pdf).

Document 1, Sections 1 – 3, is covered by page limit of 30 pages in total.  If you upload a proposal longer than 30 pages before the cut-off date, you will receive an automatic warning and will be advised to shorten and re-upload the proposal. After the call cut-off date, excess pages will be automatically made invisible and will not be taken into consideration. Please do not consider the page limit as a target! It is in your interest to keep your text as concise as possible, since experts rarely view unnecessarily long proposals in a positive light.
Please respect the following formatting constraints: Times New Roman, Arial or similar, at least font size 11, page size A4, margins (2.0 cm side and 1.5 cm top and bottom), at least single line spacing.
Further guidance is available in the Guide for Applicants.

Introduction
 Basic information
•	Title of proposal: 
•	Acronym of proposal: 
•	Details of applicant: 
Name of the entity		
Country		
Creation date (if applicable) 		
Type of entity 		

•	Company Description: Please provide a short description of the company,  relevant products, services or other achievements (which may include previous projects or activities connected to the subject of the proposal), and significant  infrastructure and/or any major items of technical equipment relevant to the proposed work (200 words)

summary
Describe your innovation in no more than 200 words, avoiding jargon or technical language. 

Briefly explain, in no more than 200 words, how your innovation relates to the overall strategy of your company. 

	
•		
SECTION 1 - EXCELLENCE
•	Idea and solution: Describe your innovation in detail, what are the objectives and what are the challenges or problems – business, technological or societal (climate change, environment,  gender dimension, etc.) - that you seek to address by bringing your innovation to market. 

•	Innovativeness: How is your innovation better or significantly different than other existing alternatives? Why is the timing right for your innovation?

•	Stage of development: Describe the current stage of development (you may refer to Technology Readiness Levels), including the activities and results achieved so far.  What are the steps planned to take this innovation to the market?

•	What is the technological, practical and economic feasibility and what are the risks faced when bringing your innovation to market?

SECTION 2 - IMPACT
•	Market and customers: Describe your assessment of the potential market for your innovation (including conditions and growth rate) and the potential customers or users. What is your unique selling point and key differentiation from competitors? 
•	Commercialisation strategy: Describe your strategy for commercialisation, including regulatory approvals/compliance needed, time to market/deployment, and revenue model. 

•	External Strategic Partners: identify the key partners required to develop and commercialise your innovation, what their roles/competences are, and to what extent they are already committed and incentivized (provide letters of intent if available in Annex 3)

•	Intellectual property: Specify your Intellectual Property Rights in relation to your innovation. What are the key assumptions and what measures are needed to ensure freedom to operate (e.g. IP, etc.)?

•	Scale up potential: Describe how you intend to scale up your innovation, including the potential to develop new markets and what the impact of the innovation on the growth of the company will be.

•	Key Performance Indicators: Provide a list of KPIs for the expected outcomes and the related success criteria for the innovation (i.e. the technological, practical, economic, market), indicating the current values and the target values at specified dates (breakeven point, etc.).

•	Broader impact: What will the broader societal, economic, environmental or climate impacts be if your innovation if successfully commercialised?

SECTION 3 -   IMPLEMENTATION
•	Team and capabilities: Describe your team, the different roles, commitment and achievements/experience (strategic, technical and commercial) in relation to your innovation. Explain the role of the company's owner(s) if not part of the team. For each team member (including management and company founders where relevant) please provide relevant information, including shareholding and stock options in the company.
What are the main strengths and weaknesses of the team, and what is the plan to acquire currently missing competencies? How are the team members incentivized?
In addition, please provide a curriculum vitae for each member of the team in Annex 2. 

Team Member (Name and Surname)	Position	Department	Function/ key competences	Commitment (from 1-100 % where 100 % is full time, i.e. no other commitments/roles/responsibilities outside of the company).	

					

•	Financing needs: estimate the total financial resources required, and timing of financial needs to develop your innovation and to reach the break-even point. 
Please provide (1) a breakdown between the grant requested under the EIC pilot (up to 70% for innovation activities), (2) the equity investment requested under the EIC (only for blended finance applications), and (3) remaining financing provided by other sources in Table 5 of Annex 4. Outline your plans to ensure the subsequent (post break-even point) financing of your innovation (next rounds, top-up financing, etc.). Please detail these elements in the cashflow section of Table 1 of Annex 4) and provide a brief explanation below.

Equity (if blended finance requested)	
Describe what the requested equity component will be used for and how much equity share the company plans to give in return. 
	
Descibe/comment how the valuation of the company has developed over time (e.g. financing rounds) and the rationale behind it - relevant metrics/milestones achieved from start to present.
	
Explain the company ownership and capital structure presented in Table 4 of Annex 4. If there are different classes of shares, describe why.
	
What exit strategy do you expect, including the timeline and expected return on investment? Explain the assumptions.

•	Need for EIC support: explain why it is not possible for your company to raise the required financial resources from private investors or other sources, including a description of your company’s track record and current efforts (to complement the information provided in Table 3 of Annex 4). What would the impact be if you do not receive financial support from the EIC pilot?
•	Risks: With reference to the risks previously identified, what measures do you intend to take to mitigate them?

•	Approach: Based on the objectives and strategy set out in your proposal, please explain the overall structure, approach and timing of work packages and activities to be developed with the grant contribution . Provide Gantt chart or similar.

•	Fill in a summary table of the project below (including TRL 9 / market deployement activities covered by EU investment in equity up to break-even point). We recommend including not more than 5 Work Packages and only essential deliverables (ideally one deliverable per Work Package).

