BAFA Funds Consulting for SMEs Start-ups: Secure the Future With 4,000 Euros

Startups and SMEs receive consulting funding

Established company based in Germany. This is the most important requirement for BAFA funding. And below the limit of 250 employees and 50 million turnover. Companies can use the funding for conceptual, individual management consulting. The 50% to 80% cost coverage of a maximum consulting fee of EUR 4,000 for young companies (less than 2 years old) and a maximum of EUR 3,000 (for companies older than 2 years) makes it possible to take advantage of professional consulting support.

What is the application and consultation process?

1. Online application with BAFA
2. Approval from BAFA within a maximum of 14 days
3. Consulting agreement between company and consultant
4. Consulting and implementation
5. Final report

What is paid by BAFA and who pays and when?

BAFA covers 50-80% of the consultancy fee. Depending on the federal state. In total, SMEs or start-ups only bear a small part of the costs themselves. Travel expenses can also be reimbursed if required. TOM SPIKE provides on-site support throughout Germany as well as remotely via video/telephone conference.

What can BAFA-funded advice be used for?

The support SMEs and start-ups need depends entirely on their individual situation. This means that advice and support can also be tailored to the individual, covering all economic, financial, personnel and organizational aspects of company management. Minimum requirements:

1. An inventory is taken and bottlenecks in the company are identified.
2. The consultation does not end with an assessment of the current situation, but rather provides an action plan with recommendations for further action.

In principle, only conceptual, individual consulting and coaching services are funded. Pure funding advice is not permitted here.

Between the analysis of the current situation and the final recommendations for action, the consultation can be organized freely for the most part. TOM SPIKE sees itself as a guide for successful innovation. The support is therefore advisory and always accompanying. TOM SPIKE is hands-on and does not deliver textbook solutions on PowerPoint slides.

What are the most important criteria for applying for the 4,000 euro BAFA grant?

• Company headquarters in Germany
• max. 250 employees, max. 50 million annual turnover
• receive no more than EUR 200,000 in total funding between 2018 and 2020(de minimis rule)
• no insolvency filed

How does TOM SPIKE help with BAFA funding?

Start-ups and SMEs often have questions that YouTube and Google cannot answer. From increasing turnover to order design, establishing the sales process and digital marketing, digital requirements, market development, capacity and resource bottlenecks or the complete failure of entire business models. As part of the analysis, the most sensible course of action is determined. This can be a countermeasure, the targeted acceptance of the situation and focusing on other priorities or a completely different approach that makes the most sense for the future of the company in the respective situation. As an innovation consultancy, TOM SPIKE helps you to identify, plan and implement the best measures, learn whether they work and then adapt them accordingly.

Typical challenges faced by SMEs that TOM SPIKE supports

• The current business model is at risk and a new or adapted business model needs to be developed.
  Support: Review of the current business, structured evaluation and decision for future business models, together with the company management
• New and/or different target groups and target persons or adapted services/products are required to stabilize sales.
  Support: Identification of suitable target groups, target persons and contact channels.
• You have numerous loose ideas about what could be done now, but no clear picture and no reliable decision criteria.
  Support: Obtaining information for the development of consistent decision criteria and structured evaluation of existing ideas.
• You find it difficult to define a coherent product from a handful of good ideas that is not a bunch of randomly assembled features.
  Support: Collection and consolidation of customer needs, specification of the “winning product”, benchmark against current solutions and successful positioning of your new product for guaranteed market success.
• A new product must be validated in the target group to ensure that the relevant, possibly changed customer needs are met.
  Support: Structuring of target groups and target persons, conception and support of interviews as well as active business development.
• Products/services that work in principle cannot be scaled or industrialized to a sufficient extent.
  Support: Development of individual, technical solutions with cooperation partners and experts, for example by means of process design or design for manufacturing.
• Technical hurdles jeopardize the desired product success.
  Support: Use of inventive problem solving or data science to develop solutions.

Typical challenges faced by start-ups that TOM SPIKE supports

• Online marketing: How do I win customers online?
• Quotation and invoicing process: Simply issue quotations and invoices so that they are also paid
• Acquiring new customers: How does cold calling work and what else is there?
• Product development and production: How do I get from the idea to the finished product?
• Why doesn’t the customer buy? Optimization of offering and business model

Are there any other requirements to qualify for BAFA funding?

As with any grant, there is of course a lot of small print, conditions and exclusion criteria. For most companies, these details are not relevant. Whether there are any relevant exclusion criteria is best clarified in a brief discussion. Simply give us a call on +49 30 89 64 72 09 and we will clarify the details.

Why you should apply for BAFA funding today

The simplified conditions of the BAFA and the associated 100% subsidy have already ended. The current program with 50% to 80% funding continues to apply. Up to now, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has repeatedly extended the funding. Take the opportunity now to secure professional support for the future of your company. Further program extensions are likely, but not certain.

Is there a risk of having to repay the BAFA subsidy?

If you fill out the application truthfully and do not try any other tricks, you can expect to receive the grant without any problems. There is therefore no increased risk of having to repay the funding. Provided that the supporting consultancy adheres to the applicable conditions. Caution is advised, for example, when standard reports are used instead of individual consulting services.

What do I have to do to claim the grant?

Just find a suitable date and we’ll talk. If it suits, we will help you fill out the BAFA online application. Allow about 30 minutes for this phone call if you have the most important data and information about your company to hand.