Investor Partnerships in digital technologies, North East: Rd 1

This competition is open to single applicants only.

To apply your business must:

• be a UK registered micro, small or medium sized business (SME)
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• be invited to apply by your investor partner
• have agreed your proposal with your investor partner before submitting
• be able to complete the aligned investment before the start of your project, through the issue of new shares or convertible debt
• have sufficient capital resources to enable you to meet all your project’s eligible costs, including through the grant funding and the aligned investment

Innovation and ideas can come from anyone and anywhere. We want to see investments unlocked for the diverse and extraordinary talent in the UK. We encourage innovation involving communities that are typically under-represented, including:

• ethnic minority groups
• women and other marginalised genders
• disabled people
• people with non-traditional education backgrounds

An SME can only submit one application into this round of the competition.

You must have confirmation from your investor partner that you can apply for this competition.

The eligibility criteria for your project depends on your research category.

For feasibility studies projects:

• your total project costs must be between £50,000 and £300,000
• the project duration must be between 6 and 12 months

For industrial research projects:

• your total project costs must be between £100,000 and £1 million
• the project duration must be between 6 and 18 months

For experimental development projects:

• your total project costs must be between £250,000 and £2 million
• the project duration must be between 12 and 18 months

For all projects, your project must:

• not start before 1 May 2025
• end by 31 December 2026

Total project costs, detailed within your application, must not exceed the maximum project costs for your research category. If your total project costs do exceed the maximum, then your application will be made ineligible.

Your project will only be allowed to start once the aligned investment has been confirmed.

The aim of this competition is to provide you with support for research and development and access to the capital investment that you need to develop and commercialise your innovations and grow your business.

You must have gained a level of traction with one of Innovate UK’s investor partners. We will contact them to confirm they are likely to make an offer of investment if you have a successful application to Innovate UK.

Your proposal must have a clear route to market, a clear link to innovation and evidence that you can create a team to deliver your proposal.

You must demonstrate that if your project is funded, it will:

• have significant market impact
• be scalable
• be attractive to equity investors

For this competition, North East of England is defined by the geography of the North East Combined Authority which includes Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, and County Durham.

Your project must help to grow your innovation activities in the digital technology cluster in North East England, both during and after the project.

This could be demonstrated by:

• your local innovation activities
• the value that your innovation activities create in the cluster
• your engagement with other innovation active organisations in the cluster, such as with Innovation SuperNetwork, this Launchpad’s cluster management organisation

Your project must focus on digital technologies that can be applied in growing and emerging markets.

Growing or emerging markets, include but are not limited to:

• advanced manufacturing
• agriculture and forestry
• automotive and transportation
• creative industries
• culture, tourism, leisure and sport
• green industries
• health
• offshore industries
• retail and town centre

Your project can focus on one or more of the following:

Immersive technologies:

• extended reality
• digital twins
• games engines
• virtual production

Artificial intelligence:

• data science
• machine learning
• neural networks
• computer vision
• robotics
• large language models
• quantum computing

This list is not exhaustive. Where you can show your proposal fits within the scope of this competition you can focus on other themes.

Innovate UK have produced a pre-recorded briefing covering Investor Partnerships, CR&D and MFA for all the competitions running in late 2025: click here to watch the recording. They have also supplied briefing slides which can be downloaded here.

If you would like help to find an investment partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Investment team. If you are an investor looking to find a digital technology SME, contact our digital team.