Celebrating Chemistry Week 2024: Funding Schemes and Support Options

Chemistry Week is taking place 4 – 10 November 2024, and this year’s theme is “Chemistry is Shaping the Future”. The impact of chemistry is vast, from reducing our carbon footprint and improving nutrition to creating sustainable materials and life-changing medicines. For start-ups and SMEs looking to shape the future, securing the right funding and support is crucial. We look at some of the funding schemes and support options available for UK chemistry start-ups and SMEs.

Support and funding

Innovate UK

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is the UK’s innovation agency. Its mission is to help companies to grow through their development and commercialisation of new products, processes and services. Innovate UK uses sector knowledge to help businesses innovate through providing access to connections and collaborations as well as expertise and funding. Some current areas of focus in the chemical space include Sustainable Aviation Fuel Innovation, Sustainable bio-based Materials and Manufacture, and Resource Efficiency for Materials and Manufacturing.

Innovate UK provides a range of funding opportunities for UK start-ups and SMEs. New funding opportunities are published throughout the year, so it is well worth frequenting the Innovate UK website.

Royal Society of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) support and work with a variety of industries and sectors from chemical manufacturing, energy, food and drink, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, consumer products to contract research organisations, analytical services and more. The RSC provides a range of resources for startups and SMEs including advice on supporting your people and growing your team, increasing your profile and finding customers, and accessing advice and resources for your R&D.

The RSC’s Change Makers initiative is a dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem committed to creating positive change in the world through deep tech chemistry. The initiative provides a Venture Mentorship Programme, an entrepreneurial mentoring scheme designed specifically to support founders of the next generation of deep tech chemistry science ventures. The Change Makers Mentor Pool is comprised of individuals with deep industry, investment, or entrepreneurship experience. They work with Change Makers ventures on a pro bono basis, without expectation of reward or compensation and share their knowledge, guidance, and networks with founders and their teams.

The Change Makers also offers a series of invitation-only investment pitching events for chemistry ventures developing technology aiming to transform health, energy, environment, enabling technologies and many more. The series is called “Investment Catalyst (IC)” and is open to all ventures part of Change Makers subject to a review of their readiness for investment.

North East Fund – Innovation Fund

The Innovation Fund is managed by Northstar ventures which has been investing in technology focused businesses in the North-East since 2004. The fund can invest in companies at their earliest stages of development as well as more established, revenue-generating businesses. Initial investments are typically between £50,000 and £500,000.

The Innovation Fund was set up to invest in companies which are doing something new or different. Most Innovation Fund investments are in equity (shares in your company), which means that there is no loan to repay. Northstar works with investees to try to help grow the business, with a view to achieving a return on the cash invested by the Innovation Fund either when the company secures further investment, is sold or the shares are bought-back by the company or its founders.

Arrow Innovation Support

Eligible North-East businesses can access fully funded support via Arrow – a collaboration between Durham University, Newcastle University, Northumbria University and University of Sunderland. Arrow links businesses with knowledge and research by pairing an organisation’s specific needs with the right University expertise and facilities. Businesses can access a range of support via Arrow including one-to-one time with experts, specialist scientific expertise, research and development, and facilities and equipment. There is no cost to organisations for eligible projects, as Arrow is part-funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

Competitions for start-ups

Royal Society of Chemistry

The RSC’s Emerging Technologies Competition identifies and supports UK-based chemistry-led technologies. In 2024, finalists were selected from a competitive application round where their technologies were judged on the problem that their technology is addressing, the market opportunities and potential impact of their technology, and their planned approach of commercialization. The finalists then pitched their technologies to the competition’s panel of judges who selected one winner from each of the competition’s categories (Enabling Technologies, Energy, Environment and Health). The winners took a share of the £100,000 prize pot to help advance their technologies.

International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Centre

The International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Centre (ISC3) is an international centre that fosters the transition of chemical and chemical-related sectors to sustainable chemistry, promoting a circular economy that is striving to implement multifaceted aspects of sustainability at every step of the life cycle of products.

The annual ISC3 Innovation Challenge is thematically oriented along a once-per-year selected focus topic. Start-ups globally are invited to contend for a total of 25,000 EUR in prize money with their innovative ideas that are revolving around the ongoing year’s focus topic. Innovation Challenge 2025 is focused on “Sustainable Chemistry and Climate Change!”.

Intellectual property support and funding

IP Advance

The UK intellectual property office (UK-IPO) has recently introduced IP Advance, an initiative to support SMEs in unlocking the potential of their intellectual property. This program which launched in July 2024 offers two tiers of funding:

• IP Audit: Provides part-funding of £2,250 (including VAT) towards the cost of an IP audit. The company must contribute £750 (including VAT) towards the overall cots of the audit which includes a report with recommendations and follow up meeting.
• IP Access: Offers funding of £2,250 (including VAT) for IP professional advice to implement recommendations from the IP audit or develop an IP strategy. The company must contribute a minimum of 50% towards the cost of these services.

By participating in IP advance, SMEs can gain valuable insights into their IP portfolio, strengthen their IP position, and increase their chances of securing IP-backed financing.