Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EIT-CKIC BP2023-2024 (EIT Climate-KIC Business Plan 2023-2024)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2024-12-31
The 2023-24 EIT grant funding supported EIT Climate-KIC to:
- Secure new, non-EIT funding esp. through commercial sales to ensure financial sustainability post 2024. During the grant term EIT Climate-KIC raised additional 21.5 million EUR to achieve this goal.
- Become more efficient to deliver our ‘systems innovation as a service’ (SIaaS) model in a multi-funder environment. Undertaken action has estimated savings in the range of at least 1 million EUR/year.
- Ensure existing and pipeline SIaaS contracts are delivered successfully and with a high quality. We are proud to have renewed multi-year projects in Spain, Slovenia and Ireland and extended our services to in Poland.
EIT Climate-KIC’s SIaaS model builds upon the EIT innovation model and addresses market failures in scaling climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions. The model explicitly integrates entrepreneurship, education, innovation, and ecosystems into a demand-led framework, working with places to map climate action needs, priorities, and actions to co-design and implement place-based portfolios of innovations. The model mobilises a mix of public and private funding to drive impact.
Learnings from implementing the SIaaS model in past years informed the update of EIT Climate-KIC's Strategic Agenda which defines what impact EIT Climate-KIC intends to achieve in Europe not least through an advanced knowledge triangle integration. Compiled insights served also as basis for refining our SIaaS model and developing economically viable and scalable scenarios for diverse implementation contexts. They provided a solid body of evidence of the model's impact to-date and potential in the future. EIT Climate-KIC disseminated this intelligence through the EU Mission platforms on cities and climate adaptation to support follow-up action and inform investment decisions.
In 2024, EIT Climate-KIC continued to rapidly raise non-EIT revenue and diversify our pipeline. We built a pipeline of future funder prospects and services that leverage our Europe-wide platforms and create opportunities for scale-ups and industry to exploit new markets. And we continued to help EIT Climate-KIC-supported start-ups and scale-ups attract investment ultimately totalling 84 million EUR, well exceeding our Strategic Agenda target of 15 million EUR. We leveraged our leading position as European implementing partner for delivering net zero cities, resilient regions and Member States to deliver our transformative Strategic Agenda climate targets (500 million tonnes CO2e of emissions avoided; resilience of 10 million people strengthened) and their contributing outcomes (partner of over 100 cities, regions and countries, leveraging over 100 billion EUR, and generating 50,000 jobs). Finally we reshaped and streamlined our internal processes and infrastructure evolving in sync with our multi-funder environment, including strengthening internal control through a new ERP system, focusing on a data-led funding pipeline management and decision-making, adjusting our impact framework in line with the updated Strategic Agenda.
The closing date of the 2023-24 EIT grant marked the expiry of the partnership agreement between EIT and EIT Climate-KIC. In the course of 2024, a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) was drawn to replace the partnership agreement. Effective from 1 January 2025 and until end of 2027, the MoC is the framework for maintaining an active membership of the EIT Community as well as eligibility to receive further EIT funding for specific activities including transnational activities with a high Union added value.
- Secure new, non-EIT funding esp. through commercial sales to ensure financial sustainability post 2024. During the grant term EIT Climate-KIC raised additional 21.5 million EUR to achieve this goal.
- Become more efficient to deliver our ‘systems innovation as a service’ (SIaaS) model in a multi-funder environment. Undertaken action has estimated savings in the range of at least 1 million EUR/year.
- Ensure existing and pipeline SIaaS contracts are delivered successfully and with a high quality. We are proud to have renewed multi-year projects in Spain, Slovenia and Ireland and extended our services to in Poland.
EIT Climate-KIC’s SIaaS model builds upon the EIT innovation model and addresses market failures in scaling climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions. The model explicitly integrates entrepreneurship, education, innovation, and ecosystems into a demand-led framework, working with places to map climate action needs, priorities, and actions to co-design and implement place-based portfolios of innovations. The model mobilises a mix of public and private funding to drive impact.
