Blended Funding in the UK – Healthy Ageing Investor Partnership programme. 2020 competition open. £12M offered by Innovate UK.
Private investors have a new funding opportunity to partner with Innovate UK for the healthy ageing investor partnership programme that is looking to invest in high growth potential small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that aspire to find solution addressing the issues associated with ageing well.
This blended funding opportunity combines your £1M to £3M investment with Innovate UK’s up to £12M in grant funding for relevant R&D projects in SMEs focused on developing products, services or business models that address both economic and societal objectives. Equity providers that are a charity or trust are also eligible. The SMEs will be identified by the investor partners and selected later in the competition. This competition began accepting applications on 7 September 2020.
The Healthy Ageing investor partnership programme consists of 2 competitions:
- – Stage 1 – This investor partner selection competition
- – Stage 2 – The SME competition opens in spring 2021. This will be for SMEs to submit project applications for grant support with a clear alignment for private investment.
Investor Partner Selection
The ideal profile is an established UK private investor with an interest in healthy ageing markets including venture capital, angel network, charity, social impact organisations or corporate venture investors. IUK is looking for preferential investors who:
- – are willing to act as sole investor or be the lead investor where additional co-investment is required
- – are prepared to deploy their investment with a patient and long-term view
- – can follow their investment and potentially provide more financing when required with an aspiration to fund or leverage total investment of up to 3 times the original grant funding by 2025
- – can commit to helping the SMEs with international aspirations to grow and scale up
- – have relevant sector or technology-specific expertise or social impact priorities around the healthy ageing markets.
SME Selection Process
If your organisation is selected your business will need to state their total funding requirement including the Innovate UK grant funding. The potential UK SMEs can be:
- – new investments for your organisation
- – opportunities currently under consideration by you
- – SMEs already in your portfolio who are looking for further investment and grant funding for a specific project element
The SME competition is expected to begin in Spring 2021 with the expectation that funded SMEs will be ready to start their projects as soon as the investment has been confirmed in writing and the IUK has completed project finance checks.
The deadline for applications is 4 November 2020 11:00 AM London time (GMT+1).
Blended funding opportunities have many benefits such as less risk and easier investment decisions, but there are also challenges as well for instance the complexity of the application process, and the long duration of the process and waiting time. Here is a link to our survey and results from investors involved in past competitions to help you understand their views after being engaged in Innovate UK pilot competitions during 2017-2019.
If you need more specific details on this Innovate UK competitive programme, who is eligible, or how to apply please reach out to us.