Work Package (number and title)	Start month	End month	Deliverable (number and title)	Milestone (description and date) – if applicable	Person months	Indicative budget 	Indicate if requesting financing by grant or equity investment	

								

•	Please provide a brief  description of each Work Package including main deliverables (not more than half a page):

Work package number 		
Work package title		
Start month		End month		
Person months		
Budget		
Indicate if requesting financing by grant or equity investment		
WP description (You should provide enough detail to justify the proposed resources and also quantified information so that progress can be monitored, including by the Commission):

Description of tasks:	
List of deliverables (only the ones presented in the summary table above)	
Number	Deliverable name	Type	Dissemination level	Delivery date (in months from the project start)	

KEY: Deliverable numbers in order of delivery dates. Please use the numbering convention <WP number>.<number of deliverable within that WP>.
 
Type: Use one of the following codes: 
R:	Document, report (excluding the periodic and final reports) 
DEM:	Demonstrator, pilot, prototype, plan designs 
DEC:	Websites, patents filing, press & media actions, videos, etc.
OTHER: Software, technical diagram, etc.
Dissemination level: Use one of the following codes: 
PU =	Public, fully open, e.g. web 
CO =	Confidential, restricted under conditions set out in Model Grant Agreement	
CI =	Classified, information as referred to in Commission Decision 2001/844/EC. 

•	Resources
•	What are the resources, equipment and facilities required for the project and how you will access them? 
Please complete the table below only if the sum of the costs for’ travel’, ‘equipment’ and ‘goods and services’ exceeds 15% of the personnel costs (according to the budget table in section 3 of the proposal administrative forms).
	Cost (€)	Justification	
Travel			
Equipment 			
Other goods and services			
Total			

•	Please complete the following table (or simply state "No third parties involved", if applicable):

Do you plan to subcontract any tasks?
If yes, describe and justify the tasks to be subcontracted and the amount. Explain the measures to comply with the best value for money principle. Please be aware of the page limitation – if needed, add more details in Annex 3.	   Yes   No	
Task(s) 	Estimated amount 	Measures to comply with best value for money (eg. criteria used for the selection of the subcontractors)	

Will any of your linked third parties work in the action tasks? 
If yes, describe the third party, the link of the participant to the third party, and describe and justify the planned tasks to be performed by the third party.	   Yes   No	
Will you use contributions in kind provided by third parties?
If yes, describe the third party's contributions.	   Yes   No	

ANNEXES
 Annexes are not covered by the page limit

Provided as 3 separate documents (preferably in machine-readable format). 

•	Document 2 – Annex 1 – 3 (provided in as single .pdf):
o	Annex 1 - Security and Ethics;
o	Annex 2 - CVs ; 
o	Annex 3  - Others;
•	Document 3  - Annex 4 - Financial and corporate information Excel file (provided as .pdf and .xls/.xlsx/.ods);
•	Document 4 – Annex 5 - Pitch-deck (provided in .pdf).

Annex 1. SECURITY AND ETHICS (part of Document 2)
SECURITY
Please indicate if your project will involve:
• Activities or results raising security issues:    Yes   No
• 'EU-classified information' as background or results:    Yes   No
ETHICS
 For more guidance, see the document "How to complete your ethics self-assessment".
If you have entered any ethics issues in the ethical issue table in the administrative proposal forms, you must:
•	submit an ethics self-assessment, which:
o	describes how the proposal meets the national legal and ethical requirements of the country or countries where the tasks raising ethical issues are to be carried out;
o	explains in detail how you intend to address the issues in the ethical issues table, in particular as regards:
•	research objectives (e.g. study of vulnerable populations, dual use, etc.) 
•	research methodology (e.g. clinical trials, involvement of children and related consent procedures, protection of any data collected, etc.)
•	the potential impact of the research (e.g. dual use issues, environmental damage, stigmatisation of particular social groups, political or financial retaliation, benefit-sharing, misuse, etc.).
•	provide the documents that you need under national law (if you already have them), e.g.:
o	an ethics committee opinion;
o	the document notifying activities raising ethical issues or authorising suchactivities.
 If these documents are not in English, you must also submit an English summary of them (containing, if available, the conclusions of the committee or authority concerned).
 If you plan to request these documents specifically for the project you are proposing, your request must contain an explicit reference to the project title.

Annex 2. CVs (part of Document 2)
Provide resumes of team members.

Annex 3. OTHERS (part of Document 2)
This Annex is optional. Provide letters of intent from key commercial / strategic partners if available, and / or justification of the best value for money for subcontracting.

Annex 4. FINANCIAL AND CORPORATE INFORMATION (Document 3)
Please provide in Annex 4 a completed Excel template (as a separate.pdf and .xls/.xlsx/.ods):
•	Simplified financial information on your revenues, expenditures, cash flow and balance sheet (Table 1 of Annex 4), and;
•	Up-to-date financial data relating to cash and debt (Table 2 of Annex 4);
•	Summary information about major financing events for your company (Table 3 of Annex 4); you may include information on earlier years if you consider relevant;
•	Summary information on company ownership and capital structure (Table 4 of Annex 4);
•	Information about your current financing round (Table 5 of Annex 4).

Annex 5. PITCH DECK (Document 4)
Provide a pitch deck presentation as a separate .pdf as Annex 5, which will also be used for the jury interview in the event that you are invited to the second step of the evaluation process. 
Please note that the presentation in the interview will be limited to 10 minutes and it is not possible to update the pitch deck before the interview date.
The size of the file should not exceed 10MB.