EU site access to finance

A recurring barrier mentioned by the Organic Electronics industry representatives was the difficulty to access sufficient finance for start-ups and growth of companies. Today "horizontal" measures are in place to facilitate access to finance for SME's.
As part of the CIP programme, a website called Access to Finance (www.access2finance.eu) is available that will help SME's to apply for finance supported by the European Commission. Most SME's just need a loan, so part of the CIP budget is used to guarantee loans and lease finance to SMEs provided by a range of financial intermediaries involved in SME lending. The target is for such guarantees to cover around 300 000 loans/leases to SME's, from all sectors.

The second part of the programme relates to Venture Capital and provides capital to businesses which are either in the early stages of developing new products or services or in their expansion phase. EU money is invested in venture capital funds, which are financing vehicles specially established for this purpose. Venture capital funds are very selective about the businesses in which they will invest, typical areas of investment being information technology, including software, and the life sciences/biotechnology fields.
The EU provides venture capital through the High Growth and Innovative SME Facility (GIF) which is available under the CIP. GIF covers investment into venture capital funds which have an early stage focus, including seed funds and funds dedicated to technology transfer activity, plus funds with a focus on SMEs with high growth potential in their expansion stage. The GIF facility is managed for the European Commission by the European Investment Fund (EIF), which is an EU financial body with expertise in making venture capital investments. The GIF aims to provide funding to 40-50 VC funds, which in turn will invest in around 700/800 companies, mainly in information technology or life sciences/biotechnology.

In order to convince venture capitalists to invest in it, an SME needs to demonstrate its "investment readiness". Although the SME may often be technically capable and have a good idea, sometimes it cannot translate this into a good business plan that convinces the investors. Information about raising early stage finance can be found at the European Commission’s Gate2Growth website. Further developing the entrepreneurial skills of companies, through specific training programmes, might be beneficial for the Organic Electronics sector. The European project OPERA is proposing these specific trainings and is linking Venture Capitalist with SME's and start-ups.

References:
For the CIP programme: http://ec.europa.eu/cip/index_en.htm
and its operational Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (EIP) http://ec.europa.eu/cip/eip_en.htm
The "Access to finance for SMEs through EU financial instruments" http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/finance/index_en.htm and http://www.accesstofinance.eu
The high growth and innovative SME facility (GIF) http://www.eif.org/venture/resources/european_commission/gif1_gif2/index.htm
For the European Investment Fund http://www.eif.europa.eu/
Business Angels: http://www.eban.org/
Entrepreneurial skills: http://entrepreneurs.gate2finance.com/

Please go to the following website for more information about the access to finance: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/entrepreneurship/financing/index_en.htm