There is startup grant money small business grants and by far the biggest programs I'm aware of are the SBIR and STTR programs which provide tech startup grants. Many U.S. government agencies provide grants, including USDA, Department of Defense (DOD) including Army, Navy, Air Force, DARPA, and the Missile Defense Agency.
More than $2.5 billion in SBIR grants and more than $300 million in STTR grants are awarded each year. SBIR/STTR provides R&D grants research and development grants.
There are SBIR Phase 1 and STTR Phase 1 grants that are typically $100,000 to $200,000. SBIR Phase 2 and STTR Phase 2 grants are typically from $750,000 to $1.5 million.
Grant funding as a startup funding strategy has a huge benefit: it is nondilutive funding. With grants, your startup is not taking on debt, and is not selling stock.
Although some agencies use a "contract" model and other agencies use a "grant" model, SBIR and STTR are R&D grants startup funding (startup grants) that are nondilutive seed funding and even preseed funding to support early stage research and development. There are few startup grant programs for forprofit companies, but SBIR and STTR provide almost $3 billion in small business grants each year.
The SBIR/STTR program are early stage funding seed funding or even preseed funding.
This is an introduction to a series of videos on SBIRSTTR that were recorded at the 2018 SBIRSTTR Road Tour, featuring presentations for SBIR executives from the SBA, DOD SBIR, DARPA SBIR, USDA SBIR NASA SBIR, NSF SBIR, DOE SBIR , Navy SBIR and more.