Oseo is a state owned company of first importance as its goal is to financially assist French SMEs and start-ups in the innovation sector. Its purpose is, among others, to support their R&D programs and help them to develop on foreign markets.

In order to promote Franco-Israeli partnerships, Oseo signed, last February, a cooperation agreement with Matimop, the Israeli center for research and development.

The goal of this agreement is to ease, through financial aids, the creation of joint R&D programs between French and Israeli companies.

In this regard, Oseo and Matimop have put in place a procedure of calls for proposals. This procedure is organized in the following way:

  • French and Israeli partners must first address their declaration of intent respectively to Oseo and Matimop. This declaration of intent must in particular describe the characteristics of the partnership between the companies.
  • Then, Oseo and Matimop have one month to decide if the partners are eligible for a financing.
  • If so, the eligible partners may, after signing a preliminary agreement, submit an application for funding respectively to Oseo and Matimop.
  • The final decision will occur three months after the submission of such application. However, the funds will be provided only once a final agreement is signed between the partners.

Further, the proposals must meet certain conditions:

  • The project should include at least one company in each country;
  • The companies will need to show their capacity to finalize the project. In addition, the project must provide advantages to both partners and the costs will have to be fairly divided among the partners. Finally, the partners will have to prove the advantages resulting from the project (such as increased knowledge base, commercial leads, access to R&D infrastructure etc.);
  • The French company must have less than 2,000 employees;
  • Israeli partners must apply through the following schemes: EUREKA, Eurostars (which are programs put in place in order to help innovative European SMEs) or FIRAD (the France-Israel Industrial R&D Cooperation Framework).

Please note that companies from other countries may participate to the innovative project. Their presence will not prevent French and Israeli companies from benefiting from the aids, however, such foreign companies will not receive any funding.

Once accepted, the partners will receive financial support from Oseo in France and Matimop in Israel. Such support may represent, in France and Israel, up to 50% of the total cost of the project.

A challenging project for the future commercial cooperation of both countries!