Peer learning of innovation agencies for services of access to finance for innovative smes
Innovative SMEs are most likely to create new markets, achieve rapid growth, and help the economy recover. External
finance may be particularly important for innovative SMEs, as they usually lack the internal resources to successfully
commercialise innovations. However, innovative SMEs often find it the hardest to obtain finance because they tend to have
riskier business models, which are important to create new markets but are also difficult for banks to value. Innovative SMEs
are often more reliant on intangible assets, rather than physical property, but intangibles are difficult to value as they are
context specific, and thus hard to use as collateral for lending.
AccesSME project is dedicated to contribute tackling this issue. The objective of the project is to enable the participating
innovation agencies to cooperate in a tangible and cost-effective manner so as to improve existing or create new concepts,
methodologies and tools for SMEs on access to finance through mutual learning and exchange of good practices. The
project aims to cover three kinds of access to finance options:
1) Business to business (B2B) matching for partnerships and investments
2) Horizon 2020 SME Instrument
3) crowdfunding platforms.