Grants for small businesses – and how to apply

Whether you’re a small business owner or an aspiring entrepreneur who plans to start a business, a cash injection is never a bad thing.

Especially in these tough times, with the current permacrisis, increasing rates of inflation, and the ‘survival mode’ small businesses are having to struggle through today. A business grant could be the thing that kick-starts or revives your business – by helping you purchase the tools and equipment you need to reach new heights, or simply as the crucial backing to achieve your business goals.

In spite of everything, there are still countless schemes out there to apply for right now, if you know where to look. In this article, we’re going to give you an overview of the grants that could work for your business, and what you can do to potentially get your hands on them.

What is a small business grant?

Small business grants are essentially a non-repayable amount of money that is afforded to entrepreneurs and small business owners by the government or a private organisation. The cash awards are different to business loans in the sense that you often won’t have to pay interest on the loan, give away equity, or even pay it back at all (though most are still subject to tax).

With this money you can invest in education, materials, employees, training or equipment – all things you need to ensure your systems are operating at their best capacity.

There are a few types of small business grants available:

1. Direct grants are a cash award usually given to a business to support an initiative. They can range from a few hundred pounds, to as much as £50,000. As long as the funds meet spending and timeline requirements, you won’t have to repay them. Instead, investors will typically take a stake in the business.

2. Resource and training grants come in the form of tax reliefs, helping you to maximise your profit margins. For example, The Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) help firms raise finance by offering tax relief to their investors.

3. Soft loans are not technically grants as they need to be paid back. However, they often include more generous repayment terms. Examples of soft loan providers include the Start Up Loans Company, which offers business loans of up to £25,000 with a 12-month repayment holiday.

Business grants for women

For years, the gender funding gap has created barriers for women seeking to access finance for their business venture. In 2023, we discovered that male entrepreneurs received, on average, six times the amount of funding that female business owners were able to raise.

In light of this disparity, a number of organisations have started to offer female-specific grants to help women gain a leg up in the venture capital landscape. We’ve highlighted six of them below:

• ‘Women in Innovation’ Awards 20234/2025

Innovate UK is offering around fifty women within UK registered micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) up to £75,000. Applications close on Wednesday 10 July 2024.

• Get It Made

Manufacturing specialist Get It Made is offering a £5,000 grant specifically for female engineers in enterprises with fewer than ten employees. Applications are open until Wednesday 31 July 2024.

• Global Fund For Women

This fund is open to applications all-year round, and provides flexible cash grants to organisations that are led by groups of women and trans people who are committed to advancing gender equality.

• Abie Awards

The Technical Leadership Abie Award celebrates a woman or non-binary technologist who has helped to bring a socially-positive innovation to life. The winner will receive $50,000 (around £39,000). Applications are closed for 2024 but typically re-open at the start of the year.

• Female Founders Fund

Female Founders Fund is a seed stage venture fund that invests exclusively in women founders. It accepts applications all year-round. Interested entrepreneurs should submit their pitch to ‘press@femalefoundersfund.com‘.

• Techstart Female Founders

This initiative aims to support innovative business ideas from female entrepreneurs based in Northern Ireland. The grant competition offers a £175,000 prize pool, with five winners set to share the Techstart funding. Applications will open in March 2025.

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• Support groups and resources for female entrepreneurs
• Grants and resources for female entrepreneurs.

Business grants for young people

The UK is home to some extraordinary young entrepreneur talent and their appetite for starting a business is catching. Research has shown that 71% of 16-25 year olds in the UK want to work as a freelancer, with the majority citing a desire to “be their own boss” as their main motivation. Here are the top small business grants available for under 30s:

• The Prince’s Trust Enterprise Programme

The Prince’s Trust’s Enterprise programme has helped over 90,000 young people aged between 18 and 30 to fastrack their business. It includes business lessons, workshops, and a bespoke mentorship, plus enables entrants to apply for a £5,000 Start Up grant (non-repayable) and a Start Up Loan of between £500 and £25,000 (repayable).

• Test My Business Idea grant

Also from The Prince’s Trust, the Test My Business Idea grant is available to all entrepreneurs aged between 18 and 30. It provides £500 to R&D projects and should be used for early-stage product or service testing. (You will need to have completed The Prince’s Trust Explore Enterprise course to apply for the grant).

• Samsung ‘Solve For Tomorrow’ competition

Solve For Tomorrow is open to young tech entrepreneurs aged between 16 and 25 who are hoping to launch solutions that solve four social problems: access to education, sustainability, social isolation, and diversity and inclusion. The 2024/25 iteration will open in January 2025.

