Grant Funding for Founders: How to Find It, Apply for It and Actually Win It
A Businettes Academy recap with Zoe Robson of Joyvié and Claudia Radu of Circe
50 applications, 5 wins and £120,000 raised without giving away a single percentage point of equity.
That's the numbers game Claudia Radu, co-founder of Circe, has been playing for the past year, and in our latest Businettes Academy session she sat down with Zoe Robson, founder of Joyvié, to walk through how grant funding actually works for early-stage founders in the UK.
Circe is the UK's first social therapy platform, connecting people to therapist-led online group sessions.
Joyvié is developing patent-pending faecal incontinence underwear, a medtech product born out of Zoe watching her father's end-of-life care fall short. Zoe has also closed an £800,000 pre-seed round and won around £250,000 in Innovate UK grants, so together they have a genuinely full picture of what grant funding looks like at different stages.
Why Grants Beat Equity in the Early Days
Claudia spent the first part of her career around angels and VCs, and she's clear that grant funding gets dismissed too quickly.
"Equity, when you don't have any cash, is the one chip you have to trade. If your plan is to raise a pre-seed, then seed, then Series A, you really want to hold on to as much of that equity as possible. It's your bargaining chip, and don't give it away like it means nothing."
Her caveat: if you're raising a large round, grants alone won't get you there. But for the zero-to-one stage, working out who your customer is and how you reach them, grants let you keep full ownership while you figure it out.
Where to Actually Find the Money
Claudia's top recommendation is Considered Capital, a live funding database that costs around £70 a quarter.
"The ROI for it has been basically like a thousand X, given how much we've gotten back from it."
Zoe runs a Claude agent that trawls for new listings once a month and subscribes to the Innovate UK newsletter, and still misses grants regularly, which she's made peace with.
Attendees added their own finds in the chat: Manchester Central Library gives free access to a Grant Finder tool, and a newer platform called grantmatchr.com matches founders to funding by region, size and category.
How to Apply Without Losing a Week to It
Claudia runs a priority matrix, weighing how much money is on offer against how likely she is to win it. Anything low-value or low-probability gets 5 to 10 minutes on the form, no more. The trick that makes that possible is reusing material: an FAQ document banking every answer Circe has ever written, and every video filmed in the same spot in the house so clips can be cut and reassembled rather than reshot.
"You'll realise over time they all ask pretty much the exact same questions, but with a little twist. Don't start from scratch, build and tweak what you already have."
Zoe's starting point is simple: make sure you're actually in scope before you write a word, and use Claude to tighten the writing rather than generate it wholesale, as you’ll sound like everybody else.
"Assessors can spot very quickly where Claude, Gemini or ChatGPT has been used. If you win, you have to deliver that project, so don't create one just to fill the grant if it's not aligned with your strategy."
What Assessors Are Actually Looking For
For Innovate UK, Zoe said the first question on any application sets the tone for everything after it, and it should frame the problem in economic, social and environmental terms.
"INSTEAD OF SAYING LOTS OF PEOPLE SUFFER FROM FAECAL INCONTINENCE, its 16.9% of UK adults suffer AND THIS IS THE IMPACT TO SOCIETY AND THE ECONOMY. THE NARRATIVE SHOULD BE OBJECTIVE AND FACTUAL, BUT IN PLAIN ENGLISH."
Claudia's advice runs parallel: read the funder's own materials, work out what they actually care about, and cut everything that isn't that. She goes a step further and researches the assessment panel itself on LinkedIn and podcasts, then tailors the pitch to who's actually reading it. When Circe applied to a grant reviewed by a panel of engineers, they rewrote the entire application to focus purely on their AI-enabled matching algorithm rather than their usual underserved-market framing.
"If you try to explain how you do healthcare, but you're also environmentally sustainable, and you also do this and that, forget it. Only focus on what that specific grant wants out of you."
Winning Is Only Half the Story, and Luck Plays a Part
The admin after you win varies wildly. Circe had to pay 50% of one grant upfront themselves and claim it back, while Good Tech Ventures handed over £7,500 with no strings attached. Innovate UK assigns a monitoring officer for the life of the project, with quarterly updates and time tracking expected throughout. Sometimes the real value isn't the cash at all. A small grant from LSE Generate came with ten coaching sessions from a venture scout plugged into the angel and syndicate world.
"With that grant specifically, the warm introductions and the free labour were significantly more worth it."
Quick Answers From the Q&A
Paying yourself through a grant: Yes, and Innovate UK actively prefers it, with a realistic PAYE salary encouraged for your technical lead or project manager.
Co-founders based outside the UK: Everyone generally needs to be UK-based for Innovate UK, though a PAYE arrangement through a UK-registered company can work. Smaller grants often care more about where the business is registered than where the founders live.
Where points get lost: The risk register and the detailed project plan, both tedious, both heavily weighted. Winning scores now sit around 82 to 90%.
About Zoe Robson
Zoe Robson is founder and CEO of Joyvié, a medtech company developing patent-pending faecal incontinence underwear.
About Claudia Radu
Claudia Radu is co-founder of Circe, the UK's first social therapy platform connecting people to therapist-led online group therapy.
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