EIC STEP Scale Up Results - April 2026: 8 Companies Selected, Success Rates, Budget Math, and Full Winners Breakdown

The European Commission published a new set of EIC STEP Scale Up results on 27 April 2026, putting forward 8 companies for EIC Fund investment decisions after a competition that started with 44 submitted proposals and narrowed to 28 interview-stage companies. If the negotiations and due diligence processes are completed successfully, the selected companies may receive a combined €146.5 million in equity financing.

This batch is especially interesting because it does not just show who won. It also gives a much clearer signal about the shape of the STEP funnel in 2026: interview access was comparatively strong, but the real bottleneck appears to have been capital allocation at the final stage. The Commission also said that 18 additional companies were considered excellent but could not be selected because of budget limitations, and that they will receive the STEP Seal. That detail changes how this round should be interpreted.

At a Glance

• Results published: 27 April 2026
• Call: EIC Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale Up
• Submitted proposals: 44
• Interviewed companies: 28
• Companies put forward for investment decisions: 8
• Additional excellent but unfunded companies: 18
• Total public STEP Seal cohort in this batch: 26 companies
• Combined proposed EIC equity: €146.5 million
• Average proposed EIC ticket per selected company: €18.31 million
• Indicative EIC investment range per company: €10 million to €30 million
• Target financing round per company under the scheme: €50 million to €150 million or more
• 2026 STEP Scale Up budget: €300 million
• Countries represented among the 8 selected companies: 6
• Next 2026 batch dates listed by the EIC: 6 May 2026, 9 September 2026, and 25 November 2026

The Selection Funnel: What the Numbers Say

At headline level, the round looks highly competitive but not impossibly narrow. What matters is where the narrowing happened. The step from submission to interview was demanding, but the final investment recommendation step was much tougher.

• Proposal-to-interview rate: 28 / 44 = 63.6%
• Interview-to-investment-recommendation rate: 8 / 28 = 28.6%
• Overall proposal success rate: 8 / 44 = 18.2%
• Total STEP Seal rate: 26 / 44 = 59.1%
• Excellent but unfunded rate: 18 / 44 = 40.9%

Another way to read the same data is to convert it into practical odds. This round produced 1 investment recommendation for every 5.5 submitted proposals and 1 selected company for every 3.5 interviews. Those are still harsh odds, but they are materially better than what many founders would expect from a pan-European deep-tech capital instrument.

Budget Pressure Was the Real Story

The most revealing part of the announcement is the reference to the 18 additional excellent companies. Once those are added to the 8 selected companies, the batch contains 26 companies that publicly cleared the quality threshold strongly enough to receive either an investment recommendation or the STEP Seal.

• Companies publicly above the threshold for either funding or Seal: 26 / 44 = 59.1%
• Funded share within that above-threshold group: 8 / 26 = 30.8%
• Seal-only share within that above-threshold group: 18 / 26 = 69.2%
• Seal-only to funded ratio: 18 / 8 = 2.25

This means there were more than two excellent but unfunded companies for every funded company in this batch. That is why the round should not be read simply as a pass-fail quality screen. It looks much more like a case where the budget ceiling constrained how many above-threshold companies could convert into actual investment recommendations.

There is also a strong implied metric at interview stage. The official wording indicates that the 18 additional excellent companies came from the same evaluated pool. If so, then 26 of the 28 interviewed companies left the process with either an investment recommendation or a STEP Seal.

• Implied interview-stage rate for funding or STEP Seal: 26 / 28 = 92.9%
• Implied interviewed companies not reaching either public outcome: 2 / 28 = 7.1%

That is an unusually strong signal. In plain terms: making the interview stage in this batch seems to have been the clearest marker of quality, while the final split between funding and Seal appears to have been driven much more by available capital than by a simple excellence threshold.

Funding Math: How Large Is This Batch Really?

The public headline is €146.5 million in proposed EIC equity for 8 companies. That is already a very large batch by European public-investment standards, but it becomes even more meaningful when placed against the scheme architecture.