Business grants for social entrepreneurs

Grant programmes are often targeted towards socially impactful businesses that promise to tackle society’s biggest issues. Here are just a few of the grants open to social impact startups:

• Big Issue Invest Impact Loans

The investment arm of the Big Issue) is offering soft loans worth between £20k and £200k to social enterprises and charities based in England (some loans are also available to firms based in Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland). Business owners can register interest online.

• Big Issue Invest Power Up London Accelerator Programme

This accelerator provides 20 participants with four months of business courses, mentoring, and training, as well as the opportunity to win £20,000 at the end of the programme. Companies with a net income of less than £500,000 a year can apply online. Applications open at the start of 2025.

• Big Issue Invest Impact Fund

This fund is offering soft loans worth between £50,000 and £1m to socially-driven entrepreneurs, and ‘participation loans’ (where repayment is linked to the future performance of the enterprise). Entries are accepted all year-round.

• Big Issue Invest Social Impact Debt Fund IV

Launched in September 2023, this fund is aimed at companies which are tackling the housing crisis and the social care crisis. Eligible businesses can apply online for grants worth between £1m and £4m.

• UnLtd Starting Up award

Supporting socially-conscious entrepreneurs (a common trait among young founders), UnLtd’s Starting Up award offers up to £8,000 to social impact startups. Business entrants must have been founded in the last 12 months. Applications are reviewed in batches, with the new round of entries opening on July 1 2024.

• UnLtd Scaling Up award

This prize is also for socially-conscious entrepreneurs. It awards £18,000 to social impact startups that have been trading for less than four years.  Applications are reviewed in batches, with the new round of entries opening on July 1 2024.

Business grants for unemployed entrepreneurs

The government’s leading programme for unemployed people looking to start a business was the New Enterprise Allowance. Sadly, this scheme came to an end in January 2022. No further support hasyet been announced in its place, but there is still one route that the unemployed can use to fund their dream idea:

• Prince’s Trust Enterprise Programme

If you’re aged 18 to 30, you might be eligible for a grant from the Prince’s Trust, which offers financial help to young entrepreneurs who are either unemployed with limited means or are working less than 16 hours per week.

Business grants for people of colour

Research has shown that the majority of Black business owners in the UK don’t trust traditional lenders, a sentiment that is shared by many other non-white founders, thanks to racial inequalities when it comes to accessing funding. Here are some non-traditional routes that people of colour can take to fund their business:

• The Black Business Network

The network offers grants of up to £50,000 as well as developmental support and a support hub, powered by Lloyds Bank. Charities and social enterprises are able to apply for the money, which will be awarded to successful applicants over two years.

• The Black Funding Network

Applications for the networks’ Fall 2024 Funder are now open. Small non-profit Black-led community organisations are able to apply for the funding event on 24th September, where they will be able to pitch directly to investors. Submissions are accepted until the deadline on 6 August 2024.

• The Black Artists Grant

A no-strings attached fund for Black artists to spend on anything from creative materials to marketing and outreach. Successful applicants will receive £500. Entries are accepted throughout the year.

• Key Fund

Key Fund offers loans and grants of between £5,000 and £300,000 to social enterprises in deprived communities across the UK. Entrepreneurs can apply online at any time in the year.

Grants for LGBTQIA+ people

In 2021, 46% of LGBTQ-owned UK businesses said they didn’t receive any of the financing they had applied to in 2021. This funding gap contributes to LGBTQ voices being silenced in the business world. Here are three funding grants designed to amplify them:

• Consortium Bi Fund

This small business grants programme caters for Bi-led organisations across the UK that are doing work specifically for and with bi communities. In a total pot of £5,000, each business will receive a community grant of up to £250.

• Consortium LGBT+ Futures: Equity Fund

Funded by the National Lottery, this pot is for user-led LGBT+ organisations based in England. In a total pot of £500,000, businesses will receive between £100 and £25,000 for organisational running costs and business development. Applications are open until 12 November 2024.

• Global Fund For Women

This fund is open to applications all-year round, and provides flexible cash grants to organisations that are led by groups of women and trans people who are committed to advancing gender equality.

Grant schemes by authority

The main government organisations which offer grants to small businesses are:

• Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
• Department for Education
• Department of Transport
• Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

UK businesses can find a comprehensive list of grants available using the government’s ‘business finance support finder’ tool, which allows you to select specific funding options and search for grants by your business location, size, and type of business activity.

Local authority business grants

Local authorities, agencies and organisations can also offer capital to your startup as they aim to support and encourage enterprise in their local areas.

Set up by The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are a prime example. LEPs are voluntary partnerships between local authorities and businesses in the region, with funds delegated by central government.

