Funding for builders
Grants, credits, government R&D money, accelerators and venture funds, filtered by what you can actually get. Most directories publish the headline number and hide the fact that it needs VC backing.
What do you need
Sector-agnostic pre-seed cohort of two to three founders building breakthrough technology, investing up to $1M as equity or a convertible note over three months.
12 months in the Paris studio with an idea, a co-founder and a squad found for you, funded with 700,000 euros for 33.33% at incorporation. Roughly 12 founders a year get in.
Three-month in-person batch in San Francisco; YC invests $500,000 in two safes, $125,000 of it for a fixed 7%.
A free eight-week residency in San Francisco for non-US founders at the pre-idea or pre-team stage; selected teams receive $125,000 for 8% plus an optional $125,000 MFN SAFE.
$250,000 on a no-cap no-discount MFN SAFE for AI-native product startups, plus $600,000 in Azure and partner credits.
INR 360,000 Talent Investment stipend during team formation, then $125,000 on a post-money SAFE for 8%; 24 weeks split between Bangalore and San Francisco.
£6,000 Talent Investment stipend during team formation, then $125,000 on a post-money SAFE for 8%; 24 weeks split between London and San Francisco.
Three-month online programme to find a co-founder and build an MVP, paid for by the participant (EUR 1,000+VAT); top teams can pitch for a convertible investment up to EUR 100,000.
A three-month San Francisco residency with a $10,000 equity-free grant, housing and workspace for individuals exploring what to build; fellows can later pitch for up to $250,000 in investment.
Up to $5,000 in Lambda cloud credits for qualifying AI researchers to run work on Lambda Instances, with select research featured on Lambda's site.
$1,000 a month per chapter, no strings attached and no ownership claimed, open to individuals, groups and organizations through a single shared application form.
$100 to $1,000 for a solo builder's bill of materials, open to anyone of any age anywhere in the world, roughly ten days from application to funded.
Up to 18 months funded to form a science company in agriculture, climate, computation or pharma, working on opportunity areas DSV has already scoped. No stipend or equity figure is published.
Co-found a company from scratch with Founders Factory: pre-seed capital, a dedicated build team and access to its corporate partners. No amount or equity figure is published.
Start a company as CEO alongside the PSL studio team in Seattle, paid from day one, through validation to a funded spinout. No salary or equity figure is published.
Co-found a B2B SaaS company with the High Alpha studio: initial funding plus product, brand and go-to-market work, in exchange for equity. No amount or percentage is published.
Co-found a company with Atomic on a salary, equity and benefits package, backed by its $320M fund. Applications are open to individuals with or without an idea, and 10 to 15 founders are taken a year.
Free 30-day residential deep-tech residency in Bengaluru for 14 builders. Housing, meals, workspace, a hardware lab, over $30,000 in AI and cloud credits per person and a need-based ₹20,000 stipend. No fee and no equity.
Free compute on fal for researchers and developers working on open source AI projects. No published amount, no application form: you email grants@fal.ai with the project.
Cash grants, compute credits and follow-on support for existing Forge builders with a specific immediate use. No award amount is published and Forge takes no equity.
Free 22-day residency in Mandrem, Goa for 12 to 14 technical founders, with housing, meals, mentors, compute support and Demo Day covered. Applications close September 15, 2026.
Non-dilutive grants for open source maintainers, researchers and public-goods builders working on open AGI, with rolling applications and no fixed deadline.
A 15-day online AI build sprint for 50 individuals, with Codex workshops, AWS compute credits, Dodo payment credits, office hours and an in-person Demo Day in Bengaluru.
A stipend covering living expenses for 6 to 12 months so an open source maintainer can work full time on their project; no equity, no company required, work from anywhere.
Fast retroactive grants of 1-5 ETH for projects already live on Base; the Base team finds recipients through its own discovery process and community nominations rather than an application form.
A weekly 2 ETH pool distributed to active Base builders based on what they actually shipped that week, with no proposal and no minimum project size.
Rolling milestone-based grants for public goods on Solana; no grant size is published, and applications are reviewed continuously.
$500,000 to $5 million as the first check for technical enterprise founders, often before incorporation, product or a pitch deck.
Twelve-week in-person accelerator investing $500,000 to $2 million in about 20 pre-seed companies, plus more than $1 million in available cloud credits.
$500,000 to $2 million or more for software companies raising their first institutional round, open worldwide from idea stage onward.
Three-month hybrid pre-seed programme for Indian and Indian-origin AI founders, investing up to $1M-$2M as equity or a convertible note alongside Google's AI Futures Fund, plus up to $350,000 in Google compute credits.
$500,000 to $1.5 million at pre-seed or seed for companies powered by visual technology, computer vision and AI in North America, Europe and Israel.
Twelve weeks in person in San Francisco; $500K for 10% upfront on a SAFE plus a further $500K committed to the next round within 18 months.
500,000 euros as your first cheque, split across two convertible notes, for pre-seed teams that already have an idea and fit one of Hexa's verticals.
$250,000 to $500,000 in pre-seed and seed rounds of at least $500,000, primarily for North American companies still finding product-market fit.
$400K upfront for 7% on a standard SAFE plus $600K guaranteed in the next external round; eight-week in-person bootcamp then open-ended residency.
A 12-week in-person London accelerator for eight teams building the Machine Economy; $300,000 per team for equity plus a future token allocation, with up to $1M in follow-on.
Up to $250,000 for 4% to 7% equity, plus a desk and builder support at the Founders, Inc. campus in San Francisco.
$250K on an uncapped, no-discount MFN SAFE plus a large compute credits package; Conviction publishes no equity percentage, so the stake is unknown.
$200,000 on a post-money SAFE for roughly 6%, with no program fee. A three-month on-site accelerator for 20 to 25 pre-seed and seed companies across San Francisco, New York and London. Applications close 4 October 2026.
Convertible investment up to EUR 150,000 for B2B fintech, insurtech and regtech teams (EUR 120K cash plus EUR 30K programme), with a EUR 250,000 follow-on possibility.
Convertible investment up to EUR 100,000 against a EUR 35,000 programme service fee, plus a EUR 250,000 follow-on opportunity; 14-week hybrid programme.
$50,000 for frontier-technology founders who are too early to raise a full pre-seed round.
A five-week, full-time residency in Bristol for 16 early-stage founders, with a $10,000 scholarship and housing included. Applications close September 20, 2026.
12 months on Cartesia's Scale tier, worth over $8,000: 8M Sonic and Ink credits a month plus $300 a month in agent credits. Open to any stage.
A four-month cohort program with a cash investment, run separately for each corporate partner. The cheque, the sector and the deadline are set per program, so read the one you are applying to.
Equity investments starting at $100,000 for AI startups from pre-seed through Series A, plus Anthropic credits and direct access to the Menlo and Anthropic teams.
Rolling milestone-based convertible grants for public goods that have a commercial component; no amount or conversion terms are published.
Pays open source maintainers, community managers and technical writers directly as freelance contractors for 3 to 12 months at 6 to 32 hours a week; hourly rate negotiated, not published.
33 million characters of ElevenLabs usage over 12 months for startups with under 25 employees, in exchange for displaying an ElevenLabs Grants logo for twelve months.
Amounts are shown as the funder states them, and credits are labelled separately from cash so the two never sort against each other. Where a funder doesn't publish a requirement we leave it unverified rather than assuming it's open.