Zebras Unite London — Startup Grants series
Zebras Unite is a founder-led cooperative movement building the capital, community and culture for the new economy.
We surveyed the London Zebras Unite communities over the summer and alternative fundraising was a key topic that you wanted to learn more about. Over the next few months, we’re diving into different funding options and what you need to know about accessing them.
Throughout November we’ve been focusing on Startup Grants. We hope you were able to join our two events, but if not we’ve summarised some of the learnings and resources we’ve created for you here, including a database of available grants.
Event #1: Startup Grants — Ask the Experts w/Dr Christine Adams — Director of Mayflower Innovation Ltd
in collaboration with Savitri Tan, Investor at Isomer Capital, Co-Founder at Life+ Collective
Over 60 of you joined us to hear from Dr Christine Adams, Director of Mayflower Innovation Ltd. Dr Adams shared immensely valuable insight from her experience assessing grant applications and monitoring grantees for Innovate UK and supporting businesses with writing their grant applications for Innovate UK grants.
Key takeaways from the event
- Eligibility is everything. It’s a huge amount of work to write these grant applications and they are highly competitive so checking eligibility is crucial to give yourself the best chance of success. Contact Innovate UK via email/phone to confirm if you’re in scope & attend a briefing event to get as much information as possible before applying.
- Innovate UK is looking for highly innovative, commercial tech or science based products/services/business innovation within the clean tech, ageing society, future of mobility and AI & data economy sectors. There are also smart open calls for innovation that falls out of these categories, however, they are extremely competitive (2–3000 applications with 10% success for grants below £500K, 3% success above £500K)
- In particular, they’re looking for innovation that is based in the UK, for the UK market, with very high economic return on investment (20x or more) and very likely to create numerous jobs within the UK.
- The larger the size of the grant you are applying for, the more likely you are to need to be working with partners/collaborators & require support, such as a grant writer, with getting your grant application to a high standard.
- A key eligibility area is financial, you’ll have to finance at least 30% of the project cost yourself, pass a series of financial eligibility checks and have to claim your grant in arrears, so will need cash in the bank before you receive any grant funding.
- The application consists of 10 questions and you need to show high levels of skills and capability across all 10 questions to be successful. Each question is awarded 10 points and for the most competitive challenges, you’re looking for a score of at least 80 to be successful.
- Plan to spend at least 6–8 weeks preparing and writing your application and if you are successful, you’ll likely have access to the grant 5–6 months after success.
- Check out slide 11 for some more of Dr Adams’ tips.
If you’re looking to apply for an Innovate UK grant, are confident you’re eligible and want some help with the process, contact Dr Adams:
Email: christine@mayflowerinnovation.co.uk
Event #2 — Startup Grants: Funded Founders
in collaboration with Savitri Tan, Investor at Isomer Capital, Co-Founder at Life+ Collective
Our second event in the series, we spoke to three founders who applied for and were awarded different grants. Check out the recording to hear their experiences in detail, it’s well worth a listen as they dive into the reality of applying for and then managing the obligations of taking grant funding.
High-level areas covered
- Grants awarded and the specifics of each
- The process of writing the application and support received if any
- Post-award commitment and obligations — reporting, support sessions etc.
- Hidden costs and benefits of taking grant funding
- Learnings from the process
- Where panellists found grant opportunities
Bola Awoniyi — Black Ballad
Grant awarded: 70K from the Future of News fund, by Nesta & BGV
Tessa Cooper — Collaborative Future
Grant awarded: 4K from Unltd startup grant
Gary Todd — Famiio
Grant awarded: 50K from Innovate UK, Business-led innovation in response to global disruption, fast track competition
Grants can be vital sources of finance for organisations who are looking for targeted support and don’t want to give up equity or take on debt. What was clear from our speakers across both events, however, is that grants are not free money. They’re best for projects and businesses that align with the mission/values of the grant-giving body and there is a significant resource cost of applying for grants and then further resource commitments, once a grant has been awarded, to deliver on the agreed work. As Dr Adams stressed, grants are effectively a contract with the organisation that awarded you the money and that will inevitably come with obligations and constraints to meet their objectives as well as your own.
We’ve pulled together a database of a number of grants that are currently available here. See if you’re eligible for any and feel free to share the database widely.
Good luck and don’t forget to sign up to the Zebras Unite London community, if you haven’t already, where you’ll get access to the slack group, future events, newsletter & more.
