Innovation Credit: Attachments to your application

General

A subject specialist and a financial expert will assess your plans on their content. So, make sure your plans have sufficient depth. You must also substantiate claims and describe them in the plans as much as possible quantitatively rather than qualitatively.  

1. Business plan (form-free)

In the business plan, you clearly state the market size, competitive position, customer value, and the revenue model. You need to substantiate your plan using figures.

• Describe the company. Provide answers to questions such as:
  • What is the history?
  • What is the company doing now?
  • What does the organisational structure look like?
  • What is the legal structure? Provide an organisational chart.
  • Who are the shareholders? Provide a summary of basic data on the company's shares (Cap Table); and
  • How is decision-making organised?
• Supply enough information about the background of the management. Please also describe how you guarantee and/or attract/replace crucial FTEs and knowledge.
• The business case for your innovation should be clear. In doing so, highlight the following points:
  • Who is the customer? What is the customer's problem, and how will the innovation solve this problem?
  • What technical requirements must the final product meet to solve the customer's problem? How did these requirements come about?
  • Put the end-user's economic benefit at the heart of your business plan. What financial benefit does your customer get that allows you to charge your selling price?
• Clearly state and substantiate the unique selling points of your innovation.
• Provide a well-substantiated competition analysis with an objective comparison.
• Include a cost-price structure. Clearly show how you can reduce your costs where necessary. The final cost price is important for ensuring a good margin.
• Make a conscious choice in the earning model and the marketing method. Both your commercial and marketing strategies must be clearly stated in the plan. Clearly substantiate why the strategy is suitable for the market, your product and the chain you work in.
• Provide a clear image of the market. Show the basis for your revenue forecasts.
• Clearly show the scope of the technical development risk and why a state instrument, such as the Innovation Credit, is necessary to fund it.
• Include clear descriptions of the various certification processes in your business plan.
• Give details about whether and how you operate in a socially responsible manner, taking into account humans, animals, the environment and society.

2. Project plan (form-free)

In the project plan, you clearly state the technology's status, its technological feasibility, and what makes your proposal unique. Based on a technical risk analysis, you will develop a systematic project plan with clear, intermediate, and measurable milestones.

• Describe your proof of principle, in other words, the technical feasibility, of your project. How do the innovations compare to (existing) alternatives? Please also clearly explain how the operating principle leads to the intended practical application.
• Describe the quantifiable product requirements of the market or the customer.
• Clearly show which innovations you are developing and the associated risks.
• Carefully map the technical risks. Please carefully conduct research into the possibilities and limitations for your development. Rank these technical risks according to size, risk of failure and impact. A Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a frequently used approach.
• Clearly state the possible solutions for the most important risks, including options for improvement and any alternatives, and please explain them clearly. Please also describe  the effects on project planning and the costs if you need to switch to these alternatives.
• Supply a sufficiently detailed project plan with a systematic approach. It is important that the project has been divided into multiple logical project periods, where necessary with multiple work packages.
• Describe which deliverables you differentiate per project period. The period ends with the achievement of a clearly measurable, and quantifiable (SMART) project milestone. These milestones are then linked to the financial reporting periods during the project.
• Describe the final specifications that the project must comply with upon completion of the project. In achieving these specifications, a market need must be met.
• Your intellectual property strategy is of great importance to your technological innovation’s earning model. Which choices do you make in this, and why? And are you able to commercialise your development on the markets you have in mind? 

3. Financing plan (form-free)

In the financing plan, you give a clear overview of 1) your project budget, 2) your company's finances and 3) a cash flow overview from now until you complete your loan repayments. For the project budget, please use our format, available for download below. The following costs are considered development costs: personal wage costs, materials, depreciation, outsourcing costs, travel expenses and costs associated with patent applications.

• The Innovation Credit finances up to 45% of the project cost if there is no collaboration. The rest of the project's financing, as well as the funding of non-eligible operating costs, must either come from your own resources or other investors/private investments. When you submit the application, it is important to already have a clear financing plan in place. For example, if the contracts with other investors have not yet been signed, their signing will be included as a granting condition. Thus, the Innovation Credit will only be granted when the company's and project financing are complete for the entire project duration.
• If you want to use turnover from sales as funding, you need to demonstrate that those sales will occur. For example, you can provide signed sales contracts or use turnover figures from previous years to demonstrate the expected turnover during the project duration. Are specific customers crucial for the turnover? If so, we expect insight into the agreements with these customers. Suppose turnover is a significant contributor to the financing of the development project, and this turnover is also very uncertain. In that case, this can, for example, be met by a shareholder guarantee.
• Make the proposed funding as specific as possible by providing funding agreements, term sheets and/or declarations of intent. It could be useful to explain the project's expected financing in a separate chapter.
• Include explanatory notes on the important assumptions underlying the forecasts. In these types of projects, it’s important to think in terms of scenarios. Please take into account the usual setbacks in areas of uncertain cash flow, budgeted development costs, and planned project duration.
• The funding must provide sufficient scope in the event that a project is delayed and/or continues beyond the deadline.
• Describe the use of specialised suppliers. Is this use considerable? Please also add quotes, supply contracts, or cooperation agreements as appendices to your application.
• If possible, please make use of financial or other support from Regional Development Agencies, Seed Capital funds, investment funds, and informal investors. The last-named website is only available in Dutch.

4. Documentary evidence of other financing

Documentary evidence of other financing of the project and the company during the project period. Examples include signed term sheets, loan agreements, investment agreements and contract agreements.

5. Financial statement (or opening balance sheet)

The latest financial statements (or opening balance sheet) and financial report for the current fiscal year.

6. SME assessment

An SME assessment (in Dutch) to determine the size of your business. The assessment is in Dutch. The credit percentage you are eligible for is based on the SME assessment. The maximum credit percentage for a collaborative venture may be raised to 50% or 40%.

7. Legal organisational structure

The legal organisational structure of the entire company.

8. Extract Chamber of Commerce

An extract from the Chamber of Commerce for both the entity applying for the Innovation Credit and the entities in the direct administrative line above it.

9. Articles of Association

The Articles of Association of both the entity applying for the Innovation Credit and the entities in the direct administrative line upwards.

10. UBO declaration

A UBO extract via the Chamber of Commerce or a completed UBO declaration (in Dutch).

11. Decision tree and declaration 'not an undertaking in difficulty'

A declaration in which you state that your undertaking is not in difficulty. Please complete the decision tree before filling in the declaration. Both the declaration and the decision tree must be submitted with your application.

Are you unable to provide the declaration at the time of application, but do you expect to be able to do so within an acceptable period? Then please provide a description of the measures and/or transactions through which you expect to remove the classification of 'undertaking in difficulty' within that timeframe. This could, for example, include a planned capital increase.

When completing the decision tree, please use your most recent final annual accounts. The balance sheet date of these accounts may not be more than 18 months old. If you intend to remove the classification of 'undertaking in difficulty' through planned measures and/or transactions, we ask that you base your description on the 2025 financial statements. These 2025 financial statements may still be in draft form at the time of application, but they must be finalised by the time the Innovation Credit is granted.

Complete the decision tree 

Both the decision tree and the declaration are in Dutch.

More information

• Read more about the application process.
• Have you applied already? Read more about the process after your application.