Vouchers for Startups – New digital/technological products

In addition to fully complying, at the time of submission and throughout the project’s execution, with the eligibility criteria for final beneficiaries defined in Article 7 of the Incentive System Regulation “Empresas 4.0,” approved by Ordinance No. 135-A/2022, in its current wording, the beneficiaries supported under this AAC must also meet the following criteria:

1. Be companies of any nature or legal form, qualified as SMEs, as provided in Decree-Law No. 372/2007, of November 6;
2. Have a registered CAE in the technology and knowledge sectors specified in point 5 at the time of application submission;
3. Have been operating for less than ten years;
4. Not have a registered CAE, at the time of submission and throughout the project’s execution, in the economic sectors excluded under paragraph 1 of Article 1 of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 2023/2831 of December 13, 2013, concerning the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid.

For the verification of the criterion mentioned in point (a), companies must obtain or update the corresponding Electronic Certification as provided in Decree-Law No. 372/2007, of November 6, as amended by Decree-Law No. 143/2009, of June 16, through the IAPMEI website.

1. Costs of technical staff directly involved in the implementation of the project, whose skills/validities are in line with the spirit of the notice and correspond to a minimum level of qualification VI (NQF), up to 75% of the total eligible costs;
2. Expenditure on accreditation or technological certification of human resources;
3. Acquisition of Specialized External Services, such as support services for the digitalization of business processes, marketing services, product and service development, consultancy and other specialized services for the pursuit of the project’s objectives;
4. Purchase or operational rental of equipment, as well as software licensing or subscription costs, for the activities to be carried out within the scope of the project;
5. Costs with the protection/valorization of intellectual property rights;
6. Indirect costs.

Note 1: Expenses associated with drawing up a marketing plan, creating a brand / logo, market research, studying the competition, defining the target audience and personas, analyzing the product mix and creating strategies are considered eligible.

Note 2: Indirect costs are a set of expenses related to the running of a company, which are not directly linked to the project.

Note 3: The estimated indirect costs are calculated on the basis of simplified costs, based on the application of a flat rate of 15% of human resources costs.

• Relevance of the project to the objectives of the measure;
• Beneficiaries’ implementation capacity;
• Impact of the project on the competitiveness of the Beneficiaries.

With regard to Call No. 21/C16-i02/2025, the methodology is as follows:

1. Initial advance with the signing of the Acceptance Agreement as pre-financing in the amount of 5,000 euros;
2. 1 advance of 20,000 euros, 1 month after the initial advance;
3. Final payment of 5,000 euros, with the submission of a final payment request with the eligible expenses incurred, to be submitted up to 90 days after the physical and financial completion of the project.

The process of admitting and selecting applications is carried out in a single phase, in which the following elements will be considered:

• Verification that the beneficiary entity and the project submitted comply with the provisions of points 4, 5 and 6 of the Notice;
• The assessment of merit, based on the criteria defined in paragraph 15.2 and their respective valuation, by the monitoring group referred to in paragraph 15.1 of the Notice.

Applications can be submitted from March 17, 2025 at the Balcão dos Fundos. In order to submit an application, the Beneficiary must have registered and authenticated themselves at the Balcão dos Fundos.

In this reserved area, the Beneficiary must confirm and complete their characterization data that will be used in the applications to the Notice.

The deadline for submitting applications remains open until April 14, 2025 or until the number of applications received reaches the limit determined according to the budget allocation defined in Point 18 of the Notice, whichever comes first.

• Do final beneficiaries have to apply for any ignition or acceleration programs before submitting their project? No. The development of projects included in ignition programs may be the initiative of the entity, and projects in progress or to be developed using this support may be included. Please note that projects cannot have started by the time the application is submitted.
• Are startups that are not in the agrotech sector no longer included in the project? No. The aim of this measure is to support projects that aim to develop business models, products or services with a strong digital or technological component and the potential for scalability, giving priority, as stated in point 18 of the Notice, to projects that promote innovation solutions intended for implementation in the Agrotech sector or that contribute positively to the climate transition. This measure includes the following types of operations:

1. Start-up or growth support – Funding for start-ups in the start-up or expansion phase;
2. Support for participation in ignition or acceleration programs – Funding for startups applying for ignition or acceleration programs;
3. Support for the development of pilot projects – Funding for the demonstration of technology within the business model, product or service developed by startups, enabling the startup to demonstrate its technology and prove its effectiveness.

Regarding eligible expenditure on human resources:

