Investor Partnerships in health technologies, West Yorkshire: 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 study 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 support for your 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

Your project must help to grow your innovation activities in the health technology cluster in West Yorkshire, both during and after your 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 Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, this Launchpad’s cluster management organisation

Your application may be considered ineligible if you do not describe clearly how your main project activities and work packages meet the scope of this competition. This includes the main project activities of any subcontractors. If you do not describe how your activities in the cluster will continue after your project then you are unlikely to be offered funding in this competition.

Your project must focus on human health technology innovation. You can address any human health challenges that include, but are not limited to:

• overcoming health inequalities
• global net zero challenges in healthcare
• major health conditions
• the prevention of disease
• earlier and better detection and diagnosis of disease
• other challenges that can be tackled with health technologies

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

• medical devices
• diagnostics, including In-Vitro Diagnostics (IVD)
• digital health, including data driven health technologies and artificial intelligence (AI)

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 health technology SME, contact our health team.