Grants for startups
Are there grants for startups, and which ones are real?
Yes, and fewer than the internet suggests. The dependable routes are four: SBIR and STTR if your work has a research component, state and local economic development programs, government contracts through small-business set-asides, and being written into other organizations' funded budgets. The routes the listicles lead with, small one-off pitch prizes and corporate giveaway programs, are real but tiny: they make good headlines and rarely move a company. The honest starting question is not which grants exist but which kind of company you are, because eligibility does most of the sorting before anyone writes a word.
Last reviewed August 28, 2026.
The routes that fund companies at scale
- SBIR and STTR, if you do research
- Eleven federal agencies fund research and development at small businesses, with no equity taken. This is the route the others get compared against, and for deep tech it has no real competitor. The catch is fit: the work has to be research, and the agency has to want it.
- State and local programs, if you create jobs or invest locally
- Semiconductor funds, aerospace programs, rural development money, workforce grants. These are tied to a state's economic strategy, which means a company that fits the strategy is pushing on an open door. A Quillify customer in additive manufacturing won $5M from the Texas Semiconductor Fund; finding the fund was half the work.
- Contracts, if you sell something the government buys
- Set-asides reserve federal contract dollars for small firms, and states and cities run procurement of their own. It is revenue rather than a grant, which is frequently better: nobody audits how you spend margin.
- Other people's budgets, if you serve funded organizations
- The least obvious route. Organizations winning grants need suppliers, evaluators, trainers and technology, and a line in their budget is money you never had to compete for directly. One Quillify customer built $1.2M of business this way without ever being the applicant.
What the free-money lists leave out
Most pages ranking for this phrase are lists of twenty or thirty programs padded with pitch competitions, closed programs and grants that were never open to for-profits in the first place. The padding is not malicious, it is economics: a longer list ranks better, and nobody maintains it after publication.
The facts that actually sort you: most federal grant programs are closed to for-profits outside SBIR and STTR. Grant money is usually reimbursed after you spend it, which makes it a working-capital question as well as a revenue one. And deadlines are windows on somebody else's calendar, so the search is something you stay on, not something you do once.
How Quillify sorts this for you
Describe the company in plain language and Quillify returns what is open to you now, across 4,000+ open grants and 11,000+ contract opportunities, with written reasons for each match. Eligibility is read from the actual announcements, so programs closed to for-profits do not clutter the answer.
Saved searches re-screen new opportunities weekly and email you only when something genuinely new matches, which is how a founder watches this market without making it a job.
Who asks this most
The answer above is the same whoever you are. What Quillify does about it is not.
Related
- Non-dilutive fundingWhat is non-dilutive funding and where does a company get it?
- SBIR and STTRWhat are SBIR and STTR grants and who can apply?
- How for-profits win grant money without applying for a grantCan a for-profit company get grant money without applying for a grant?
- Government contracts for startupsCan a startup win government contracts?
- Who can actually apply for grantsCan my type of organization apply for grants?
- Foundation money and for-profit companiesCan a for-profit business receive money from a private foundation?
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