GrantHero

Grant funding for AI and digital companies

AI, software, data, cyber, quantum and semiconductors. The technology is yours; the funding side is ours, which calls actually fit a software company, how to evidence novelty when the code is the IP, and how to position for an assessor who has seen a thousand “AI-powered platforms”. We’ll tell you honestly where you stand before you commit a day to it.

Find AI and digital grants
“It was the first time we've used assistance for an application, and the first time we've been successful. Mark quickly ‘got it’, he guided our knowledge and narrative into a form that would match the shape of requirements for an assessor.”
Peter Griffin
AVIEL Technologies · Investor Partnerships
Funders backing AI and digital Innovate UK EIC Eurostars ARIA

Where we work

Across AI and digital, from model to market

  • Frontier AI and compute
  • Cyber security
  • Quantum technologies
  • Semiconductors
  • Advanced connectivity
  • Engineering biology and bio-data
  • Robotics and autonomy
  • Photonics and sensing

Open now

Find the AI and digital grants you could win today

These AI and digital competitions are open now, closing soonest first. Sign up free and add your website, and we read what you do, score each one against it, and tell you which are worth your time, and which aren't.

ARIA Closes 31 Oct 2026

Safeguarded AI: Cybersecurity – Rolling applications

This £20m funding call seeks to test and accelerate the hypothesis that AI-enabled formal methods can make high-assurance cyber defence practical at scale. We're...

£2.5m to £3.5m · 100% funded

ARIA Closes 31 Oct 2026

Scaling Trust: Tracks 2+3 – Rolling applications

This £49.8m programme seeks to build tools for agents to securely interact with one another in untrusted environments while respecting the preferences of their users....

£100k to £3m · 100% funded

EIT Health Closes 02 Nov 2026

Summer Schools and Certified Innovation Path Residentials Call

Help shape the next generation of healthcare innovators!

Up to €210k · 50% funded

Innovate UK Closes 11 Nov 2026

Frontier AI: SME Champions, phase 1

UK registered SME’s can apply for a share of up to £3.1 million to deliver feasibility studies for frontier artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML)...

£105k to £175k · 70% funded

Programmes that fit

The programmes that come round every year

Most of the calls above come from a few large, recurring programmes. Worth knowing by name: they reopen on a cycle, and each one is looking for something specific.

01 Innovate UK

BridgeAI

Funding and support to apply AI in sectors that are behind the curve, agriculture, construction, creative, transport. Assessors want a named end-user and an adoption story, not a model benchmark.

Typical award
£50k to £500k
Best for
AI applied to a specific sector
02 ARIA

ARIA programmes

The UK's high-risk, high-reward research agency. Opportunity-driven calls on named programmes, from AI safety to new compute paradigms, that fund ambitious, early-stage work most funders won't touch. Small teams and unconventional ideas welcome.

Typical award
£100k to £2m+
Best for
Ambitious research with real uncertainty
03 EIC

EIC Accelerator

European deep-tech scale-up funding, grant plus optional equity, open to UK companies. Strong fit for quantum, semiconductor and frontier-AI companies at first-product stage with a bold market claim.

Typical award
Up to €2.5m + equity
Best for
Deep tech at first-product stage

What assessors actually score

Technologists and economists mark these. Write for them.

Digital bids lose marks in predictable places. Our AI Assessor scores every answer against the real criteria, and a bid-writer who has sat on the other side tells you where it's still thin.

  1. 1
    Why this is R&D, not product development
    Assessors see a lot of software. Name the technical uncertainty, why it isn't solved, and what you'll know at the end that you don't now.
  2. 2
    Novelty against the state of the art
    What exists, named, with limits, and exactly how yours differs. “No one else is doing this” is read as “we didn't look”.
  3. 3
    Data, and the right to use it
    Where training and validation data comes from, who owns it, and how you handle privacy and bias. Missing this is a common fail.
  4. 4
    A commercial route beyond a pilot
    Who the paying customer is, what they pay today, and why they switch. A lighthouse pilot alone doesn't score.

Relevant wins

AI and digital companies we've backed

All customer stories
AVIEL Technologies
An Innovate UK grant paired with an equity round, funded at 79% on a second application.
Investor Partnerships Read story ↗
Surrey Cyber Security Cluster
Guiding a regional cyber cluster and its members through the grant process, with confidence.
Innovate UK Testimonial
Sagittal AI
A grant application filled out with a lot less effort, structure and output the founder called great.
Innovate UK Testimonial