• Average proposed EIC ticket: 146.5 / 8 = €18.31 million
• Share of the full 2026 STEP budget represented by this batch: 146.5 / 300 = 48.8%
• Implied remaining 2026 budget after this batch, if all public amounts closed exactly as announced: €153.5 million

The STEP Scale Up scheme is explicitly designed to help companies raise rounds of €50 million to €150 million or more. Applied to this cohort of 8, that implies:

• Minimum aggregate target financing across the 8 winners: 8 x 50 = €400 million
• Upper-end aggregate target financing at €150 million each: 8 x 150 = €1.2 billion
• Implied non-EIC capital required at the minimum aggregate target: 400 - 146.5 = €253.5 million
• Implied non-EIC capital required at the upper-end aggregate target: 1,200 - 146.5 = €1.0535 billion

In other words, the announced EIC envelope is large, but it is still meant to function as anchor capital rather than full-round capital. Using the scheme's stated round-size logic, the average announced EIC ticket in this batch represents about 36.6% of a €50 million round and about 12.2% of a €150 million round. That is exactly in line with the STEP positioning as a public catalyst for much larger market-backed financing.

The STEP page also states that applicants need proof of initial market interest from a qualified investor representing at least 20% of the total target round. At the absolute minimum target-round scenario of €50 million per company, that would imply at least €10 million in pre-committed investor backing per company, or at least €80 million in aggregate across this 8-company cohort.

How This Batch Compares With Earlier Public STEP Scale Up Rounds

The April 2026 batch is now the fourth public results cohort for STEP Scale Up. Compared with the three earlier public batches, it stands out in several ways: it is tied for the highest number of selected companies, it has the highest public STEP Seal rate, and it offers one of the clearest signs so far that the final cap table is shaped heavily by budget pressure.

A few comparative conclusions are worth highlighting:

• Winner count: April 2026 is tied with November 2025 for the largest publicly announced winner cohort so far, at 8 companies.
• Overall selectivity: April 2026 sits in the middle of the public range. Its 18.2% overall success rate is lower than the first two 2025 public batches but higher than the November 2025 batch.
• Interview bottleneck: April 2026 had a better interview conversion than November 2025 (28.6% vs 22.2%), even though both batches ended with 8 selected companies.
• Seal intensity: April 2026 has the highest public Seal rate so far at 59.1%, narrowly above November 2025.

If all four public batches are combined, the publicly disclosed STEP Scale Up pipeline so far totals 148 proposals, 91 interviews, and 27 selected companies, alongside 70 total public STEP Seal outcomes including selected companies. That yields a multi-batch overall selection rate of 18.2% (27 / 148) and a cumulative proposal-to-interview rate of 61.5% (91 / 148).

Country Concentration in the April 2026 Cohort

The eight selected companies span six country buckets using the official labels in the EIC announcement. Germany and Denmark-linked projects lead the cohort with two companies each.

This means 50% of the selected companies come from just two country labels, while the remaining 50% are spread across four others. The geographic spread is still clearly European, but not flat.

Full Winners Breakdown

Below is a company-by-company view of the April 2026 selected cohort. The short descriptions come from the official EIC announcement, while the additional company details are drawn from the linked public company pages and official public materials available at the time of writing.

1) Aignostics (Germany)

Aignostics sits at the intersection of AI, pathology, and precision medicine. In the EIC announcement, it is described as transforming drug development and improving patient outcomes with AI. Its own public site shows a business built around pathology foundation models, tumor microenvironment profiling, target discovery, translational research, and digital diagnostics.

• Data access scale: the company says it has access to pathology samples and multimodal data from more than 30 million patients.
• Origin: Aignostics states that it is a spin-off from Charite Berlin.
• Quality and compliance signals: the company highlights ISO 13485 and ISO 27001 certification and describes its platform as GCP-ready.
• Commercial focus: its public product stack spans foundation models, Atlas H&E-TME, and custom services for drug discovery through clinical application.

2) Alice & Bob (France)

Alice & Bob is one of the best-known European quantum computing scale-ups. The EIC describes it as building the first universal quantum computer. Its public roadmap and newsroom reinforce that positioning around cat-qubit architecture and fault-tolerant quantum computing.

