Some calls are worth reading carefully before jumping in, and Women TechEU 2 EIC is one of them. The eligibility criteria are very specific and leave little room for interpretation, so it pays to understand them properly from the start.
Women TechEU 2 EIC is a European cascade funding programme that will distribute €12 million among 160 women-led deep tech startups over two years. Each selected company receives €75,000 in non-dilutive funding —with no equity given up— plus a six-month support programme with one-to-one mentoring and business development services.
The first InfoDay, held on 25 June 2026, made one thing clear: most questions were not about “what counts as deep tech”, but about the eligibility details. Incorporation date, capitalisation table, TRL level and share distribution accounted for almost all the discussion. In this article, I first go through the conditions, the dates and how the process works, and then focus on those practical doubts, which are often what decide whether an application moves forward or is left out.
How it works: two phases not to be confused
The programme is organised into two strands. Understanding the difference between them avoids many misunderstandings.
The Eligibility Strand is a filter. You check whether you meet the requirements and, if you do, you are invited to the next phase. It does not select beneficiaries or award funding: it only confirms that you are eligible to compete. It is continuously open, with cut-offs every Tuesday, so companies can pass this check almost any week.
The Full Proposal Strand is where companies actually compete for the grant. Here there are no weekly cut-offs but four fixed deadlines, and in each one 40 companies are selected, up to the 160 beneficiaries. In each cohort, 40 % of the spots (16 companies) are reserved for startups from widening regions, which compete in a separate pool, only against other widening companies. This means that if your company is in a region that is less advanced in R&I, you don't compete against the big ecosystems but among peers.
Evaluation is carried out by independent experts, and funding goes —with no sector quotas— to the most competitive proposals in each cohort.
Key dates
For the Eligibility Strand, the calendar is continuous:
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| Call opening | 1 June 2026 |
| First cut-off | 30 June 2026, 17:00 CEST |
| Following cut-offs | every Tuesday at 17:00 CE(S)T |
| Eligibility Strand closes | 13 July 2027, 17:00 CEST |
| Eligibility letter | within a maximum of 1 week after the cut-off you applied to |
The deadlines that really set the pace are those of the Full Proposal, which are organised into four cohorts:
| Cohort | Full Proposal deadline |
|---|---|
| 1st | 16 September 2026 |
| 2nd | 14 January 2027 |
| 3rd | spring 2027 (to be confirmed) |
| 4th | autumn 2027 (to be confirmed) |
The link between the two phases follows a practical rule: once you receive your eligibility letter, if it arrives more than 15 days before the next full proposal deadline, you must apply to that deadline; if it arrives 14 days or fewer before, you can move to the following one. In practice, it is best to pass the eligibility check with enough margin so you do not miss the cohort you are aiming for.
There are also several InfoDays scheduled ahead (8 July, 6 August, 15 September and 10 November 2026, and 12 January, 16 March and 4 May 2027). Attending at least one is recommended, and recordings are published afterwards.
Who can apply
To be eligible, the company must meet all of these requirements at the time of submission:
Women leadership. A woman founder or co-founder must hold a top management position —CEO, CTO, CSO or equivalent— and women must own at least 25 % of the shares. The whole management team does not need to be female: a female CEO with a male CTO is valid, as is a female CTO or CSO with a male CEO, provided there is a woman (co)founder with a genuine decision-making role.
Eligible country. The company must be registered in an EU Member State (including its outermost regions) or in a Horizon Europe Associated Country. What matters is the company's country of registration, not the founder's nationality.
Early-stage startup. The company must have been legally registered for between 6 months and 5 years at the cut-off date; qualify as an autonomous SME —fewer than 250 employees and up to €50M turnover or €43M balance sheet—; and have raised less than €1M in equity.
Deep tech. The project must be based on proprietary technology, grounded in substantial scientific or engineering advances and positioned between TRL 4 and TRL 6 (both included). Using standard technology or merely adapting existing components does not fit the definition.
No double funding. The company must not have been a beneficiary of previous Women TechEU editions or the EIC Accelerator, nor belong to the consortium that manages the programme.
The entire process is in English: form, documents, pitch deck and video. A video in another language is not accepted, although English subtitles are allowed.
What the full proposal looks like
Companies that pass eligibility move on to prepare the full proposal, where the funding decision is made. The application has four elements: the online form, the CV of the founder and team (PDF), an investor pitch deck (PDF) and a video of up to 3 minutes (online link).
One point that surprises many applicants: a detailed budget for the €75,000 is neither required nor allowed. You decide which activities to spend the grant on in order to accelerate the business, and evaluators assess whether those activities are coherent and necessary for growth.
In the project, you must indicate which EIC Challenge you address (advanced materials for energy, fusion, biotech for agricultural soils, critical raw materials, deep tech for climate adaptation) or, if none fits, the Open Challenge. For companies in widening regions, there is also a specific question on the challenges they face from being located in a less advanced ecosystem.
The pitch deck should clearly answer five questions: why this solution and why now; what exactly you do, for whom and where; how you make money (business model, distribution, customers); whether you have the team and resources to execute; and, above all, whether you can tell a compelling story.
