In a move to jack up efforts to support homegrown ‘deep-tech' start-ups, the European Commission plans to line up investments to the tune of 45 billion euros ($47 billion) in private funding for such start-ups.
The funding for EU start-ups will be based on significant scientific or engineering advances. As per the new Listings Act, which is slated to be passed later this year, the move will also cut the cost of stock market flotations for the firms, the document, A New European Innovation Agenda.
The EU executive proposals also look to help the 27-country bloc catch up with the United States, Japan and South Korea in cutting-edge technology,venture capital funding and innovative patents.
“Approximately 45 billion euros of funding for scale-ups could be mobilised by 2025 from untapped sources of private capital, and the cost of listing on public markets could also be reduced,” the EU document said.
It said companies will find it easier and cheaper to list on the market under a Listings Act to be proposed in the second half of the year, part of the Commission's Capital Markets Union (CMU) Action Plan announced in 2020.
To allow founders to retain greater control post-listing, the act may also propose a harmonisation of legal regimes related to dual-class share structures across the EU, the paper said.
The Commission also proposed an innovation gender and diversity index, and will issue guidance in the first half of next year on so-called regulatory sandboxes that could include looser regulations for innovative projects.
