Climate-KIC (Stichting Climate-KIC International Foundation)

Supports climate innovation across Europe through mobility and adaptation initiatives.

Climate-KIC, formally Stichting Climate-KIC International Foundation, is a Dutch non-profit climate funder and innovation network. It was established in 2010 as one of the early EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities, but it moved to independent status in 2025 and now operates outside the EIT KIC structure. Its mission is to catalyse climate action through innovation, radical collaboration, and place-based work, with active partnerships spanning more than 100 organisations and a ClimAccelerator network that reaches hundreds of partners across 97 countries.

The organisation funds and supports early climate ventures through prizes, accelerator programs, and cascade grants tied to Horizon Europe consortia. Its public routes include ClimateLaunchpad, ClimAccelerator, Climathon, EIT Jumpstarter participation in selected verticals, and project-linked funding such as PRIMARY, which can distribute cascade grants of up to EUR 150,000. The work spans climate, energy, agriculture, the built environment, and adjacent digital infrastructure, with direct startup support now coming mainly through project-based funding rather than a published annual grant pot.

Climate-KIC is strongest for founders and ecosystem builders who can work through coaching, local partnerships, and challenge-based calls rather than a single standing grant competition. Its role is less a conventional grantmaker than a convenor that turns consortia, place-based programmes, and impact-investor relationships into usable support for early climate innovation. That makes it relevant where the path to capital depends on networked delivery, not only on a single application form.