DRIVE35 Scale-up Fund: open-ended competition

To lead a collaborative project or work alone, your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)

Your project can include non-UK partners, including partners based in the EU, who bring their own funding.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

An organisation or business can lead or collaborate on any number of applications.

Your project must:

• be a single applicant or consortia led
• have a total grant funding request of between £2.5 million and £20 million
• have total eligible costs of at least £5 million
• last between 12 to 46 months, including an initial period where you can raise the match funding before your project starts
• carry out its project work in the UK, with only minor elements overseas with significant justification
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• start from 1 June 2026
• end by 31 March 2030

The aim of the Scale up Fund is to support manufacturing facility and process development at pilot scale or demonstration scale. These projects will enable businesses to validate manufacturing capability and commercial viability, achieving market entry at the targeted production volume from the project outcomes.

Your proposal must justify the funding required with a case for government intervention and matched by substantial private investment.

Your project must:

• support growth, transition, and resilience of the UK’s automotive supply chain, increasing capability whilst improving productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness
• contribute to the UK’s strategic aims and priorities, such as the Industrial Strategy, the Automotive Council’s Roadmaps and Strategic Technology areas for eligible on-vehicle technologies, including zero emission vehicle assembly and the associated supply chain
• undertake a scale up project to engineer, create (or convert) and validate process development and manufacturing capability at pilot scale or demonstration scale

Technology scope

This competition fund aims to support the manufacturing development of strategically important technologies for on board vehicle applications in one or more of the following areas:

• electrical energy storage: development of batteries, supercapacitors, their components, management, and integrated systems
• electric machines and associated driveline
• power electronics including Vehicle to Everything (V2X)
• internal combustion engine (ICE) for off road applications; we will fund project proposals that support a transition to zero emissions, utilising non-fossil fuels
• light weighting materials and manufacturing processes
• fuel cell systems and associated balance of plant
• hydrogen storage and management systems
• zero emission vehicle assembly

Within the technology scope outlined above:

Your project can include:

• upstream supply chain for the technologies, including raw materials, component manufacturing and subassembly manufacturing
• circularity and design for disassembly projects delivering manufacturing systems which enable the disassembly, remanufacturing, recovery and reuse of materials
• the deployment of technologies, to enable productivity and cost competitiveness across the relevant aspects of applicable manufacturing operations in any of the following areas: digital transformation, manufacturing process decarbonisation and lean manufacturing

Digital transformation can include integration of digital tools within the manufacturing process, for example, the use of AI, digital twins, and Internet of Things (IoT).

Manufacturing process decarbonisation can include processes that use renewable energy sources or innovations enabling reduced energy consumption within manufacturing processes, including capture and reuse.

Lean manufacturing can include implementation of innovative lean principles to improve efficient use of materials used in processes, reduce their environmental impact and improve efficiency including the use of advanced automation techniques.

This competition fund aims to support the development of manufacturing readiness at pilot scale or demonstration scale.

Your project can include the activities required to design, build (or convert) and commission a pilot or demonstration scale manufacturing facility. You must develop your readiness for manufacturing of zero emission vehicle technologies, including the following activities as examples:

• manufacturing facility planning and engineering, including for example, detailed facility or process planning and engineering, finalisation of site selection
• fabrication and construction work
• manufacturing equipment creation, conversion and procurement, for example, detailed production line design, equipment integration with site infrastructure, specification, procurement and purchasing
• equipment installation
• equipment commissioning, including for example, initial operation through to hot commission and run at rate, materials required for commissioning of equipment and processes
• process development
• development of quality control and quality assurance process and equipment
• advanced product quality and planning (APQP) activities required, up to and including production launch activities
• implementation of technology to enable efficient and effective production processes
• staff training
• activities focussed on product development required for ’design for manufacture’, where this enables your technology or product to be adapted for your target scale manufacturing, activity must be no more than 50% of the project eligible costs
• development of UK supply chain for your target production scale
• test, validation and verification of components and systems which are manufactured for scale up as part of this project
• dissemination to enable market engagement and market feedback
• limited commercial activity during the active phase of this project, it is defined in the Scale of facilities section

The aim of this competitive fund is to develop manufacturing processes and facilities that enable businesses to take eligible technologies through scale up and market entry and growth. As such, you must outline how your project will enable you to enter the following vehicle supply chains or markets:

• on-highway vehicles, for example including L-category, motorbike, car, light commercial vehicle, bus, coach, and truck applications
• off-highway vehicles and Non Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM), for example, including construction, agriculture, mining, and other off-highway applications

You must indicate how:

• you will engage your target vehicle related customers through the delivery phase of this project
• this project will enable you to meet their criteria for adoption
• you will feed this information back into the project to ensure it remains targeted on successful commercial outcomes

You must explain where your scale up project enables entry into other markets. These may be outside of the target markets, for example, near term or early adopter markets. You must be clear how your project prepares your business for entry into one of these vehicle markets following the projects completion.

You must indicate how you will engage your target vehicle-related customers through the delivery phase of this project, how this project will enable you to meet their criteria for adoption, and how you will feed this information back into the project to ensure it remains targeted on successful commercial outcomes.

This competition fund aims to support businesses in making substantial private co-investment alongside the public intervention. You will be asked to define a total investment for business expansion, of which your eligible scale up project is expected to be a subset of your overall required activities.

You must describe how your project will enable you to unlock substantial private investment of at least twice your grant request. This is to enable you to complete your wider business expansion objectives, including where appropriate the commercialisation of your technology.

The timing of this investment must coincide with the grant award stage or during the project delivery stage.

As an example, if your grant request is for £5 million, you must describe how this grant will unlock at least £10 million in additional private investment. To ensure the total investment, public and private, would be at least £15 million.

This is true of both equity financed businesses, for example, venture capital or private equity backed companies, as well as established businesses which are funded by other means.

For the avoidance of doubt, you may include all equity, debt, corporate and other co-investment within this category. You may not include other government grants within this co-investment.

We expect this co-investment to cover costs that are much broader than the costs funded directly by the project, for example:

• working capital required for market entry
• purchase of land
• fundamental R&D costs for future products

We are not funding projects that:

• are not focussed primarily on developing and validating manufacturing processes and assets
• request more than 50% of total project costs as grant for an SME, or 30% for a large organisation
• are not aligned with the UK Industrial Strategy
• do not have a robust future plan to enter the zero emission vehicle supply chain
• are not of future benefit to the automotive sector
• are focussed on small personal mobility applications such as e-Scooters, e-Bikes, or other low-powered mobility devices
• do not lead to significant business or production scale up and expansion
• are focussed on technologies or processes which are too technologically immature to scale with increasing market demand
• focus on fossil fuelled internal combustion technology
• are focussed on fuel retail or wholesale fuel supply
• are focussed on the development or production of low carbon fuels
• are focussed on the production of hydrogen
• are focussed on off-vehicle charging infrastructure
• are focussed on energy retail or wholesale energy supply
• are focussed primarily on the development of digital or data technologies
• are focussed on speculative site enabling projects

An applicant briefing will be held on Friday 26 September at 10am: click here for the joining link.

The first submission date for this fund is 3 December 2025, and selected applicants are expected to receive an invite to interview in January 2026, with interviews taking place 9-13 February and final decisions in March 2026, and the first projects expected to start in June 2026.

The next two submission deadlines are 4 February 2026 and 1 April 2026. This is an open-ended competition and applications can be submitted at any time for consideration after the next submission deadline.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Transport team.