Developing a novel product, process or service is often high-risk, but public innovation funding offers a powerful way to reduce this risk and unlock growth.
Successfully accessing public funding opportunities requires a strong grasp of the application process. These funding rounds can be time-consuming, often taking several weeks or months from submission to project kickoff. Project durations vary significantly depending on scope and funding size: smaller initiatives (up to £50k) may last around three months, while large-scale collaborative projects (£500k to several million) can extend to 36–48 months.
To fully capitalise on these opportunities, it’s critical to plan ahead, understand market dynamics, and have a clear view of your innovation landscape.
How can your company effectively utilise public funding?
Early-stage businesses (Startups, Seed, Pre-seed)
Public funding can be instrumental in demonstrating and validating your technology before it reaches the market. It accelerates your time-to-market, allowing gaining a first-mover advantage. At this stage, it’s ideal for developing core products, refining business models, translating research into commercial offerings, and de-risking the journey to revenue. It also serves as a compelling tool for attracting both dilutive and non-dilutive capital. Keep in mind that most grants require co-funding or reimburse expenses in arrears, so sufficient cash flow is necessary.
SMEs (Seed to Series A and beyond)
Public funding is well-suited to scale-up efforts and advancing later stages of your product development roadmap. With a clearer understanding of your customers and market, you can deploy funding to scale operations, diversify revenue streams, or expand your product line. Use this insight to introduce innovative solutions that can enhance or even transform your business model.
Large companies
These organisations often act as hubs for innovation. Public funding can support collaborative projects with startups and SMEs, enabling the development of novel technologies and spinouts that can redefine your industry. However, large enterprises are typically expected to contribute a higher percentage of co-funding.
What types of public funding are available for your projects?
The offering includes R&D grant funding, innovation loans and innovation-focused contracts. By strategically combining these offers, businesses and research teams can access vital resources throughout the innovation journey; from feasibility and prototyping to testing and commercial launch.
Feasibility and Discovery
At the early stage, R&D grants (from funders such as Innovate UK through their various early-stage grants or the European Research Council through programmes like Pathfinder) are ideal for de-risking feasibility studies. This phase involves exploring technical and market viability, refining use cases, and identifying key challenges. Grants can cover a significant portion of the cost for research, expert consultancy, and initial technical scoping.
Early-stage grant funding targeting Technology Readiness Level 1 – 4 (TRL1 to TRL4) is the most relevant. Most grant calls will specify the TRL expected at the beginning and end of a project so check the eligibility and scope of the specific published calls.
You can expect to receive up to 100% of the total costs from grants at this stage of development.
Prototyping and Development
Once a project is deemed feasible, further grant funding can support iterative design and development of prototypes. For example, the UK’s Fast Start: Innovation programme or EIC Transition funding can help build and test MVPs (minimum viable products).
This stage of development is characterised by the technology being validated in a relevant environment (TRL5), moving towards demonstration of the technology in a relevant environment (TRL6).
Grant funding to consider here will include Thematic Calls from Innovate UK (and other national funding bodies), EUREKA Eurostars, Globalstars and Thematic Calls, and Reseach & Innovation Calls under Horizon Europe.
Testing and Validation
Funding can also be directed toward real-world testing and validation. Programmes like SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) or pre-commercial procurement contracts offer funding through public sector contracts to solve societal challenges. These contracts give innovators a customer-funded pathway to test and refine their solutions in real-world settings.
The journey from TRL6 (demonstration) to TRL8 (technology tested) can be supported by grants including EIC Accelerator, Innovation Actions under Horizon Europe and various late-stage calls from Innovate UK. Innovation Loans and Innovation Procurement start to become relevant post-TRL7 (demonstration in an operational environment).
Keep in mind that later-stage funding from grants are likely to cover less of the total project costs compared to earlier stages. For example, most R&D grants will cover 70% of costs for TRL5-7.
Commercialisation and Launch
Finally, public support extends to market entry. Innovation loans can help cover costs such as manufacturing scale-up, regulatory approvals, and certification. Combined with grant-funded R&D, this approach positions businesses for successful launch, investment-readiness, and sustainable growth.
Grant funding for R&D stops here. Costs for commercialisation must be covered by other funding sources such as equity investment or revenues. However, it is worth noting that collaborative EU grants, such as Horizon Europe Cluster Calls, support the demonstration of use cases for recently established technologies. This can be an excellent way to gain market traction using public funding, and establishing a network of partners across Europe.
Summary
Consider R&D grant funding, innovation loans and contracts for innovation throughout your R&D journey from TRL1 (concept) to TRL9 (launch).
The team at Venturenomix has been working with clients for over 20 years, identifying public funding opportunities, winning funding, accelerating development and helping our clients retain their equity for as long as possible. We’d love to speak to you about your project.
Malu Avila
As an accomplished Innovation Consultant with a PhD in Biology, I have secured over £19M in non-dilutive R&D funding, spearheading consortia of 20+ partners across a large range of technologies, including medical devices, battery architecture, and Agri-tech.
Get in touch
