Enterprise Development Programme — Estonia's Growth Grant for Scaling Companies

Estonia's Enterprise Development Programme (Ettevõtte arenguprogramm), launched in January 2016 by Enterprise Estonia (EAS) and continued since a 2022 merger under the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EIS), targets established companies rather than startups: eligible firms must have operated for at least two to three years, employ at least 8 people full-time, and show either export turnover of at least €50,000 or at least 5% average annual sales growth over two years.

Grants of up to €500,000 per company (with equipment support capped at €200,000) covered 45% of costs for small firms, 35% for medium and 25% for large enterprises, from a total 2014–2020 programme budget of €73 million. In its first year, more than 100 companies joined and 24 received grant funding. An independent 2022 impact-analysis thesis from Tallinn University of Technology, using difference-in-differences methods on 69 supported companies whose projects ended by 2019, found statistically significant positive effects on employee numbers, labour costs and value-added per employee, but explicitly found no statistically significant effect on sales revenue, the programme's headline claimed benefit.