The third edition of Women TechEU (2026-2028), an EU-funded project supporting women leading deep tech startup companies from Europe, has been launched and opened its call for applications.
Another 160 selected startups will receive €75,000 in non-dilutive funding, together with a personalised business development programme including one-to-one mentoring, training, matchmaking with investors and corporates, and networking opportunities.
Women TechEU has cemented itself as one of the EU’s most dynamic and impactful innovation support programmes, with its legacy beginning when it was launched and administered directly by the European Commission in 2021.
As of 2024, the Women TechEU Scheme and related calls were externalised to a consortium who ran Women TechEU as an EU-funded TSTP project. During this time, AcrossLimits was one of four leading core partners of the project, and for those two years spearheaded Women TechEU’s communication and dissemination efforts. The first iteration of Women TechEU as an external project closed to resounding success in May of 2026, having received 3,792 applications, from 43 eligible countries, with its successor project immediately following. With AcrossLimits at the helm, the dedicated communication efforts of the consortium reached over 1.02M people.
The current 15-organisation consortium, led by Sploro (coordinator), AwakenHub and AcrossLimits as core partners, will run the scheme until 2028. AcrossLimits remains in charge of the project’s Communication and Dissemination. However we now have an additional core responsibility: building a bridge between Women TechEU beneficiaries and EIC services.
The main objective of the Women TechEU scheme remains to foster European innovation by addressing structural barriers that hamper European women entrepreneurs’ talents, including under-represented deep tech sectors and European regions. The project is rooted in the belief that diversity drives innovation, and the scheme provides women in deep tech with more opportunities, resources, networks, and support in order to build market-shaping companies at global level.
Women TechEU winners have called the programme, and its facilitators, mentors and trainers, as “a game changer” for their progress through interventions at three critical levels: strategic guidance and mentorship, a collaborative network, and essential funding. Founders assert how the powerful network of female leaders built during the programme, as well as the recognition that comes from being selected as a deep tech leader in such a competitive call, will be the most durable asset for their journey forward, continuing to open doors well into the future. Data from just 3 cohorts of Women TechEU shows that they alone collectively raised over €53.8 million in private funding (a 6:1 return on the €9 million in EU funding invested) within a year.
Looking forward to the next two years, we look forward to contributing to continuing Women TechEU’s mission. This time around, we’ve made critical adjustments that make it even more relevant as a vehicle for startup acceleration. A two-phase application process, separating the eligibility check from the full proposal into two separate phases, will eliminate the high percentage of non-ineligible proposals and avoid ineligible entrepreneurs needlessly spending resources to develop proposals. A more cohesive focus on geographical inequalities will see 40% of the budget exclusively reserved to companies based in Widening areas, such as Malta. Lastly, the project will strengthen access to private capital and markets via direct connections and matchmaking with corporates and investors, as well as invest heavily in enhancing the support provided to Women TechEU beneficiaries to become EIC Accelerator applicants.
The Women TechEU open call will be receiving applications over the next year. The eligibility application phase was launched on 1 June 2026, with weekly cut-offs every Tuesday at 17:00 (Brussels time) starting on 30 June 2026, and the final eligibility check cut-off being 13 July 2027. The application for the full proposal will open in July 2026, with 4 submission deadlines. All information and the application can be accessed via the Women TechEU website.
Previous Women TechEU beneficiaries can be viewed here: 2021 Pilot Cohort; 2023 Cohort; 2024-2026 Cohorts.