Funding available for Investor Partnerships in Digital Technologies

The projects will be led by ambitious UK registered micro, small or medium sized businesses (SMEs) who will use the funding to grow their innovation activities in the digital technology cluster in North East England, both during and after the project.

The Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with North East Combined Authority to invest up to £2.5 million in innovation projects.This competition brings together:

• Innovate UK’s expertise in identifying innovation and using grant funding to change the risk profile of businesses.
• the aligned funding and expertise of our investor partners in identifying opportunities and teams that can best use extra investment finance.
• the ambition of North East Combined Authority for innovation led growth in the digital technology cluster.

The aim of this competition is to provide you with support for research and development and access to the capital investment that you need to develop and commercialise your innovations and grow your business.

Themes

• Your project can focus on one or more of the following:
  • Immersive technologies:
    • extended reality
    • digital twins
    • games engines
    • virtual production
  • Artificial intelligence:
    • data science
    • machine learning
    • neural networks
    • computer vision
    • robotics
    • large language models
    • quantum computing
• This list is not exhaustive. Where you can show your proposal fits within the scope of this competition you can focus on other themes.

Funding Information

• Your project’s total costs will depend on your research category and must be between £50,000 and £300,000 for feasibility studies, £100,000 and £1 million for industrial research, or £250,000 and £2 million for experimental development.
• For all projects, your project must:
  • not start before 1 May 2025
  • end by 31 December 2026

Eligibility Criteria

• This competition is open to single applicants only.
• To apply your business must:
  • be a UK registered micro, small or medium sized business (SME)
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
  • be invited to apply by your investor partner
  • have agreed your proposal with your investor partner before submitting
  • be able to complete the aligned investment before the start of your project, through the issue of new shares or convertible debt
  • have sufficient capital resources to enable you to meet all your project’s eligible costs, including through the grant funding and the aligned investment.

For more information, visit GOV.UK.