Innobooster

2025 is open for applications from March 4.
Applications close on August 12, with a reopening expected shortly after, possibly with adjusted guidelines.

Applications can be submitted on an ongoing basis as long as the program is open. To ensure that Innobooster does not run out of funds towards the end of the year, the budget is distributed throughout the year. This means that your application date determines which pool of funds your application will compete for.

If there are unused funds from one period, they will be transferred to the next period. The allocated pools can also be increased if unused funds from, for example, canceled projects are added.

For the first part of 2025, the amount in each pool is distributed across three themes, approximately as follows:

• 24% for "Green technology and innovation"
• 37% for "Life science, health, and welfare technology"
• 39% for "Critical and digital technologies"

Please note that this distribution may shift if additional funds are allocated to one or more themes.

The periods, the corresponding allocation of funds, and the expected response dates are planned based on an estimated number of applications. This aims to create a balanced competition throughout the year and provide a realistic expectation of processing times. A higher or lower number of applications than expected may result in variations in competition and longer waiting times.

The processing of an application begins as soon as it is submitted. If you have an application in progress in the E-grant application system that has not been submitted by the end of a period, you can submit it in the following period without having to create a new application—except when the program closes on August 12 at 1:00 PM.

It is not possible to have more than one application for the same project under review at a time. This means that you cannot submit the same application for more than one theme or submit it in another period until the first submitted application has received a response.

The guideline document is legally binding. In the event of any deviations from the text on the website, the guideline document is binding.

Danish small and medium-sized enterprises, including entrepreneurial companies. The company must meet the EU's SME requirements, which means that your company has:

• less than 250 employees
• an annual turnover of no more than EUR 50 million, or an annual balance sheet total of no more than EUR 43 million.

In addition, the applicant company must be able to meet at least one of the two financial criteria below at the time of application:

• Risk capital or development grants
  Have obtained a total investment of risk capital or development grants of at least DKK 100,000 within the past three years.
• Gross profit
  Have a gross profit of at least DKK 250,000 in at least one of the last three years' published annual accounts. The accounts must be accessible at www.cvr.dk. For company structures where publication is not required, the annual accounts must be fully audited and signed by the company's management.

Documentation of compliance with a financial criterion must be available upon request and/or during an audit.

Risk capital is defined as equity financing for companies in their start-up and development phase. It can be cash deposits or as a convertible loan without the requirement of a mortgage or other collateral. Financing must come from another legal entity, e.g. from owners (as private individuals or via companies), Business Angels, foundations or other investors.

Development grants can come from public or private programs, where these funds are invested in specific development activities in the company. This includes grants to the company from Innofounder and other Innovation Fund Denmark programs, as well as funds from Innoexplorer for developing the basic idea for the application.

Examples of contributions that cannot be counted towards meeting the requirement for risk capital or development grants are loans with priority, repayment and/or collateral requirements, non-monetary contributions (e.g. goodwill, IP value, in-kind hours) and grants of a non-financial nature (e.g. consulting hours or the opportunity to participate in events).

Innobooster cannot grant funding to:

• Companies undergoing compulsory dissolution, bankruptcy, voluntary liquidation or suspension of payments.
• Companies that are owned more than 50 percent by the state, regions or municipalities.
• Companies with operating subsidies from public institutions of more than half of their turnover.
• Undertakings considered to be "in difficulty" as defined in point (18) of Article 2(1) of Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 on the compatibility of certain categories of aid with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty, provided that the aid from Innobooster is covered by the Block Exemption Regulation. However, this condition does not apply to undertakings that were not in difficulty on 31 December 2019 but were hit by a crisis between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021.
• Companies that have not complied with any recovery orders issued by the European Commission in one or more decisions where state aid granted by the Danish authorities has been found illegal and incompatible with the internal market, if the aid from Innobooster is covered by the block exemption regulation.

The purpose of an Innobooster project must be the development of an innovative solution that has the potential to strengthen the company's growth and create value for Danish society. The solution can be a new product, a new service or process innovation in the company, as well as other forms of innovation.

Innobooster does not support projects where the solution is ready to be launched on the market, and where the remaining activities primarily relate to sales, marketing, testing and documentation, and commercial production. If the solution is already available on the market, and the project is primarily of the nature of optimization, further development, verification and documentation, the project is probably too far advanced in its development to be co-financed by Innobooster.

Innobooster cannot also co-finance expenses related to the normal operation, development and establishment of the company. This means that costs for, for example, ongoing operational optimization, rent, transport, office staff, strategy and business development, sales and marketing initiatives and attracting investors are outside the scope of Innobooster. Further examples of activities that are generally considered normal operation, development and establishment of the company are communication and content production, market or customer analysis, manual preparation, preparation of training material and entering into agreements with suppliers/other partners.

