Startups and EU funding is unfortunately not a very successful match. Both sides struggle a lot to meet the other one, but the meeting most often results in frustration, anger and misunderstanding.

This episode’s guest, entrepreneur and startup founder, Violetta Bonenkamp, wrote a blogpost about the horrors of getting involved in EU R&D funding. And she slams both the proposal phase, the evaluation regime and the project implementation. It was heart-breaking to read, but also relieving that someone said it out loud.

The Grant is here to give these kind of people a voice and of course I invited Violetta into the virtual podcast studio. And it became a wonderful talk about the conditions of startups, the incapacities of EU R&D funding system to grab the concept of startups and not least some advice for other startups on what to do if you insist on approaching EU funding. This is a priceless episode that Violetta and I really hope that EU Commission representatives also tune into…

Time codes:

00:01:55 Introduction

00:06:35 Resume of blogpost

00:33:35 EU funding - door breaker or treacherous sea

01:19:55 Advice and the toughest challenge