Providing end-to-end grant funding support

Research and innovation grant funding has transformative potential for many organisations, especially technology-based startups and SMEs. It not only supports on-going development projects, increasing the chance of innovation success, but also enables organisations to think bigger, beyond incremental developments, towards truly disruptive and breakthrough innovations. 

Many organisations use grant funding to fund shortfalls in core financing or unforeseen development needs, extend development activities to next-generation products or adjacent markets, expand the organisation’s science and technology base, build development and value-chain partnerships, raise innovation ambition, or accelerate development.

Governments increasingly understand the value of research and innovation grant funding, both to individual companies and the economy, which has led to a continuous rise in available funding over the last decade.

Today grant funding represents an important component in the financing strategy of most technology-based organisations. And the benefit of grant funding is that it does not dilute equity and does not need to be repaid. 

However, it’s not just about the money. The grant writing process can also be leveraged to add value to the organisation. Here deadlines provide a ‘point focus’ to drive team engagement, alignment, and activity. Collaborative working with project partners builds team spirit, knowledge exchange, and long-term partnerships. Proposal writing necessitates strategic business choices, long-term planning, and documentation, critique and development of the innovation concept and business plan. And exposure of the innovation to customers, partners, and evaluators supports third-party validation.

These activities all support advancement of the innovation and business, reinforcing long-term innovation success and access to other sources of finance, such as equity, loan, and corporate financing.