• Can they present a wage bill higher than 75% of eligible costs, being prorated for the purposes of meeting the expenditure limit? Yes. The maximum amount of support to be granted for Human Resources expenses is 75% of the total amount of the Voucher (30,000 euros). However, the project can present investments higher than this, but the eligible expenditure will always be restricted to the maximum amount of 30,000 euros.
• Is there any obstacle to the costs of technical staff assigned to the project being allocated to human resources who are partners and/or managers of the beneficiary entity? Partners and/or managers of beneficiary entities are not eligible as HR costs.
  Bearing in mind the existing guidelines for managing partners: “The technical staff to be hired or assigned, being partners in the company to be created or existing, may not perform any executive function in the company as holders of the company’s capital”.
  It is therefore also considered that technical staff may not carry out executive duties in addition to the duties to be carried out within the scope of the project, but must carry out duties exclusively and dedicated to the project’s duties (regardless of whether they are 100% assigned to the project or not), so staff who carry out duties as managers, commercial technicians, etc. cannot be considered eligible.”
• Is there any obligation to keep the jobs after the project ends? If so, for how long? Under this measure, there is no obligation to maintain jobs after the project is completed.
• Does the wage bill include vacation and Christmas bonuses, plus social security charges, when considering 18 months? Yes. Eligible expenditure is the cost of the basic monthly salary plus the social security costs to be borne by the promoter, including vacation and Christmas bonuses, during the project’s implementation period, relating to new hires of technical staff and/or the total or partial transfer of technical staff from the beneficiary entity. The maximum amount of support to be granted for Human Resources expenses is 75% of the total amount of the Voucher (30,000 euros).

• What expenses are eligible for this support? Point 7.1, “Eligible expenses”, identifies the expenses that can be considered, which consist of the following:

1. Costs of technical staff directly involved in the implementation of the project, whose skills/validities are in line with the spirit of the notice and correspond to a minimum level of qualification VI (NQF), up to 75% of the total eligible costs;
2. Expenditure on accreditation or technological certification of human resources;
3. Acquisition of Specialized External Services, such as support services for the digitalization of business processes, marketing services, product and service development, consultancy and other specialized services for the pursuit of the project’s objectives;
4. Purchase or operational rental of equipment, as well as software licensing or subscription costs, for the activities to be carried out within the scope of the project;
5. Costs with the protection/valorization of intellectual property rights;
6. Indirect costs.

The indirect costs envisaged are calculated on the basis of simplified costs, based on the application of a flat rate of 15% of human resources costs.

Note 1: Expenses associated with drawing up a marketing plan, creating a brand / logo, market research, studying the competition, defining the target audience and personas, analyzing the product mix and creating strategies are considered eligible.

Note 2: Indirect costs are a set of expenses related to the running of a company, which are not directly linked to the project.

• What expenses are excluded from this support? The following are ineligible expenses:

1. Normal operating costs of the beneficiary, not provided for in the contracted investment, as well as maintenance and replacement costs, and costs related to periodic or continuous activities;
2. Investments resulting from obligations arising from agreements or concession contracts with the State or from compliance with legal obligations applicable to the proposed activities;
3. Cash payments, except in situations where this proves to be the most frequent means of payment, depending on the nature of the expenditure, and provided that the unit value is less than 250 euros;
4. Expenses paid under contracts made through intermediaries or consultants, where the amount to be paid is expressed as a percentage of the amount financed by the PRR or of the project’s eligible expenses;
5. Acquisition of goods in a state of use;
6. Value added tax (VAT), whether or not recoverable by the beneficiary;
7. Purchase of motor vehicles, aircraft and other transport equipment;
8. Interest and financial charges;
9. Working capital;
10. Purchase of real estate, including land;
11. Leases and rights to use premises;
12. Current advertising;
13. Preparation of applications.

Expenditure declared that is not considered appropriate, based on its reasonableness in light of market conditions and alternatives, and evidence of the costs presented and described in the investments approved in the PRR, is also not considered eligible.

Note 1: Current advertising corresponds to the use of blogs, podcasts, videos, e-Books, newsletters, whitepapers, SEO and other forms of content dissemination/promotion with the aim of promoting the entity.

• What are the minimum and maximum amounts of total costs that can be submitted under this call? Is support always €30,000, regardless of the total eligible cost? The amount of funding to be granted under this Call corresponds to a fixed amount of €30,000 per beneficiary.
  The funding to be granted to the selected applications must be confirmed through eligible expenditure of the same amount, corresponding to a funding rate of 100%, and beneficiaries must comply with the legal provisions applicable to public procurement when this is necessary to achieve the project’s objectives.
  The amount of funding will be allocated under the “De Minimis Aid” framework provided for in Commission Regulation (EU) No 2023/2831 of December 13, with a maximum limit of €300,000 over 3 years per single company.

In addition to the obligations set out in Article 18 of the Regulations of the “Empresas 4.0” incentive system, approved by Ministerial Order no. 135-A/2022, of April 1, in its current wording, the beneficiaries have the following obligations:

• Communicate the change of bank account;
• Complete the Central Register of Effective Beneficiaries (RCBE) and provide a code in the application, when applicable.
• Keeping the PME Electronic Certification up to date, as provided for in Decree-Law no. 372/2007, of November 6, as amended by Decree-Law no. 143/2009, of June 16, via the IAPMEI website.

• Within the scope of the Vouchers for Startups notice, can a sole proprietor with or without organized accounting submit an application to the program, and must they obtain SME certification? Within the scope of the Vouchers for Startups Notice, Individual Entrepreneurs are eligible entities as long as they have organized accounts before the application submission date, and must complete and submit the PME Certification Online.
• Within the scope of the “Vouchers for Startups” Call, can an entity with ongoing counter-claims apply? In order to apply for this Call, entities cannot have ongoing cases in previous Calls. In other words, they must withdraw from the previous process in order to apply for the current one.