The European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI) is a major EIF-backed initiative designed to strengthen Europe’s scale-up financing landscape.
It aims to address a key structural gap in Europe: The lack of large-scale growth capital for high-potential companies.
Through ETCI, the EIF invests in large venture capital and growth equity funds, which in turn invest in European scale-ups and late-stage startups.
Objective
The initiative aims to:
- Support the emergence of European tech champions
- Increase availability of late-stage capital in Europe
- Strengthen European VC and growth fund managers
- Mobilise institutional and private investors
- Reduce reliance on non-European capital
Budget and financial conditions
- Indicative size of EUR 1.25 billion
- Funding model: Fund of Funds
- Investment logic:
- Focus on large tickets and scale-up faces
- Strong leverage effect: crowding-in private capital
Elegible beneficiaries
- Venture capital funds
- Growth equity funds
- Fund managers (GPs)
Apply for funding
For large investment proposals (> EUR 1 million), applications can be directly submitted via this link. Submit your proposal directly to the EIF
About ETCI
This fund-of-funds programme launched in 2023 by the EIB Group, in collaboration with six EU Member States: France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
ETCI is dedicated to supporting Europe’s venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) ecosystem to address the financing gap experienced by European technology scale-ups. It is designed to invest in large-scale VC and PE funds backing the most promising tech companies so that they can grow and compete globally.
Empowering growth and accelerating game-changing technologies
With up to €3.9 billion, the first generation of the European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI 1) targets investments in c. 15 growth-stage VC and PE funds, aiming to mobilise over €20 billion of investments into innovative European scale-ups. ETCI 1-backed funds have already begun investing in sectors such as artificial intelligence, fintech, security, deep tech, life sciences, food tech among others, with early results showing strong momentum and pan-European impact.
ETCI 2.0 aims to mobilise financing from EU countries and new institutional investors such as insurers, pension funds and banks, strengthening public-private partnerships.The Boards of the EIF and EIB committed a total of €1.25 billion of their own funds to ETCI 2.0. ETCI is the cornerstone of the EIB Group’s TechEU programme, the EU’s largest financing programme to support innovation. The programme ensures that ideas, companies and technologies developed in the EU can grow and thrive within Europe. Since being established in 2023, ETCI has supported the growth of nine tech scale-ups valued at more than $1 billion – companies known as unicorns.
Useful links