• Capital already raised: the company announced a €100 million Series B in January 2025.
• Roadmap target: Alice & Bob published a roadmap to 100 logical qubits by 2030.
• Error-suppression metric: in March 2025 the company reported a 160x improvement in bit-flip error protection through a new cat-qubit stabilisation method.
• Hiring scale: the company announced a plan to hire 100 new employees by mid-2026; at the time of that announcement it said it had approximately 150 employees.

3) EnduroSat (Bulgaria)

EnduroSat is the space infrastructure and satellite manufacturing case in this batch. The EIC summary describes its mission as making access to space intelligence universal. Its public site makes that positioning highly quantitative.

• Satellites in orbit: 80
• Modules in orbit: 3,500
• Data downlinked: 500 TB
• Operational promise: the company markets a six-month time-to-orbit for its space service model.

That public operating footprint helps explain why STEP would view EnduroSat as more than just a component supplier. It already presents itself as a scaled operational platform rather than an early-stage concept company.

4) Greenland Resources (Greenland)

Greenland Resources is the critical-raw-materials case in the cohort. The EIC announcement summarises it as a world-class Climax-type molybdenum mineral deposit with by-product magnesium. The company's public project materials for Malmbjerg give a much more detailed industrial picture.

• EU supply relevance: the company states the project can supply about 25% of EU molybdenum consumption and 100% of EU defence consumption.
• Mine life: 20 years
• Average production in years 1-10: 32.8 million pounds of contained molybdenum per year
• Proven and probable reserves: 245 million tonnes containing 571 million pounds of molybdenum metal
• Project economics: the company cites a 33.8% leveraged after-tax IRR and a 2.4-year payback under its stated assumptions

Greenland Resources therefore broadens the interpretation of STEP beyond software, AI, and quantum. It also shows that strategic autonomy in materials and industrial supply chains remains part of the scale-up logic.

5) Luabio (Denmark)

The EIC announcement links Luabio to Again.bio, which is the source used here for the public company metrics. The EIC describes the company as rebuilding the chemical industry by combining AI-designed biocatalysts with waste CO2 as feedstock. The public site supports that narrative with a set of operating-facility numbers.

• CPH-1 facility: operational since April 2023, with capacity to capture and convert up to 1 ton of industrial CO2 per day
• CPH-1 operating streak: 25,500 consecutive active hours
• TXS-1 lifetime CO2 abatement capacity: 32,000 tons
• TXS-1 lifetime product capacity for CO2-derived products: 20,000 tons
• NOR-1 annual CO2 abatement target: 10,000 tons
• NOR-1 annual acetone output target: 4,000 tons
• Related public programme support: the site references a €43 million EU Horizon grant-funded PyroCO2 project

6) Payload Aerospace / PLD Space (Spain)

The EIC description frames Payload Aerospace as a global space transportation service provider supporting cargo and human spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars. The PLD Space public materials show a company that has already reached industrial scale in staffing and infrastructure.

• Workforce: the company says it has more than 450 employees
• Total funding: €350 million
• Industrial footprint: more than 188,000 m2 of own industrial infrastructure
• Strategic assets: the company says it operates the largest private test benches in Europe
• Vehicle family: the MIURA launchers and the LINCE manned capsule

This is one of the clearest examples in the cohort of STEP backing a company that already looks like a genuine scale-up platform rather than an R&D-stage startup.

7) QuantWare (The Netherlands)

QuantWare is the second quantum company in the cohort. The EIC highlights its 3D architecture for faster, exponentially more powerful scaling. QuantWare's public site strongly reinforces that positioning around its VIO architecture and the push into the kiloqubit era.

• Core architecture claim: VIO is presented as the 3D architecture for faster and exponentially more powerful scaling
• Global commercial footprint: the company says it has customers in more than 20 countries
• Geographic deployment claim: it says it has powered the first quantum computer in more than 5 major economies
• Recent scaling milestone: the company announced a VIO-40K breakthrough aimed at delivering 10,000-qubit quantum processors
• Market position claim: QuantWare describes itself as the world's highest-volume provider of quantum processors

8) Reverion (Germany)

Reverion is the clean-energy efficiency case in the batch. The EIC announcement describes it as the next-generation power plant that makes biogas and renewable energy truly efficient. The company's public site gives very concrete operational claims around conversion efficiency and hydrogen storage.