Learnings from implementing the SIaaS model in past years informed the update of EIT Climate-KIC's Strategic Agenda which defines what impact EIT Climate-KIC intends to achieve in Europe not least through an advanced knowledge triangle integration. Compiled insights served also as basis for refining our SIaaS model and developing economically viable and scalable scenarios for diverse implementation contexts. They provided a solid body of evidence of the model's impact to-date and potential in the future. EIT Climate-KIC disseminated this intelligence through the EU Mission platforms on cities and climate adaptation to support follow-up action and inform investment decisions.
In 2024, EIT Climate-KIC continued to rapidly raise non-EIT revenue and diversify our pipeline. We built a pipeline of future funder prospects and services that leverage our Europe-wide platforms and create opportunities for scale-ups and industry to exploit new markets. And we continued to help EIT Climate-KIC-supported start-ups and scale-ups attract investment ultimately totalling 84 million EUR, well exceeding our Strategic Agenda target of 15 million EUR. We leveraged our leading position as European implementing partner for delivering net zero cities, resilient regions and Member States to deliver our transformative Strategic Agenda climate targets (500 million tonnes CO2e of emissions avoided; resilience of 10 million people strengthened) and their contributing outcomes (partner of over 100 cities, regions and countries, leveraging over 100 billion EUR, and generating 50,000 jobs). Finally we reshaped and streamlined our internal processes and infrastructure evolving in sync with our multi-funder environment, including strengthening internal control through a new ERP system, focusing on a data-led funding pipeline management and decision-making, adjusting our impact framework in line with the updated Strategic Agenda.
The closing date of the 2023-24 EIT grant marked the expiry of the partnership agreement between EIT and EIT Climate-KIC. In the course of 2024, a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) was drawn to replace the partnership agreement. Effective from 1 January 2025 and until end of 2027, the MoC is the framework for maintaining an active membership of the EIT Community as well as eligibility to receive further EIT funding for specific activities including transnational activities with a high Union added value.
Activities followed the agreed plan of action for exploring routes to business development and commercialisation for EIT Climate-KIC's SIaaS model, widening funding pipeline to generate revenue from public and private funding sources, and embedding our model into the EIT RIS ecosystems including through deep demonstration initiatives. In addition, there was as strong focus on measuring impact and effectiveness of our service offer to inform service portfolio improvement and address specific context as well as evolving customer needs. By the end of the project EIT Climate-KIC was on its way of scaling SIaaS model as the main vehicle for financial sustainability of the KIC. During the grant term EIT Climate-KIC raised additional 21.5 million EUR to achieve this goal. Non-EIT generated revenue allowed us to support 325 start-ups/scale-ups (cf. target if 70). In addition, EIT Climate-KIC supported start-ups and scale-ups attracted investment of 84 million EUR over the past 2 years.
Improvements in governance and internal control mechanisms resulted in more than 4 million EUR savings with additional 1 million EUR expected on an yearly basis post 2024.
Finally, EIT Climate-KIC financial asset valuation in 2024 hit a 11.3 million EUR mark.
All of the above effort has bolstered EIT Climate-KIC's ability to fund its knowledge triangle activities independently, building a steady pipeline of new and diverse revenue streams.
Improvements in governance and internal control mechanisms resulted in more than 4 million EUR savings with additional 1 million EUR expected on an yearly basis post 2024.
Finally, EIT Climate-KIC financial asset valuation in 2024 hit a 11.3 million EUR mark.
All of the above effort has bolstered EIT Climate-KIC's ability to fund its knowledge triangle activities independently, building a steady pipeline of new and diverse revenue streams.
EIT Climate-KIC continued the progress on developing the “Investing for 1.5C” Initiative together with a select group of committed impact investment funds in support of businesses that will not only generate transformative climate impact but will form the building blocks of a new economy. Working with the two founding members UnaTerra (Home - UNA TERRA) and Almanac Ventures (Almanac Ventures), the initiative aims to allocate EUR 250m+ in capital over the next five to ten years towards the most impactful Climate Tech innovations emerging from across Europe. Importantly, these two investment funds join the EIT Climate-KIC community and provide further momentum to the implementation of the European Green Deal and Horizon Europe Innovation Missions. Each brings a unique focus to a different aspect of the climate innovation journey by looking at a particular sector, geography, and stage of development. EIT Climate-KIC released a new Open Call to select additional partners to join the initiative. The EIT Climate-KIC team are currently exploring two strategies focused on key industries including the Blue Economy, and the decarbonization of IT Infrastructure (Data Centers).