The Seal of Excellence is awarded by the European Commission to project proposals that pass the demanding evaluation of Horizon Europe programmes with top scores but cannot be financed from the limited call budget. The label certifies that a project meets the EU’s quality criteria for excellence, impact and implementation, and it opens the door to funding from other public sources such as national programmes or the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Findustrial received the Seal of Excellence in 2025 after its application to the EIC Accelerator, the EU’s programme for deep-tech scale-ups. The proposal missed the EIC budget cut-off by roughly 20 places, so there was no EIC grant. The Seal, however, qualified the project for ERDF funding administered by the state of Upper Austria, at nearly the amount originally requested from the EIC. That is how the platform project, a one-stop digital platform that lets equipment manufacturers launch, pilot and scale Equipment-as-a-Service business models, went ahead with 1.7 million euros of co-financing.
The funding also made the news: on 17 July 2025 brutkasten reported on the 1.7 million euro ERDF grant for the Findustrial platform, quoting Victoria Racher from Findustrial and recapping the company’s path so far, including the seven-figure round with the payment company Bamberger. The original article is in German.
Co-founder Martin Gruber explained the path from EIC application to Seal and ERDF funding in a webinar with Business Upper Austria in October 2026.
Award: Seal of Excellence, European Commission, 2025. Coverage: brutkasten, 17 July 2025. Related: EU funding for the Findustrial platform.
