Scale-up and growth funding 1

Do you offer local food and drink, food experiences with a local identity, tourism experiences or farm-based welfare services? Do you work in inland fishing or reindeer husbandry? We offer growth support for small businesses in other agriculture-based industries.
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Type of service
Grants
Target group
Businesses in other agriculture-based industries
Application deadline
Ongoing
How much
Up to NOK 1 million
Application type
Other agriculture- and reindeer husbandry-based industries

Providers of local food and drink, food experiences with a local identity, tourism experiences, Inn på Tunet services, inland fishing, or businesses in the reindeer husbandry sector.

Your company must use agricultural resources and create significant added value for the primary producer through its activities.

Generic purchases of Norwegian inputs through wholesalers are not considered to create significant added value for the primary producer.

  • Your company must aim to increase its turnover by at least 30% over a three-year period.
  • At the time of application, the company must have at least one full-time equivalent employee
  • Turnover from the products and/or services covered by the growth project must be at least NOK 1 million in the most recent financial year or 12-month period. Raw materials that are not processed cannot count towards the growth project's turnover requirement.

Priorities may vary between counties. Read the regional guidelines for your region.

You can receive a grant covering up to 75% of approved costs, capped at NOK 1 million.

You must use the grant to fund activities that support a project aimed at growth. These activities should primarily involve increased salary costs, but the project may also include increased costs for rent, energy, competence building and business development.

Only the additional operating costs related to your company's planned growth are eligible for the grant. We do not include ordinary ongoing operating costs related to your existing operations.

If you need to clarify technical, organisational or market-related issues before starting a Vekst 1/Vekst 2 project, you can apply for a grant to fund a preliminary project.

The results of the preliminary project will provide the basis for deciding whether to proceed with a Vekst 1 or Vekst 2 project.

You can apply for funding of up to 100% of the project costs, capped at a grant of NOK 100,000. Only external costs are eligible in a preliminary project.

1. Complete and submit your application

You can find the agricultural application form by logging in to 'My page' with BankID. We will ask you to provide the information and documentation we need to assess your project. In the application, you can use the 'Talk to an adviser' button to ask for guidance before submitting it. Remember, you must submit your application before starting the project.

2. Assessment

We review applications on an ongoing basis, and several people assess each application. Our guidelines and regional priorities determine which projects we can fund. We receive many applications and have limited funds, so we cannot approve every application.

3. Decision

Your account manager submits your application to the decision-maker. Once we have made a decision, we will notify you by email, and you can find the decision on My page. If we offer you funding, make sure you understand the terms and how we will disburse the funds.

Key conditions for funding

To receive services from us, your company must uphold the principles of responsible business conduct and actively consider its own sustainability risks. Read more about sustainability and responsible business conduct.

State aid rules

Funding from Innovation Norway must comply with State aid rules. There are five general conditions for State aid that must be met.

The General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) is part of the State aid rules. It contains provisions that allow us to provide support to companies in various circumstances. One or more provisions may apply to each case. Read more about GBER.

Legal basis for the scheme

Our funding schemes have been notified to the EFTA Surveillance Authority, ESA. The legal basis for these notifications is available on the National Legal Basis page.

Other public funding

You must state in the application whether you have applied or intend to apply for other public funding for the project. We also determine the level of our funding based on an overall assessment of how much public funding is needed for the project to proceed.

When determining the grant amount, we therefore assume that you will not receive any other public funding, including SkatteFUNN, beyond what is stated in the application. This applies to funding for the project costs used to calculate our grant (eligible costs). If you nevertheless receive other public funding, including SkatteFUNN, after we have made our offer, and it covers the same costs, we may reduce or withdraw our grant accordingly.

This does not prevent the company from receiving other public funding for project costs other than those on which we have based our assessment.

Apply here
You can find the application form by logging in to My page with BankID.
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