There are currently 38 LEPs at work across England with the goal of fuelling growth and enterprise at a local level, including in Liverpool, London, Sheffield, and Cumbria. Check out this map to find out where England’s LEPs are.

Business grants for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

If you’re operating a business in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, you might want to narrow down your search to grants offered specifically to businesses in those countries.

Business grants in Northern Ireland

There are a variety of grants on offer to Northern Irish businesses. These include:

• TechStart offers companies in the R&D stages up to £10,000 (Concept Grant) or up to £35,000 (Concept Plus Grant)
• Growth Loan Fund II: offers loans worth between £100k and £500k to fund growth for early-stage ventures
• Growth Finance Fund: offers commercial loans of between £500k and £2m to fund growth for early-stage ventures
• Skills Advancement Grant: small firms who are customers of Invest NI can apply for a 50% discount on employee training costs up to £15,000
• IFNI: is an investments fund targeting up to £5 million in equity loans for early-stage and growth businesses
• NI Small Business Loan Fund: offers up to £100k for existing businesses (and up to £15k for startups)
• From Student to First sale (FS2FS): a £15,000 grant for graduates with a viable business idea

Enterprise Ireland is the government agency in Ireland responsible for supporting Irish businesses in the manufacturing and internationally traded services. A range of grant support can be found here, where you can search for grants by your stage of business development. You can also visit NI Direct’s business support page for more.

Business grants in Scotland

There are a number of national business grants available for Scottish-based startups and SMEs, including:

• Culture & Business Fund Scotland: offering between £1,000 to £14,000 match funding for arts and heritage organisations based in Scotland
• Regional Selective Asssistance or RSA: a minimum grant of £100,000 aimed at enabling job creation in Scotland
• SMART: SCOTLAND: an R&D focused fund aimed at innovative, high-risk startups. Up to £100,000 is available
• Scottish EDGE: competition offering grants and loans from £10,000 to £100,000 to startups, social enterprises and charities. Opens 14 August 2024

Depending on where in Scotland you’re based, you may be able to apply for grants offered by Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, as well as your local council. Scottish Development International are also an option as they aim to help more businesses from around the world do business in or with Scotland. Search the Scottish government website, or check out our list of the business grants available in Scotland.

Business grants in Wales

Welsh business owners can choose from a range of business grants aimed at supporting businesses from Cardiff to Bangor. They are:

• ARFOR Fund offers grants of £5,000-7,000 for firms in Anglesey, Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire. The money should be put towards projects that strengthen the Welsh language.
• Wales Tourism Investment Fund (WTIF) offers £100,000 to £5,000,000 in blended grants and loans to firms that cater to tourists, such as hospitality and retail firms.
• ReAct+ offers up to £6,000, paid out in quarterly instalments, to companies that recruit a new employee who was previously made redundant.

The Welsh government offers a guide to financial help and grants on its site, with Business Wales being the main support service for entrepreneurs looking to raise funding. Try searching Business Wales’ finance locator to find one that’s right for you, or get an overview of the options available in our guide to business grants in Wales.

How to apply for a business grant

Each grant will have a different application process, with different entry criteria and requirements to fulfil and different processes to follow. But, as with most potential business opportunities, the reward is worth the effort.

First, you’ll have to do some in-depth research and find the grant that best fits your business before you start sending applications. You don’t want to apply for a scheme you’re simply not suited to or eligible for because that may prove a waste of time.

Once you’ve found a grant you think your small business is eligible for, you can begin the process of trying to obtain it.

For your best shot during the application process, make sure you have a:

• Thorough, up to date business plan
• Clear spending plan
• Previous company accounts (available to download from your accounting software)
• Outline of why your business qualifies for the small business grant

After you’ve submitted your application, it’s a waiting game to see if you have been successful. Some organisations can take months to review a submission, others can resolve the entry in days. The general rule of thumb is that the more localised the awarding body is to you, the faster you’re likely to get a result.

Top tips for applying for a business grant

There are a few things you can do to shoot past the competition and give yourself the best possible chance of winning your chosen grant, especially if you’re determined and organised as you manage all the different elements, stakeholder connections and timelines (a good project management software will be useful to you here). Here are our top tips:

1. Apply as soon as possible. Make sure you’re continually keeping an eye on this page for any updates on when a grant is live.

2. Contact someone at the awarding body for personalised advice and in case anything goes wrong with your application.

3. Consider a grant consultant who can help you track down the grants best suited to you (although some bodies won’t let a third-party apply for you, so make sure you check this first)

4. Pay close attention to the grant’s objectives and be clear on how you will use the money to fulfil these specific objectives.

5. Be honest. If you need to bend the facts about your business to fit with the grant’s criteria, it’s not the right grant for you.

*The information in this article is correct as of June 2024.