Also read the guidelines and see pools and date ranges for an overview of the politically determined themes within which projects can be applied for.

You can apply for between 200,000 DKK and 5 million DKK.

Innovation Fund Denmark can co-invest a maximum of 35% of the company's relevant expenses for the project.

Note: Each invoice under the budget item "Equipment and Materials" must be at least DKK 10,000 excluding VAT in order to be included in the budget and accounts. This minimum requirement does not apply to invoices from knowledge suppliers.

See the guidelines for a further description of state aid rules for companies.

An investment from Innobooster can co-finance:

• Hours that new employees, existing employees, and the company's owners spend on specific activities in the project.
• Expenses for collaboration with public and private knowledge suppliers, both Danish and foreign (e.g. universities, GTS institutes, contract research institutes, private knowledge companies, specialist companies and freelancers).
• Expenses for purchasing materials, experimental equipment, equipment rental and depreciation costs on newly purchased equipment.

See the guidelines for a further description of what an investment can finance.

An Innobooster project can last a maximum of 24 months, but it is possible to extend it over a shorter period. You must define a project period that is realistic for the project and indicate the start and end dates you want.

Your application must be created and submitted via the electronic application system e-grant .

You must register as a user of the system with either a username and password or with MitID before you can create an application.

You create a new application by finding the correct call under "Search options" and clicking "Start your application".

Select the amount you wish to apply for:

• 200,000 – 1 million DKK
• 1 million – 5 million DKK

Please note that the list of apply options is sorted alphabetically and that the names of all calls from Innovation Fund Denmark start with "IF".

You may write your application in either Danish or English.

You can find a guide to e-grant on the website of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research.

Most of the application is completed directly in E-grant. The application consists of an administrative part, where various information and declarations are provided, and a technical part, where questions are answered regarding:

• The company
• The idea
• The Innobooster project
• The market
• The business benefit
• Risk assessment
• The team
• Results from any previous investments from Innovation Fund Denmark (e.g. Innobooster, Industrial Researcher, Eurostars, Grand Solutions and Innofounder)

In addition to what you fill out directly in E-grant, you must upload a budget and an activity plan, which are created in templates. The templates are downloaded via links during the application process in E-grant.

When writing your application, there are some aspects you can pay attention to in order to improve the application and present the project more clearly.

In this video you can meet Marie Friis Madsen, Innovation Officer at the Fund. She gives some concrete tips to avoid some of the mistakes that are often seen in Innobooster applications. During the video she discusses how you can become sharper at:

• Interface between company and project
• Unfolding knowledge challenges
• Concrete language and clear milestones

The assessment process is summarized here:

Innovation Fund Denmark's employees will first assess whether your application meets the formal requirements.

The subsequent professional assessment is carried out by a minimum of two people – a 1st reader and a 2nd reader. The 1st reader has domain knowledge within the application theme and can either be an employee of the Innovation Fund's secretariat or a member of the Professional Assessment Committee for Innobooster. The 2nd reader is an employee of the Innovation Fund's secretariat with extensive knowledge of the Innobooster programme. The two assessors together come up with a recommendation to the Innovation Fund's management.

The applications invited to present to the Innobooster Panel Committee are assessed by a panel of approximately 5 members from the committee. The members of the panel committee have expertise and extensive experience in, among other things, innovation, entrepreneurship, business development and various subject-specific areas.

In all cases, it is the Innovation Fund Denmark management that finally decides on an application with a commitment, reduced commitment, rejection or administrative rejection. In the case of a reduced commitment, Innovation Fund Denmark has assessed that specific and identifiable parts of the application cannot be accommodated within the Innobooster program guidelines, while the remaining parts of the applied project still constitute an Innobooster project worthy of support.

Everyone who participates in the assessment is subject to confidentiality and the Innovation Fund's stricter requirements regarding impartiality.

Your application will be assessed based on the three decision criteria below. The assessment criteria are:

• The quality of the idea
• Impact
• Quality in execution

In connection with the three decision criteria, Innovation Fund Denmark emphasizes the following:

The quality of the idea

• That it is sufficiently clear what solution the project will end up with, including what overall solution the project contributes to if it is a sub-project.
• That the solution differentiates itself sufficiently from existing solutions on the market, including any existing solutions of the company.
• That it is sufficiently clear which initial results the project is based on, and that these are sufficiently convincing to provide a basis for initiating the project.
• That the project sufficiently implements risky, challenge-driven and knowledge-based development activities.

Impact

• That it is sufficiently probable that the company will achieve a significant commercial gain from the project.
• That it is sufficiently probable that the solution meets a need in a market of a relevant size, and in the long term addresses an international market, including that there are users/customers for the solution.
• That there is sufficient correlation between the expected benefit from the project and the size of the Innovation Fund's investment.
• That it is sufficiently probable that the project's results will contribute to creating societal impact within the applied thematic area, as well as growth and employment in Denmark, even after the project has ended.

