How AVIEL paired an Innovate UK grant with its equity round

A funded round, and a grant that could stretch it

AVIEL builds cybersecurity and AI technology, and had Osney Capital ready to invest. Investor Partnerships exists for exactly that moment: Innovate UK co-funds the R&D an investor is already backing, so the round goes further.

The team had applied for a grant once before, unaided, and scored 53%, about where most first bids land in a process that funds roughly one in ten. The technology and the story were there. What a second application needed was the narrative shaped to what assessors actually score.

Shape the case to the assessor, and to the investor

1. 1

   Read the first bid before writing a word

   GrantHero

   We started from the earlier application and its feedback. The diagnosis was clear and common: strong substance, organised around the company rather than around the scored questions.

2. 2

   Guided the narrative into the shape assessors expect

   GrantHero

   Mark drafted with the team, a sharper statement of need, novelty that was evidenced rather than asserted, a credible route to market, and the impact framed in the funder’s terms.

3. 3

   Made grant and equity read as one plan

   GrantHero

   Investor Partnerships turns on additionality: showing that public and private money together do more than either alone. We worked with AVIEL and Osney on the investor side so the grant and the aligned investment told a single, coherent story.

Funded at 79.3%

The application scored 79.3% and was funded, adding £300,000 of grant to Osney Capital’s investment in the project.

We don’t claim the assessor’s decision. But the same team and the same technology went from 53% to 79% between two applications, the difference was how the case was made, and that’s the part that can be repeated.