The 2nd cycle of the “Innovation Matching Grants – Business Development Support for innovative technology Start-ups” grant competition under the scope of the #EU4Business "Support to SME Development in Armenia" (SMEDA) project and in cooperation with Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF) is announced.
The competition is open to companies and teams with a technology background, e.g. in the field of Engineering, CleanTech, Biotech, Advanced ICT (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain) etc. The applicants are obliged to provide the necessary co-financing of 50% of funding (i.e. up to 35,000 EUR) in Yerevan and 15 % in the regions
The first cycle of EU Innovation Matching Grants started in January 2018 with nine companies having received funding. In March 2018, SMEDA and EIF are jointly announcing the second cycle of the Innovation Matching Grants competition. Here nine more grants will be provided in 2018/2019 with an amount of up to 35,000 Euro each with a duration of nine months.
The grant scheme provides various activities and follows below mentioned steps:
The application deadline is April 03, 2018 at 23:59.
For all interested candidates and to clarify potential questions, EIF is holding consultations sessions from March 13 to April 02, 2018 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 15:00 to 18:00 as well on Wednesdays from 11:00 to 13:00.
Dedicated information sessions are also scheduled as follows: Yerevan State University-ISTC on March 15 2018, at Gyumri-GTC on March 16 2018, at Vanadzor-VTC- March 16 2018, National Academy of Science on March 20, Enterprise Incubator Foundation on March 22 2018, as well as at the American University of Armenia-EPIC on March 26 2018.More information on the IMG grants may be found on EIF’s webpage www.eif.am. The registration form for applications is available via this link: https://goo.gl/forms/tNqrtDpSRS7mArM13
For media inquiries, please contact Nune Kochinyan, SMEDA’s communication officer, email: nune.kochinyan@giz.de, or +37410 26 99 86.
Background information on project:
The European Union’s EU4Business initiative is an umbrella initiative that covers all EU activities supporting SMEs in the Eastern Partnership countries.
SMEDA project is co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ’s Private Sector Development in South Caucasus Programme.
SMEDA aims at improving the business and investment climate and supporting the creation and development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to enable broad-based growth in Armenia. In this realm the project focuses on SME policy processes, strengthening business associations and economic clusters. Furthermore, the project supports various technology-oriented ventures and helps increase the competitiveness of existing SMEs by providing financial and technical assistance to develop new innovative products and services for domestic and global markets. Additionally, the project aims at stimulating the rate of technology absorption, technology transfer, innovation, and commercialisation of research ideas in the private sector, and also fostering the collaboration between research centers and SMEs.
