Innovate UK Growth Catalyst for late-stage startups: Clean Energy and Climate Technologies

Through this package, we offer successful applicants funding through our proven Investor Partnerships model, together with expert support from IUK Business Growth, IUK Business Connect and Catapults. Specifically, it includes:

• Funding and Investment – R&D grant funding aligned with, and subject to, private equity investment through our investor partners, helping you to secure the capital you need to grow and innovate at the same time.
• Expert business support – strategic guidance from teams across Innovate UK to build a personalised, milestone-driven business journey that supports you to access the right innovation services at the right time for you.
• Connection – connections to industry experts and research partners to support you to enhance your innovation, explore market opportunities and accelerate business growth.
• Specialist skills and industry infrastructure – learning opportunities in business leadership, innovation management and technical development to refine and improve your business’ capabilities.

We are interested in applications from late-stage startups (seed to series A), which are developing innovative solutions in clean energy or climate tech.

Our focus is on technology and innovations that help deliver the government commitment to clean power for the UK and accelerate to net zero. This includes solutions that make a significant contribution to mitigating climate emissions across energy, mobility, industry and agriculture.

Funding will be through our investor partnerships programme – so in order to apply, first you need to have gained traction with at least one of the Investor Partners on the Innovate UK Investor Partner list.You must identify your investor partner in your application, so please ensure your investor partner is aware and in full support of the application.

We will ask investor partners for validation of that support for your application through an Expression of Interest to confirm how the grant funding will impact on the proposed investment and the current stage of completion.

Note, the funding process will be on a competitive basis, so not all eligible applicants will secure funding.

* Subject to terms and conditions and meeting of criteria as set out when you apply. All grants are subject to meeting criteria, terms and conditions and continued compliance throughout the process.

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

We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.

You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

The eligibility criteria will depend 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 24 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 24 months

For feasibility studies and industrial research, up to 70% of costs can be covered by grant funding, depending on business size. For experimental development the maximum is 45%.

The aligned investment led by the investor partner must always be at least twice as much as the grant funding (this investment does not have to directly cover the project costs).

This round will focus on technology and innovations that aim to deliver government commitment to clean energy for the UK and accelerating to net zero, helping the UK to prosper from the transition to net zero. This includes solutions and enabling technologies that make a significant contribution to mitigating climate emissions, across heat, power, mobility, manufacturing, materials, agriculture and food production systems.

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:

• from regions that have historically accessed lower levels of investment (outside London, Oxford and Cambridge)
• ethnic minority groups
• women and other marginalised genders
• people with disabilities
• people with non-traditional education backgrounds

Your project must focus on technology and innovations that aim to deliver government commitment to clean energy for the UK and accelerating to net zero, helping the UK to prosper from the transition to net zero. This includes solutions and enabling technologies that make a significant contribution to mitigating climate emissions, across heat, power, mobility, manufacturing, materials, agriculture and food production systems.

Clean Energy Solutions

Innovations that are low cost, improve energy security and reduce emissions.

Sustainable Mobility

Technologies that reduce emissions across all forms of mobility.

Sustainable Low-Carbon Materials and Manufacturing

Innovations that foster sustainable growth across industrial processes and supply chains.

Sustainable Agriculture and Food Production Systems

Novel low emission production systems.

For examples of these focus areas, visit the IFS page.

Innovate UK provide support for your investment readiness and for engaging with suitable investors via Innovate UK Business Growth and Innovate UK Business Connect.

In the first instance you should contact Innovate UK Business Growth for support in understanding your readiness for investment and also to look at your wider strategy for growth.

You should also contact Innovate UK Business Connect to establish if there are specific programmes for connecting businesses in your sector to relevant investors. Support and connections to sector specific investors may also be provided by the relevant catapult centre.

You will need to establish a relationship and a level of investment traction with one of our approved investor partners before you apply for funding.

In practice the investor partner must confirm that you can apply and must therefore have confirmed with you that they have a serious interest in investing in your business.

Examples of sufficient investment traction will depend on the approach taken by the investor partner and could include:

• Indicative offer from an investor partner which could include from an angel investor from an investor partner angel group or network
• Going through due diligence with an investor partner
• Received a term sheet from an interested investor partner

A full list of selected investor partners is provided at Innovate UK Investor Partners – UKRI and Innovate UK Business Connect investor partnerships websites.

An online briefing event was held on Wednesday 7 May.

Watch the event recording here.

Download the briefing slides.

If you need more information about how to apply or you want to submit your application in Welsh, email support@iuk.ukri.org or call 0300 321 4357.

Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).