Innobooster

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Investment in knowledge-based development projects in small and medium-sized Danish enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurial companies.

Note:
Innobooster is closed for new applications on 5 September 2024 at 12:00 pm. It is expected that the programme will open for applications again on March 4, 2025. Read more here.

Guidelines for Innobooster under the de minimis regulation - Applications between 50,000 and 1.5 million DKK. have been updated as of 1 July 2024. 

The update is due to the new de minimis regulation (2023/2831). The changes concern the period for calculating de minimis aid and the special rules for the fisheries and aquaculture sector. In short, de minimis is calculated over a period of 3 years, where previously it was the current and two previous financial years, and special rules for the fisheries and aquaculture sector now only apply to primary producers, where previously it was all operators.  

Guidelines for Innobooster under the Block Exemption Regulation - Applications between DKK 1.5 million and DKK 5.0 million are unchanged since 8 January 2024.

The Innovation Fund invests in translating promising ideas into new solutions that create growth and employment in Denmark, and which also contribute to solving some of society's challenges.

In order for you to develop a new solution, it may be necessary to provide your company with expert knowledge through a collaboration with a knowledge institution and / or a private knowledge company. You may also need to hire a new employee with special skills.

A co-financing from Innobooster can help reduce your company's extraordinary risk in an innovation project.

We invest in projects that in an innovative way can contribute to:

  • develop and market mature a new product or service that has an economic and societal potential.
  • Significantly improve a process in your company so that your competitiveness improves significantly.

At the same time, the solution must be able to contribute to solving societal challenges.

The Innobooster program includes both projects with significant risk and news value, where it is the solution itself that is developed. And projects that have reached a stage with a focus on testing and customization.

The latter can, for example, be through market maturation or testing of a prototype or service in real use situations with potential customers or end users.

However, there must still be a development need in the project process, as Innobooster cannot finance projects that only contain tests and verification activities.

Guidelines
Guidelines for the Innobooster Program
Open section, Guidelines for the Innobooster Program
Dates for 2025
Dates for 2025
Open section, Dates for 2025

The overview of dates is being prepared and will be available as soon as possible.

 

The program
Who can apply?
Open section, Who can apply?

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.
What can I apply for investment for?
Open section, What can I apply for investment for?

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.

How much money can I apply for?
Open section, How much money can I apply 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.

What can the money finance?
Open section, What can the money finance?

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.

How long should the project take?
Open section, How long should the project take?

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.

 

Application
How do I search?
Open section, How do I search?

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.

 

What should the application contain?
Open section, What should the application contain?

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.

 

Tips for your application
Open section, Tips for your application

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
Rating
How does the assessment process work?
Open section, How does the assessment process work?

The assessment process is summarized here:

 

How the application process works in Innobooster

 

Who assesses the application?
Open section, Who assesses the application?

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.

How is the application assessed?
Open section, How is the application assessed?

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.

How do I get a response to my application?
Open section, How do I get a response to my application?

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.

 

When will I receive a response to my application?
Open section, When will I receive a response to my application?

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

 

From approval to project start-up
What happens after my application is approved?
Open section, What happens after my application is approved?

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.

 

When can the project start?
Open section, When can the project start?

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

 

During the project
How is the investment paid out?
Open section, How is the investment paid out?

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.

 

Do I have to submit accounts or reports during the project?
Open section, Do I have to submit accounts or reports during the project?

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.

What happens if the plan changes?
Open section, What happens if the plan changes?

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.

What should I do when the project is completed?
Open section, What should I do when the project is completed?

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
Innobooster
Open section, Innobooster

Contact

Phone: +45 61 90 50 00

Tuesday and Thursday 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

Auditor's instructions
Auditor instructions for Innobooster
Open section, Auditor instructions for Innobooster
Expert and panel committees
Expert and panel committees
Open section, Expert and panel committees

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

 

 

Expected response times
Expected response times on Innobooster
Open section, Expected response times on Innobooster

All applications submitted in 2024 are expected to receive a response no later than March 4th.

Application is not currently open
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