SMEs & scaleups
You already do this. The ceiling is how many at once.
If a consultant handles your applications, or somebody internal spends a third of their week on them, that works; it just caps out at a handful a year. Grants8 takes the screening and the first draft so the same people submit several times as many, and keep the judgement about which ones are worth backing.
Do you count as an SME?
- Staff headcount under 250
- Annual turnover ≤ €50M
- or balance sheet total ≤ €43M
- Linked & partner firms counted in
The EU definition, from Recommendation 2003/361/EC, and it appears in the eligibility criteria of many calls. The headcount threshold always applies; of the two financial thresholds you need only one. Linked enterprises count in full and partner enterprises in proportion to the holding, which is the part most often missed.
Working with SMEs and scaleups
Not cost. Capacity.
Companies at this stage rarely lose applications they should have won. They submit two a year because two is what one person's spare time allows, and the third one, the one that was also winnable, never gets written.
Where the ceiling comes from
One person, a third of a week
Whoever owns grants also owns something else. Their capacity sets how many applications happen, and it does not change when a good call appears.
A retainer prices each attempt
When every application carries a fee, you apply for the ones you are most confident about. The marginal call never gets tried, even when it was winnable.
Screening happens once a quarter
Nobody reads every portal every week, so calls are found late, often too late to build the consortium or gather the documents.
What changes
Screening runs continuously
Every open EU programme and more than ten national sources, checked against your profile as calls open rather than when someone has an afternoon.
First drafts, not blank pages
Structured against the criteria evaluators score, from documents you already have. Your adviser edits and submits instead of starting over.
Your adviser keeps the judgement
The platform does the reading and the drafting. Which bids to back, how to position them and who to partner with stays with the person who knows your business.
More attempts, same headcount
Raising the ceiling changes the arithmetic: marginal applications become worth making, and success rates matter less than the number of shots.
No retainer
Nothing to renegotiate and no minimum term, so trying an extra application costs you review time rather than a fee.
0.5%
Of the award, and only if you win it. A consultant's 5% on a €1M grant is €50,000; this is €5,000.
0%
Equity. A grant is not a round: no cap table conversation and no board seat attached.
Not applying at all yet, and nobody handling it? Start here instead .
Bring us the pipeline you already run
Tell us what you applied for last year and we will show you what the platform would have found alongside it.