Quality of execution

• That it is sufficiently concrete and clear what the purpose of the project is and how it is to be achieved, including that a clear activity plan has been prepared with clear milestones and success criteria.
• That the team, including any knowledge suppliers, partners, and other associates, has sufficiently relevant and specialized skills to complete the project and ensure the subsequent implementation.
• That the project appears sufficiently realistic to implement in relation to both the described methods, plans for mitigating risks and the company's resources to execute.
• That the project is budgeted reasonably, realistically and effectively in relation to the activities set out.

An overall assessment is made based on the three decision criteria, with each criterion given equal weight. The assessment takes into account the size of the investment, i.e. the higher the amount requested, the more it will take for the application to meet the criteria in question.

You will receive a response to the application in e-grant.dk. You will receive a notification by e-mail when a decision is available in e-grant.

The expected processing time for your application varies throughout the year. You can see estimated response times under pools and date ranges.

You will receive a letter of commitment in E-grant. You will also be asked to accept the grant conditions electronically in E-grant before the project starts. Accepting the grant conditions is a prerequisite for the grant to be valid and for us to approve your first financial statements, etc.

The project can start no earlier than the date the grant is issued. The start date is described in the grant letter.

Innovation Fund Denmark reserves 30 days to review your accounts. If we approve the accounts, it may take up to 10 days before the payment is transferred to your company's NEM account.

All funds in an Innobooster project are paid in arrears based on the specific expenses incurred, which are documented through the submitted accounts.

Every three months you must submit an account. This is done through E-grant, where an overview of the tasks in your project is displayed on your case from the start.

For each project year, you must submit an auditor's statement in which the auditor declares that the regularly submitted accounts are correct and that the Innovation Fund's investment has been used as intended and in accordance with the requirements set out in the grant letter and these guidelines.

Furthermore, midway through the approved project period, you will be asked to submit a progress presentation so that Innovation Fund Denmark can get an overview of the development of the project. Further requirements are stated in the grant letter and task description in E-grant.

Innovation projects do not always follow the original plans. Therefore, it is possible to apply for changes that you consider necessary to realize the project's potential. These may include changes in partners or knowledge suppliers, end date or budget allocation. Before adjustments can be implemented in the project, this must always be approved in advance by Innovation Fund Denmark.

Requests for changes must be made via E-grant.

If there are significant changes that affect the overall Innobooster process, this must be reported to Innovation Fund Denmark as soon as possible via E-grant. Sometimes it turns out that projects no longer have the expected potential or cannot be technically successful. In such cases, the Fund initially strives for a dialogue with a view to an appropriate conclusion of the project, but the Fund may be forced to unilaterally stop the project. Other significant changes may include bankruptcy and suspension of payments or sale of the company.

At the end of the project, you must complete an evaluation of the process and prepare a short final report. These tasks must be completed no later than one month after the end of your project period. Together with the final accounts and the auditor's statement, these tasks constitute the end of the process.

When the evaluation, final report, auditor's statement and the final accounts have been approved by Innovation Fund Denmark, the last requested 15% of your total grant will be paid.

Contact

Phone: +45 61 90 50 00

Tuesday: 9:00-12:00

Email: Innobooster@innofond.dk

Technical questions about e-grant?

Contact e-grant support

Phone: +45 33 92 91 90
E-mail: Support.e-grant@ufm.dk

Weekdays: 9:00-12:00

If you have submitted an application or have a grant from the Fund, please contact us via your case in e-grant.

If you have any questions regarding an application to Innobooster, you can contact your local business centre , which is familiar with Innovation Fund Denmark's programmes. Please note, however, that the Business Centre cannot help with administrative questions regarding ongoing projects.

Business Hub Northen Denmark
Only for companies in the North Jutland region
Contact information Business Hub North Jutland

Business Hub Central Denmark
Only   for companies in the Central Denmark region
Telephone hours 8 -16: Tel. 7015 1619

Business Hub Southern Denmark
Only for companies in South Jutland
Allan Clausen, Mail: acl@ehsyd.dk , Tel. 4188 6641

Business Hub Funen
Only for companies on Funen
Email: innobooster@ehfyn.dk

Business Hub Zealand
Only for companies in the Zealand region
Anette Høgh Sonnichsen, ahs@ehsj.dk, +45 6188 4621

Copenhagen Business Hub
Only for companies in the Capital Region
Find contact information here

The Professional Assessment Committee and the Panel Committee for Innobooster have been established by the Innovation Fund's Board of Directors with the purpose of assisting with professional assessments in connection with the Fund's investments in research, technology and innovation within the Innobooster program.

See the members of the two committees here:

The Academic Assessment Committee

The panel committee for Innobooster