Evaluation is carried out by independent experts and is competitive within each cohort: the same proposal could score differently depending on the level of competition in the call it applies to. You can only appeal within 7 days and only for demonstrable factual errors (for example, an evaluator referring to your company by a name that is not yours); disagreements with the evaluator's judgement are not grounds for appeal.
What raised the most questions at the InfoDay
This is the part that often decides applications. These were the most recurring issues during the session and the answers given by the programme team.
The date that counts is the official registration date, and only that
This was by far the most repeated question. Only the official incorporation date of the company in the relevant register is considered. Years working on the patent, previous grants, a founders' agreement signed earlier, or the day you started the process with the notary do not count: if in your country the official date is the one published in the gazette, that is the date that applies. The company must also have reached 6 months from that date in order to apply, regardless of any previous activity or later pivot towards deep tech.
One useful nuance reassured many participants: it does not matter when you open the form; only the submission date matters. You can keep the application in draft and submit it on the day you meet all the requirements.
25 % is enough, and having more does not score better
Several questions followed the same logic: “do I have better chances if the CEO owns 60 %?”. The answer is no: going above 25 % does not automatically add points. If the company meets the women leadership criteria, it is women-led by definition and competes as such. That said, in the full proposal evaluators will still look closely at the cap table, the team composition and the company's gender equality actions.
The cap table: only registered shares
The cap table lists only currently registered shares. Unexercised stock options are not included. You must state the gender of all shareholders: if a shareholder is a holding company 100 % owned by a single woman, mark it as “woman”; in any other case, as “organisation” (a holding company only 50 % owned by a woman is listed as organisation).
And be very careful with autonomy: a company 100 % owned by another company is not autonomous and is left out. University spin-offs and spinouts are eligible, provided they meet that autonomy criterion.
What counts (and what doesn't) towards the €1M equity
The €1M limit refers only to equity purchased by third parties: shares acquired by external investors, business angels or venture capital. Excluded from the count are grants and non-dilutive public subsidies (provided they are not from Women TechEU or the EIC Accelerator), sweat equity, and other forms of EIC support other than the Accelerator. By contrast, convertible notes and SAFEs do count as equity if the money is available. There is no minimum external funding: a company can be 100 % bootstrapped.
TRL is assessed by product, not by company
The TRL level is assessed at the time of submission and for the specific product you apply with, not for the company as a whole. This is why a company with a product already on the market (beyond TRL 6) can be eligible if it applies to develop another product, or a substantial deep tech component, at TRL 4-6. TRL 6 is included. If you are already selling that specific product, you are beyond TRL 6 and would not be eligible. Minor improvements to a technology already beyond TRL 6 do not count as a new development either.
If your innovation includes AI, its stage matters
AI development is divided into seven stages, and being in the first three —concept, data collection or algorithm development— makes the application ineligible, as it is considered too early. The project must be at least at model development stage or beyond.
Health and medtech: the "Open Challenge" is not a penalty
You must indicate which EIC Challenge your project addresses, but not fitting into any of them does not penalise you. The Open Challenge acts as a catch-all category for any deep tech company, and that is where health or medtech projects go, since they have no dedicated challenge. They do not start at a disadvantage: funding goes to the most competitive proposals, regardless of the challenge selected.
EIC Accelerator: incompatible as a beneficiary, compatible as an applicant
Being an EIC Accelerator beneficiary excludes you, but you can apply to Women TechEU while awaiting an EIC Accelerator decision. If you are awarded both, you will have to choose one. Other EIC support, such as EIC Transition, is compatible and does not count towards the €1M equity threshold.
Typos, resubmissions and deadlines: no exceptions
If you spot an error after submitting, the application cannot be edited: you must reapply at the next cut-off, with a maximum of 3 resubmissions in the eligibility strand. And do not resubmit if you have an active application; wait for the result. The warning the team repeated most often was clear: the deadline is the deadline, with no exceptions. In previous editions, more than 58 % of applicants submitted on the last day, and platform overload left several companies out due to technical problems. The recommendation is to submit at least two days before the close.
The video: your voice, not an algorithm's
The video must last 3 minutes at most and show the woman (co)founder telling her story in the first person. Only YouTube and Zoom are accepted as platforms. The most common mistakes are corporate or AI-generated videos instead of a personal presentation, going over three minutes, and using unsupported platforms. The team's advice was as simple as it was telling: be authentic and do not overuse AI, “we know what it sounds like”.
In summary
Women TechEU 2 EIC is a strong opportunity for early-stage women-led deep tech startups: €75,000 in non-dilutive funding plus a support programme, with demanding but clear eligibility rules if you take the time to read them properly. If I had to keep three takeaways from the InfoDay, they would be these: check the registration date, the most frequent reason for ineligibility; prepare the cap table and company autonomy carefully; and do not leave submission to the last day.
If you are considering applying and would like to review your eligibility fit or prepare the proposal with time, write to me at contacto@alamosinnovacion.com.
Note: the information in this article comes from the Women TechEU 2 EIC Eligibility Guidelines (v3), the first InfoDay presentation, and the Q&A document from the 25 June 2026 session. The dates of the 3rd and 4th cohorts (spring and autumn 2027) are still to be confirmed, and the conditions of the Full Proposal strand will be published in its own guide. Always consult the official documentation at womentecheurope.eu, which prevails over any summary.