Innovation Fund Denmark Innobooster

Innobooster Grant

Funds Danish small businesses and entrepreneurs for knowledge based technology development with co investment support.

Innobooster is Innovation Fund Denmark's flagship grant programme for Danish SMEs pursuing risky, knowledge-based, challenge-driven development projects with commercial ambition. The programme covers 35 percent of total project costs — including employee hours and eligible direct expenses — with the applicant company contributing the remaining 65 percent. Grant amounts range from DKK 200,000 to DKK 5,000,000 per project, with a maximum project duration of 24 months. In 2026, four application periods are open across the year: Period 1 (22 January to 12 March) and Period 2 (26 March to 13 May), each with an approximate budget of DKK 78.9 million, and Periods 3 and 4 covering the summer and autumn windows. Historical success rates across 2023–2024 rounds ran from 15 to 31 percent depending on thematic area and period.

Eligibility requires meeting the EU SME definition — fewer than 250 employees and annual turnover at or below EUR 50 million or a balance sheet total at or below EUR 43 million — plus at least one financial track record criterion: either DKK 100,000 in risk capital or development grants received in the past three years, or DKK 250,000 in gross profit in at least one of the last three years' published annual accounts. The 2026 programme budget for Periods 1 and 2 is distributed across four themes: Life Science, Health, and Welfare Technology (33 percent); Green Technology and Innovation (29 percent); Critical and Digital Technologies (29 percent); and Defence Technology via Defence Tech Denmark (9 percent). Funds are disbursed in arrears every three months based on submitted accounts, with the final 15 percent released upon approval of the final evaluation, report, and auditor's statement.

Innobooster explicitly excludes market-ready or sales-and-marketing activities, normal operational costs, and optimisation-only work on existing market products. For Danish deep-tech SMEs in life sciences, cleantech, hardware, and advanced manufacturing, the programme offers a broadly accessible entry point with a Danish or English application, sector-agnostic scoring within each thematic envelope, and a defined pathway from initial application through quarterly disbursement to final audit. Companies with active R&D programmes that do not yet hold significant grant history should ensure they meet the risk-capital or gross-profit financial criterion before applying.