Scheme seeking to address underrepresentation of women in deep tech gets over 450 applications
The second edition of the EU’s Women TechEU call to support women-led startups based on ‘deep tech’—R&D-intensive, advanced technologies—has received a record number of applications, according to the European Commission.
The Commission announced on 4 October that it received 467 applications to the call for the scheme, which provides mentoring and grants of €75,000.
This was up from what the EU R&D commissioner Mariya Gabriel said previously was “nearly 400” applications to the pilot call in 2021, which supported 50 beneficiaries.
The Commission launched the scheme to help women “grow into tomorrow’s deep tech champions”, saying women remain largely underrepresented across the technology industries.
The second Women TechEU call received interest from startups in 35 countries and is expected to support up to 130 companies. Applications were again highest from Spain, Germany and France.
Proposals in this round covered a wide range of deep tech areas, the Commission said, including artificial intelligence, health tech and clean tech.
To be eligible for the scheme, female applicants must have founded or co-founded an early-stage deep-tech startup and must hold a top management position in a company registered in an EU member state or country associated to the EU R&D programme.