Loans START (STARTUOK)

Loans START (STARTUOK)

Provides early-stage loans for Lithuanian micro and small firms that blend financing with completion-based repayment relief.

STARTUOK (Loans START) is a hybrid financial instrument administered by UAB ILTE (formerly INVEGA), the Lithuanian state development financier, co-funded by the EU's European Regional Development Fund and the European Guarantee Fund via the European Investment Fund. The instrument provides soft loans of up to EUR 3,000,000 for investment (10-year term) or up to EUR 200,000 for working capital (3-year term) to Lithuanian SMEs that have been operating for three years or less. Variable interest rates are discounted by 50 percent for businesses under three years old; social-impact SMEs, SMEs founded by Ukrainian citizens after February 24, 2022, and SMEs with a majority owner aged 55 or older qualify for a 70 percent discount. The total allocated pool is EUR 93.4 million.

The genuine grant element is a write-off of up to 20 percent of the loan principal upon successful project implementation. This write-off is available only to micro- and small enterprises and individual entrepreneurs — not medium-sized enterprises — and requires that the borrower has remaining state aid headroom under the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) for micro/small entities, or under the de minimis regulation for medium firms. The EU legal basis is Regulation (EU) 2021/1058 (Article 7.1) and Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 (Article 58.2).

Applications are submitted through the ILTE online services portal at paslaugos.ilte.lt. ILTE targets a decision within 30 working days of a complete application. The program runs on a rolling basis with no fixed deadlines. For companies that qualify for the write-off, the effective net cost of early-stage capital is substantially reduced, making STARTUOK one of the most accessible startup financing instruments in Lithuania. Contact: uzklausos@ilte.lt or +370 5 210 7510.