Growth Catalyst: Investor Partnerships Round Two (2026) — Historical Reference

The Growth Catalyst: Investor Partnerships Round Two competition was a closed Innovate UK funding round for UK-registered small and medium-sized businesses. It combined an Innovate UK grant with aligned private investment led or catalysed by an approved investor partner. The official UKRI opportunity page and the linked Innovation Funding Service listing now identify the competition as closed. No later round is announced on those official pages, so this entry is a historical reference rather than a live route to application.

The round was aimed at growth-oriented start-ups from seed to Series A that could show a credible path from innovation and research and development to commercial scale. It was not a general business loan, an unrestricted equity round, or a cold-call grant programme. A company needed a relationship with an approved investor partner, enough investment traction to support the proposal, and a project that fitted the competition’s scope. The investor’s involvement was part of the eligibility and assessment model, not an optional introduction after submitting an application.

At a glance

What the competition was designed to support

Growth Catalyst is an integrated package of funding and business support. In this round, the grant element was designed to support research and development while the investor partner supplied aligned capital and investment expertise. The stated aim was to help high-potential start-ups develop and commercialise innovations, improve their investment position, and move towards scale-up.

Innovate UK required a clear connection between the proposed project, the company’s growth plan, and a route to market. A proposal needed to explain the innovation, the business need or technological challenge, the market opportunity, and the work required to create a commercially useful result. It also needed to show that the company could assemble a team and resources capable of delivering the project.

The scope followed the UK Modern Industrial Strategy, described in the competition as “Invest 2035”. Eligible work had to align with at least one relevant sector or theme. The named sectors were advanced manufacturing, clean energy industries, digital and technologies, defence, creative industries, and life sciences. Foundation industries and cross-sector enabling technologies could be relevant where the applicant connected them to an eligible industrial sector. The competition also included the Battery Innovation Programme, with areas such as battery materials, cell design, manufacturing tools, diagnostics, testing, simulation, and digital tools.

The scope was therefore narrower than “any innovative idea”. A company working on software, medical technology, batteries, industrial materials, creative technology, energy systems, or another eligible area still had to explain which single sector best fitted its proposal. The application asked the applicant to choose one eligible sector, even when the technology had uses across more than one area.

Funding and project categories

The official competition brief set project-cost bands by research category. These were total eligible project costs, not guaranteed grant awards:

• Feasibility studies: £50,000 to £300,000, with a project duration of 6 to 12 months.
• Industrial research: £100,000 to £1 million, with a project duration of 6 to 24 months.
• Experimental development: £250,000 to £2 million, with a project duration of 12 to 24 months.

For feasibility studies and industrial research, Innovate UK could fund up to 70% of eligible project costs for micro or small organisations and up to 60% for medium-sized organisations. For experimental development, the corresponding limits were up to 45% for micro or small organisations and up to 35% for medium-sized organisations.

The grant was conditional on aligned investment. For feasibility and industrial research projects, the investor partner’s absolute minimum aligned investment had to be at least equal to the grant funding. For experimental development projects, the absolute minimum aligned investment had to be at least twice the grant funding. The investor partner also had to declare the minimum aligned investment. If the declared amount was higher than the published minimum for the relevant research level, that higher amount became the amount that needed to be secured before the project could start.

The £100 million figure was the minimum allocation for the competition, subject to receiving enough high-quality applications. It was not a promise that each applicant would receive a fixed award or that every eligible application would be funded. Innovate UK described the process as competitive and reserved the ability to make portfolio decisions when funding was limited.

Who was eligible

The competition accepted single applicants only. The applicant had to be a UK-registered micro, small, or medium-sized enterprise by the time the award was contracted. It had to carry out its project work in the UK and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK. An SME could submit only one application into the round.

The applicant also had to be invited to apply by its investor partner and discuss and agree the proposal with that investor before submission. The investor partner needed to have submitted an expression of interest directly to Innovate UK and confirmed with the applicant that it was in a position to apply for grant funding. The application asked the company to identify the investor partner, and Innovate UK could contact that investor to confirm the investment’s stage and the effect of the grant on the proposed investment.

The investment did not have to be a fully completed transaction at the moment of application. The official guidance gave examples of sufficient investment traction that could include an indicative offer from an investor-partner angel group or network, due diligence with an investor partner, or a term sheet from an interested investor partner. However, a successful project still needed to receive aligned investment directly, led, or catalysed by the named investor partner. The grant could not be issued merely because an application scored well if the required investment did not close.

