Irish SMEs win EU funding

Three Dublin SMEs have won EU grants of €50,000 each from Europe’s Research Fund, Horizon 2020.

The winners are:

Businesspoint Intelligent Solutions Ireland Ltd

Project: Allsorter.com (AIRE – Artificial Intelligence for Recruiting Europe will introduce a world 1st personal robot AIREbot) to help every European apply for jobs, update their skills, register for courses and arrange interviews.

The Freebird Club Limited

Project: FreeBC_Orgs – The Freebird Club organisational membership portal is a peer-to-peer, social travel and homestay club exclusively for older adults offering them a whole new way of travelling, a potential new source of sustainable income, and a fun and accessible way to meet new people and enjoy companionship in later life.

Rapfast Ltd

Project: EQ Supreme – a cost-effective, ultra-thin silage stretch wrap-able to completely eliminate feed losses due to mould.

The funding is provided under Phase 1 of Horizon, which means that each project will receive €50,000 to finance feasibility studies for new products that can disrupt the market. They can also ask for up to three days of free business coaching.

If the project’s feasibility study shows that it could be developed into a successful product on the open market, the SME can apply for Phase 2 support. Phase 2 funding is bigger, usually between €500,000 and € 2.5 million.

In total, 50 Irish SMEs have been awarded Horizon 2020 SME Instrument  Phase 1 funding since its launch in 2014, putting Ireland in 13th place overall. With a budget of €77 billion over seven years, Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU research and innovation programme and envisages record funding for SMEs.