Innobooster

Region Denmark

Funding 200k - 5 million DKK in grant

Funding Rate Up to 35%

Target Danish SMEs and start ups

Project Duration Up to 24 months

Activity Type R&D (industrial research, experimental development)

Key Words Danish Soft Funding; Danish Grants; SME Funding; Innovation Funding; Innovation Fund Denmark

Innobooster offers support for SMEs and promising start-up companies to realise innovative projects through knowledge–based development of new products, services, processes, or other innovative solutions.

The Innobooster programme is organised by Innovation Fund Denmark (Innovationsfonden), which aims to accelerate sustainable solutions to societal challenges and enhance the global growth potential of Danish companies. The programme supports significantly risk laden, challenge driven, and innovative development activities that can strengthen the applicant company’s commercial competitiveness and create value for Danish society.

Commercial Opportunities

Innobooster offers opportunities for Danish SMEs wishing to develop new products, services, processes, or other innovative solutions that can increase the company’s competitiveness and create growth and employment in Denmark.

The programme is relevant for projects that require significant development before market implementation. Innobooster does not support ordinary operations, company establishment, sales and marketing activities, commercial production, or projects where the solution is already ready for market launch and the remaining activities primarily concern testing, documentation, sales, marketing, or production.

Funding Available

Innobooster funds projects with grants between DKK 200,000 and DKK 5 million at a maximum subsidy rate of 35% and with a project duration of up to 24 months. Applications are divided into two funding tracks:

1) Applications for DKK 200,000 to DKK 1 million are funded under the de minimis regulation. Under this track, employee and owner hours are calculated at a fixed hourly rate of DKK 750.

2) Applications for DKK 1 million to DKK 5 million are funded under the General Block Exemption Regulation, GBER. Under this track, employee hours are calculated based on actual salary costs, with a maximum calculated hourly salary of DKK 1,000. Projects under GBER must qualify as either industrial research or experimental development.

For both tracks, Innobooster can cofinance employee and owner hours, expenses for knowledge providers, and expenses for materials and equipment. Materials and equipment must generally be at least DKK 10,000 per invoice to be eligible. Knowledge providers may include public and private actors such as universities, GTS institutes, contract research institutes, specialist companies, and freelancers.

Requirements

Applicants must be Danish SMEs with a CVR number. If the company is part of a group, the SME criteria apply to the entire group. The applicant must also meet at least one economic criterion: either at least DKK 100,000 in risk capital or development grants within the past three years, or at least DKK 250,000 in gross profit in one of the last three publicly available annual accounts.

Innobooster does not invest in companies undergoing dissolution, bankruptcy, liquidation, or suspension of payments; companies more than 50% publicly owned; or companies receiving public operational subsidies amounting to more than half of their turnover. For GBER applications, additional state aid requirements apply.

Projects may fall within at least one of the themes that Innobooster can invest in:

Green technology and innovation
Life science, health and welfare technology
Critical and digital technologies
Defence and security technology (for the GBER call).

For applications between DKK 200,000 and DKK 1 million under de minimis, it is also possible to apply under non thematised funding if the project does not fall within the three main themes. In such cases, a justification for applying outside the themes must be provided.

For a given project idea submitted to the Innobooster programme, applications need to demonstrate:

Quality of the idea: The project must have a clear solution, be sufficiently differentiated from existing solutions, build on convincing initial results, and involve high risk, challenge driven, knowledge based development activities.

Impact: The company must substantiate that the project can create significant commercial gain, meet a need in a relevant market, address a long term international market, and contribute to societal impact within the selected theme as well as growth and employment in Denmark.

Quality of execution: The project activities, milestones, success criteria, risks, team, knowledge providers, and plans for implementation must be clear, realistic, and aligned with the company’s resources.

Financial efficiency: The project must be budgeted realistically and efficiently according to the planned activities and expenses, and the requested grant must be proportionate to the expected gain, project scope, and project risk.

Applications are assessed according to the three equally weighted criteria: Quality of the idea, Impact, and Quality of execution. The higher the requested grant, the stronger the application must be across the criteria.

Successful Innobooster Cases

Take a look at some of our successful Innobooster Cases:

Do you need help validating your match or preparing your application?

For elaboration on the topics, see the official Guidelines for the Innobooster programme, and for more detailed information and latest updates, see the official programme website.

Innobooster yder støtte til SMV’er og lovende nystartede virksomheder til realiseringen af innovative projekter gennem udvikling og markedsmodning. Innobooster-programmet organiseres af Innovationsfonden, hvis hovedformål er at støtte overførslen af innovative idéer til nye løsninger, der bidrager til udvikling af viden og avanceret teknologi, og som til gengæld styrker forskning og innovative løsninger til gavn for dansk vækst og beskæftigelse.

Kommercielle Muligheder

Innobooster tilbyder muligheder for danske SMV’er, der ønsker at udvikle og modne nye produkter eller tjenester for at forbedre en proces, der øger virksomhedens konkurrenceevne og skaber vækst i Danmark.

Finansiering

Innobooster finansierer projekter med tilskud på mellem 200.000 og 5 mio. kr. til en støttesats på 35% med en projektvarighed på op til 2 år. Ved ansøgninger under 1 million DKK i støtte kan virksomheden benytte de minimis-reglerne og dermed anvende en timesats på 750 DKK i stedet for de faktiske lønomkostninger.

Krav

Projekter skal høre under ét af følgende temaer:

Grøn teknologi og innovation
Life science, sundhed og velfærdsteknologier
Digitalisering, teknologi og innovation

For ansøgninger, der indsendes til Innobooster-programmet, skal følgende punkter påvises:

Nyhedsværdi: Projektet indeholder nye udviklingsaktiviteter og de forventede projektresultater adskiller sig fra det, der allerede findes på markedet.
Værdiskabelse og forretningspotentiale: Virksomheden skal sandsynliggøre, at den kan opnå en betydelig konkurrencefordel af løsningen og på sigt opnå fortjeneste.
Gennemførelse: Projektaktiviteterne, risici, konkrete projektresultater og planer for udnyttelse af resultaterne skal være tydeligt beskrevet og afstemt med virksomhedens kompetencer.
Økonomisk effektivitet: Projektet skal være realistisk budgetteret i henhold til det planlagte aktiviteter, og det ønskede tilskud skal stemme overens med den forventede forretningsgevinst samt projektets risiko.

Derudover er det et krav, at den ansøgende SMV har tiltrukket minimum 100.000 kr. i ekstern kapital i de 3 år forud for ansøgningen, eller kan fremvise et bruttoresultat på minimum 250.000 kr. i én af de sidste tre års offentliggjorte regnskabsrapporter.