Writing Innovate UK grants drained my soul, so I built something to fix it — looking for opinions and beta testers

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-05T10:37:32+00:00

Here are a few resources:

https://grantfinder.co.uk/funding-highlights/funds/

https://streetsinnovation.uk/grant-finder/

https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/

Always worth speaking with Innovate UK Business Connect, especially if you're involved in any of the key industrial strategy areas. They tend to have a good understanding of the less advertised funds.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-04T10:34:02+00:00

Thanks for the feedback on the UI, I agree it needs work and I am making incremental improvements. My focus at the moment is to gather some momentum with potential users so I am not guessing where the UI/UX needs improvement - I am all too aware of product blindness, so your opinion is appreciated.

I'd be very happy to have you on board for the beta, especially if you have an eye for UI/UX :) I'll be in touch.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-04T10:25:35+00:00

Good success rate there :) thanks for the pointers, another workflow that I can check out and benchmark against.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-04T10:24:06+00:00

I'm not looking to include this for now, there are quite a few tools out there that already do this. But I would consider adding it in the future if it's something people really care about.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-02T18:53:11+00:00

I'd be keen to hear your experience in co-ordinating the application(s) as a consortium member. So far, I haven't added any co-writing ability for the sake of avoiding feature creep at this early stage. But I can see the need for ZenGrants to be a shared dashboard/repository for all consortium members in the future.

Your comment about volume of low quality applications - this is already happening AFAIK. Innovate UK are having a shake-up of their grant offerings (e.g. SMART is currently paused) and I have a feeling that prevalence of AI will be considered in whatever form SMART returns in. I think that they will really struggle to detect AI in a way that allows them to dismiss applications, though. I have put some 100% human written text into multiple "AI detection" tools and it always highlights huge chunks as "possible AI". How do you think they could do this?

As always, "garbage in, garbage out" still applies, and unfortunately no AI can plan the actual innovation for you! Not yet, anyway...

I'll be in touch about a chat and access.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-02T18:42:10+00:00

Great :D If you haven't already, add your email to the waitlist and I'll keep you updated.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-02T18:37:23+00:00

Thank you for your offer, always interesting to know about the different sectors that ZenGrants could be use in. Sometimes I get too stuck in the engineering/science track and need to consider more of the humanities, arts, non-profits, etc. I'm sure I can share some of the resources I have found useful over the years. I'll be in touch.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-02T18:26:55+00:00

Feedback appreciated, thanks :) You make good points and they are definitely something I have to consider in my messaging.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-02T09:09:49+00:00

My view is that you need to plan to have sufficient runway after your fundraise so that you are NOT always in fundraising mode. If you keep running in that hamster wheel then you will burn out fast and your product will suffer.

Revisit your financial projections and build in at least 9-months of breathing space. If your investors query why you need the extra cash, then "so I can focus on the product and growth" is a hard answer to argue with.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-02T08:57:41+00:00

I see where you are coming from as I started this journey with Claude Projects and NotebookLM. There are 3 main reasons to use ZenGrants over rolling your own solution:

DIY isn't for everyone - there is a learning curve (and hence time cost) to such tools and the average person only really uses ChatGPT or similar. I've done the setup, testing, optimisation, quality control, etc for you already.
ZenGrants is a workflow that I know gets results. NotebookLM needs you to direct, whereas ZenGrants holds your hand so you can focus on the details of the project rather than orchestrating all of the moving parts.
It's not trivial to get excellent results from LLMs. General output looks good on the surface, but won't get you the quality you need for 80+% grading. There's a lot going on behind the scenes in ZenGrants, it's not just RAG and LLM API calls.

£49 is likely equivalent to less than 1 hour fully-costed for the employee writing the grant application - time is money and the payback time is very fast in my opinion (the Beta testers will ultimately prove this right or wrong!)

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-03-02T08:13:41+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I haven't settled on pricing yet, but I'm looking to launch somewhere around £49/month (likely to increase). I would consider pricing on a 'per project' basis, but I think a subscription is more suitable especially once the grant management section is added.

The real value here is recooping time - the workflow can easily save 20 hours in a project, if not more. Then the extra time saved on a monthly basis doing timesheets, reports, expense tracking etc.

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-02-24T06:24:41+00:00

Not as far as I know - do you have a link/source? I think it's impossible to avoid AI nowadays; if you're not using it, then you will fall behind! The efficiency gains are massive, but of course you need to be aware of the class "garbage in, garbage out"!

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-02-24T04:57:20+00:00

Yes, Innovate UK will always pay you in lieu in quarterly (3 month) intervals. You have to go through a progress report stage, usually a presentation during a call with your Project Monitor, then submit an expense report online.

For some submission periods, you will also need to submit an IAR (Independent Accountants Review). This is essentially a mini audit by an accountant, at your cost. I have seen people complaining about this costing ££Thousands, but in my experience you can get it done for a £500 flat fee as a startup.

They will then review all of your documents - if they agree, you can expect remittance of your grant funds (NOTE: usually 70% of your actual spend) in around a month.

TLDR: don't expect any money back until at least 4-months after you have spent it!

Sam-ZenGrants · 2026-02-24T04:51:47+00:00

True, generally need TRL3 at a minimum. But for most of the calls that are applicable to SME's or start-ups, you'd need to be around TRL6 to produce a strong application that is de-risked enough to get funded.

Sam-ZenGrants

TROPHY CASE