Project description
General Accompanying Measures
ACCESS-ICT will address the current challenges related to access to finance for ICT SMEs involved in Framework programmes by providing a sustainable platform offering access to awareness raising solutions through to case by case introductions of SMEs to investment opportunities across Europe. This will be achieved by way of both investment readiness and access to finance tools tailored to the needs of theses SMEs. This platform is driven by the investment community, aiming to involve representatives from the financing world during the development of the tools and delivery of hands on mentoring support and in directly funding investment ready companies. The project will act as a hub between SMEs looking for access to investment and early stage and later stage investors (comprising business angels, venture capital firms and corporate investors) interested in the great potential represented by those SMEs with a strong R&D focus and beneficiaries of European public support. The objective of ACCESS-ICT is to build a sustainable pan-European network of ICT investors, which will be linked both to representatives of SMEs but also of research organisations and various stakeholders who operate across Europe in favour of the development of R&D and commercialisation of R&D for ICT SMEs. At the end of the project, this platform will consist of a live network of various investors, supported by an online web-platform including tools and solutions for those to have sustainable access to information about SME companies from Framework Programme projects. While access to finance will be the ultimate objective for the most promising companies, ACCESS-ICT through a mapping exercise conducted at the outset of the project will be able to implement both awareness raising activities for relevant SMEs representative groups as well as provide investment readiness to those companies who satisfy different investors criteria in terms of product, market, growth potential, and funding needs.
Call for proposal
FP7-ICT-2009-4
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinator
1000 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium