The GrantGPT Hive

Welcome to the 1st edition of The GrantGPT Hive, your monthly dose of grant gems! This month, we've got a treasure trove of opportunities to fuel your innovation, including:

1. Hottest Grant: EIT Manufacturing Venture Building Programme – Deadline Jan 15, 2025.

2. Brain Food: "Rethinking grants: Why smart startups rely on a sustainable funding strategy." 

3. Quick Win: TRL assessment tool for startups (on page 3)

4. Event Pick: Innovation Fund 2024 Call and Battery Info Day

5. Startup Story: How DataMonkey got > €100k from the Reach Incubator (short interview with Irene from DataMonkey)

In this month's interview, we chat with Irene from DataMonkey, a Berlin startup that secured funding from the Reach Incubator:

How did you discover this grant opportunity and decide to go for it?

Irene: We found it on the platform f6s.com and felt it could be a good fit, with a close connection to urban mobility, public transport and data science, where we had our background in already

How did you tackle the grant process?

Irene: It was a standardised application process, and we actually put in quite some effort, both myself and my co-founder/CTO for the technical chapters. The REACH program was split into 3 phases: 40 teams got selected into phase 1, and at the end of phase 1, all 40 teams had to do a business & a technical pitch; 10 out of those got into phase 2 (again with a business & tech pitch at the end of the phase); 6 out of those got into phase 3 (we were selected as one of those 6 final teams).

So the structure was probably a bit different than many other programs, and phase 1 wasn’t that exciting yet (it just gave 5k€ grant; while phase 2 gave 80k€ and phase 3 15k€)

What were your learnings about yourself, your startup and the funding opportunity?

Irene: It was pretty game-changing for us, since in total we got over 100k€ equity-free funding (they also covered some travel expenses on top of that), and since we’re a small team, we get quite far with such an amount. But it actually also heavily boosted our confidence, because some of the other teams were really, really impressive (especially among the top 10 and top 6), and being selected as a team who can keep up with them, gave us quite some confidence beyond the money itself.

What advice would you give to fellow founders?

Irene: Public funding is - from my point of view - an underestimated way of running/developing your company, without giving away equity right in the beginning. It doesn’t come easy - it’s hard to find the right programs, and the application can be quite some effort. However, getting into the right programs that actually fit well to what you’re doing can be a really smart way e.g. to bootstrap your company (and then e.g. raise from investors at better conditions in a later phase).

Thank you for your insights, dear Irene!

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Cheers,
Your GrantGPT team