Funding Opportunities
Microloans financed using funds from the Fund of Funds will be available at even more relaxed terms. Financing is now available to companies and self-employed that have registered no longer than 5 years ago. The administrative requirements for proving the eligibility of costs financed with the loan under the financial instrument have also been relaxed. The loans are granted for the acquisition of tangible and non-tangible assets intended for developing and expanding business, as well as to cover other costs relating to the core business, including occupational training of workers or the entrepreneur. There is now an opportunity for granting small loans up to BGN 5000.
The modification comes as yet another step by the FoF to support business against the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The public resources earmarked for micro-lending with shared risk amount to BGN 23.9 million and come from OP Human Resource Development 2014—2020 which is co-financed by the European Social Fund. The funds reach the enterprises via three financial intermediaries: SYS Credit, MicroFund and First Investment Bank (FIB).
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The European Commission has launched a €5 million call for strategic alliances to help the European Union’s small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) maximise their use of new technologies.
This call for proposals aims to contribute to the Commission’s COVID-19 recovery package by establishing strategic alliances between tech-savvy SMEs and the traditional SMEs facing the need to adapt to the post-crisis economic environment, focusing on the benefits of adopting advanced technologies.
Applicants must be legal entities and shall be representatives of industry, research community, and technology providers, for instance: cluster organisations, technology centres, SMEs. The projects shall specifically contribute to:
- – Explore concrete collaboration opportunities between different type of EU businesses, particularly tech-savvy SMEs and traditional SMEs. These collaborations should improve industrial competences, increase resilience and add value to existing industrial sectors and value chains;
- – Increase the adoption of advanced technologies in traditional SMEs and help EU tech-savvy SMEs that developed critical technology applications to expand their market potential in the EU;
- – Exploit the strong potential of dynamic collaboration between the cluster organisations and their technology centres with a view to boosting the technological uptake and development of EU SMEs;
- – Develop businesses collaboration between different clusters from the same industrial ecosystem and create partnerships with other relevant industrial ecosystems.
Click for more information.
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Yet another COSME call for proposals is open for electronic submission until 19 January 202. The ‘COS-PPI-2020-2-04: Co-financing of public procurement of innovation consortia’ intends to contribute to a significant increase in the proportion of European SMEs that have access to the Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) market inside the European Union.
Proposals may be submitted by: non-profit organisations (private or public); public authorities (national, regional, local); universities or educational institutions; research centres; profit making entities.
For more information, please follow the link.
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The Fund of Funds to launch a series of information events to raise the awareness of Bulgarian companies about the financial instruments of the Fund and the various funding opportunities the companies can apply for. The initiative is supported by the Българска стопанска камара (Bulgarian Industrial Association). The first webinar will take place at the end of January 2021. Find out more.