• Electricity conversion efficiency in biogas mode: up to 80%
• Hydrogen round-trip efficiency: up to 75%
• Relative performance claim: the company says its systems are twice as efficient as conventional systems
• Additional functionality: power plant, electrolyzer, energy storage, and carbon capture in one technical narrative
• Origin: Reverion describes itself as a spin-off of the Technical University of Munich

Technology Mix: What This Cohort Suggests About STEP Priorities

The April 2026 cohort is not random. It clusters around a few strategic themes that match the public STEP framing almost perfectly.

• Quantum computing: 2 of 8 winners (25.0%) - Alice & Bob and QuantWare
• Space infrastructure and transportation: 2 of 8 winners (25.0%) - EnduroSat and Payload Aerospace
• AI-enabled biotech / industrial biotech: Aignostics and Luabio bring the life-science and AI-designed bioprocessing angle
• Energy and industrial sovereignty: Reverion and Greenland Resources cover energy-system efficiency and strategic raw-materials resilience

The easiest summary is that STEP continues to behave less like a generic innovation grant and more like a strategic industrial policy instrument targeting technologies where Europe wants stronger sovereignty, stronger supply chains, and larger late-stage financing rounds.

What Applicants Should Learn From This Round

There are three especially practical lessons embedded in the April 2026 numbers.

1) Getting to interview matters, but budget matters even more

The implied 92.9% interview-stage rate for either funding or STEP Seal suggests that interview admission is already a strong validation milestone. But the split between 8 funded and 18 Seal-only outcomes shows that meeting the bar is not enough by itself when the batch contains many high-quality companies competing for a finite public-investment envelope.

2) STEP is clearly rewarding scale-readiness, not just technical novelty

Many of the selected companies publicly show meaningful scale signals already: large infrastructure footprints, major fundraising, commercial deployments, production metrics, compliance credentials, or real industrial capacity. In other words, this is not just about having excellent science. It is about looking ready to absorb a €10 million to €30 million investment credibly.

3) Strategic fit remains central

The cohort is concentrated in quantum, space, industrial biotech, clean energy, and critical raw materials. That is exactly the kind of portfolio you would expect if juries are screening not only for company quality, but also for European strategic dependence reduction and clear industrial relevance.

Raw Data

• Publication date: 27 April 2026
• Submitted proposals: 44
• Interviewed companies: 28
• Selected companies: 8
• Additional excellent companies receiving STEP Seal only: 18
• Total public STEP Seal recipients in the batch: 26
• Proposal-to-interview rate: 63.6%
• Interview-stage success rate: 28.6%
• Overall proposal success rate: 18.2%
• STEP Seal rate: 59.1%
• Funded share among the 26 public above-threshold companies: 30.8%
• Seal-only share among the 26 public above-threshold companies: 69.2%
• Unfunded excellent-to-funded ratio: 2.25
• Combined proposed EIC investment: €146.5 million
• Average proposed investment per winner: €18.31 million
• 2026 scheme budget: €300 million
• Share of annual budget represented by this batch: 48.8%
• Implied remaining annual budget after this batch if all public amounts were fully committed as announced: €153.5 million
• Minimum aggregate target financing implied by 8 x €50 million rounds: €400 million
• Upper-end aggregate target financing implied by 8 x €150 million rounds: €1.2 billion

Methodology and Public Source Notes

The competition statistics in this article are calculated from the official EIC results article published on 27 April 2026 and compared against the earlier public STEP Scale Up result announcements from 3 April 2025, 12 June 2025, and 19 November 2025. Company-level factual additions come from the public websites linked by the EIC in the announcement or, in the case of Alice & Bob and Greenland Resources, from official public pages and press materials indexed from those same domains. The company metrics are included here to explain scale, readiness, or industrial relevance; they should not be read as the specific internal metrics used by EIC juries.

Key public sources: 27 April 2026 EIC announcement, STEP Scale Up programme page, and the official public sites of Aignostics, Alice & Bob, EnduroSat, Greenland Resources, Again / Luabio, PLD Space, QuantWare, and Reverion.