The UK has over £900m/year in innovation grants for startups and SMEs — from Innovate UK and SBRI to Horizon Europe and sector-specific funds. FundRobin helps you find and apply for the right ones.
Used by UK tech startups, social enterprises, and innovative SMEs to access non-dilutive funding.
The UK innovation funding landscape spans national bodies, sector funds, and regional programmes. Here are the main routes for startups.
The UK's national innovation funding body awards over £900m/year to innovative businesses. Competitions span AI, clean tech, health tech, agri-tech, manufacturing, and creative industries — from feasibility studies to full R&D projects.
Government departments commission innovative SMEs to solve public sector challenges. Phase 1 feasibility: £50–100K. Phase 2 development: up to £1M. Open to startups with no prior contracts required.
The EU's flagship R&D programme remains open to UK organisations (as third-country participants) for collaborative research projects. ERC grants, Marie Curie fellowships, and EIC Accelerator are accessible to UK companies.
England has 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships operating local growth hubs with grants for regional SMEs — covering capital investment, skills development, and innovation. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have equivalent regional programmes.
Dedicated funds cover specific sectors: Biomedical Catalyst (life sciences), DESNZ (energy), ARIA (advanced research), and programmes from DCMS, MOD, and the Home Office for relevant technology startups.
Not strictly a grant, but the UK's R&D tax relief scheme (SME R&D relief and RDEC) effectively refunds up to 33% of qualifying R&D expenditure. Most innovative startups qualify without realising it.
Innovate UK runs dozens of sector-specific competitions each quarter. FundRobin monitors all open calls and surfaces the ones your startup is eligible for — by sector, stage, and technology.
Innovation grant applications require specific evidence of market need, innovation credibility, and team capability. Smart Proposal structures your application to address each scoring criterion.
Most funded startups run 3–5 grant applications simultaneously. FundRobin tracks all of them — deadlines, status, contacts, and decisions — in one dashboard.
Grant funding works best as part of a broader strategy. FundRobin helps you map a multi-year funding roadmap — combining Innovate UK, SBRI, sector funds, and investor capital.
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Stop chasing funding on a hamster wheel. FundRobin combines deep intelligence on the UK innovation landscape with generative AI to help you find, draft, and win non-dilutive funding. Whether it is Innovate UK competitions or SBRI contracts, we automate the discovery and proposal process so you can focus on building your startup.
FundRobin helps scan UK innovation awards and competitions that may match your tech stack and stage. Our AI fit-scoring engine analyses competition briefs against your company profile, helping you prioritise grants that deserve closer review.
Writing for Innovate UK and Horizon Europe requires precision. FundRobin's proposal assistant uses your technical data to generate high-quality drafts that meet specific UK scoring criteria. It ensures your R&D objectives, commercialization plans, and project impacts are framed exactly how grant reviewers expect.
Navigating innovation funding requires understanding the distinct pathways available to your business. In the UK, Innovate UK and SBRI lead the way with over 900 million pounds in annual awards. In the US, the SBIR and STTR programs provide billions in seed capital for high-tech R&D. FundRobin aggregates these opportunities into a single source of truth, allowing you to track national, regional, and sector-specific funds in real-time.
The biggest risk in innovation funding is wasting months on applications with low probability of success. Our platform uses AI to analyse your company's technical profile against specific grant criteria. We provide an instant Fit Score for every competition, highlighting gaps in your eligibility and identifying the programs where your technology has the highest chance of being funded.
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