In Spain, there are public funding instruments that accompany private funding rounds to help startups grow in their earliest stages. These are soft loans that do not require personal guarantees and are usually the first lines that startups turn to to finance their growth.
At the Spanish level, public funding lines for R+D+i for startups and SMEs are included and defined in the State plan for Scientific, Technical and Innovation Research. The classification of these grants is organized in lines of support for national and international R&D projects and aid for the hiring of technical personnel.
These public grants for startups and SMEs are mainly channeled through the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the Ministry of Industry and Tourism (MINETUR) or agencies dependent on them, such as the Center for Technological and Industrial Development (CDTI), through calls for competitive competition.
Who can benefit?
Technological startups and SMEs at different stages of development that are carrying out innovative projects. Depending on the grant program, it is possible to make requests individually or in a consortium with other companies. From Intelectium we can advise you on what type of participation can benefit you the most depending on your project and company. But our work does not end here, rather it is the beginning, because from the moment we define the perfect financing plan for your startup or SME, we are responsible for drafting the financial reports and projections, up to the management and uploading of the documentation to the different application platforms.
Success Ratio
Our philosophy is not to submit as many proposals as possible to each funding program, but to select and work very rigorously with a small number of the best projects. This allows us to get involved much more intensely and with the utmost professionalism in each case, resulting in proposals that meet all the requirements to be financed. In this way, our success rate in public funding lines for startups and SMEs is one of the highest in the Spanish market.
Public funding lines for startups and SMEs in Spain
CDTI
MINETUR
MINECO
European public funding lines
At European level, public funding for R+D+i, i.e. research and technological development projects, is mainly framed within two strategic programs.
On the one hand, Horizon Europe is an aid program managed by the European Commission. It replaces the previous Horizon 2020 Program and covers the period from 2021 to 2027. This new program has an even larger budget than the previous ones, reaching 100 billion euros, and bases its lines of action on 3 well-differentiated pillars: Excellent Science, Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness and Innovative Europe.
On the other hand, there is also the Eurostars initiative. A line of public aid framed within the Eureka Program, which also offers grants to international R&D projects that collaborate with other companies in the European Union.