Subcontractors were allowed. They could be from anywhere in the UK, provided the applicant selected them through its usual procurement process. Overseas subcontractors were possible only with a case explaining why a UK subcontractor could not be used, supported by evidence of UK contractors approached and why they could not undertake the work. A lower overseas price alone was not enough. This is different from a collaborative R&D consortium: the competition was for a single SME applicant, with subcontractors supporting that applicant where justified.

Innovate UK would not fund projects that were not carried out by SMEs, collaborative R&D projects, projects outside a company’s growth plan, projects unable to show potential for return on investment and growth, large capital infrastructure, or projects without a specified investor-partner invitation. The competition also applied subsidy-control, sanctions, financial viability, eligible-cost, and other UKRI funding rules.

What a strong proposal needed to explain

The application had to connect the public grant to a specific technical and commercial decision. The applicant needed to explain the need or challenge, the proposed approach and innovation, the team and resources, market awareness, outcomes and route to market, wider impacts, project management, risks, added value, and value for money. The proposal had to make clear what would be different because of public funding and how grant-funded R&D would work alongside the investor’s capital.

The assessment combined independent review with investor-partnership checks. Innovate UK identified three important factors: innovation, additionality, and traction. Innovation concerned the quality and significance of the proposed work. Additionality concerned how the grant would accelerate the innovation and change the investment case. Traction concerned the likelihood that the investment would complete within a reasonable timeframe.

Applicants therefore needed a consistent account across the technical plan, budget, cap table or investment position, and investor conversation. The grant request should cover eligible project costs and a defined set of research and development outcomes. The investor’s capital needed to be described as aligned investment that would help the company progress, rather than as a duplicate source of payment for the same costs. A credible plan could include a demonstrator, validation work, a new process, protected know-how, or a product or service design, but it had to explain how that output would improve the company’s competitive position and route to market.

Application materials and process

Applications were submitted through the Innovation Funding Service. Before starting, applicants had to read the service’s competition-application guidance and check the eligibility and scope requirements. The online application was divided into four sections: project details, application questions, finances, and Project Impact. All sections had to be complete before submission, and a submitted application could be reopened and resubmitted until the closing time.

The project-details section asked for the project title, start date, duration, research category, project summary, public description, and scope. The project summary and public description could each be up to 400 words. The scope answer had to identify one eligible sector and explain the fit. The application questions also had a maximum of 400 words per answer, and applicants had to answer every question. The service expressly warned applicants not to include website addresses or links in their answers because doing so could make the application ineligible.

The questions covered applicant location, animal testing, permits and licences, international collaboration, export controls, trusted research and innovation, the investor partner, the need or challenge, the technical approach, the team, market awareness, route to market, wider impacts, project management, risks, added value, and costs and value for money. The required appendices included a project plan or Gantt chart and risk register. Depending on the answer, applicants could also submit short appendices for the approach and innovation or team and resources. Each appendix had to be a legible PDF no larger than 10MB and no more than two A4 pages where the competition instructions specified that limit.

The finance section required the organisation to enter its project costs, organisation details, and funding details. The applicant had to use eligible project costs and explain the grant request, its own contribution, the investor’s aligned investment, subcontractor costs, and value for money. The Project Impact section was not scored, but it still had to be completed before submission. A suitability checker was available as a separate decision aid; it was not part of the application process.

Historical timeline

The competition opened on 10 December 2025. Innovate UK held an online briefing event on 16 December 2025. The closing time was 3 February 2026 at 11:00am UK time, and the official listing recorded applicant notification for 17 March 2026 at 5:24pm. The planned project start date was 1 July 2026. Those dates belong to the completed Round Two cycle and should not be treated as a future submission schedule.

Before the closing date, a practical preparation sequence would have started with the investor relationship: confirm that the investor was in the approved pool, obtain confirmation that it had submitted the required expression of interest, and agree the proposal with the investor. The applicant would then select the correct research category and sector, build a project plan and cost model, prepare the application answers and appendices, complete the financial and impact sections, check that no URLs had been inserted into answers, and submit a complete application through the Innovation Funding Service before the closing time.

For a successful applicant, project setup was a separate stage after assessment. Innovate UK required mandatory organisational and cost checks, followed by the Grant Offer Letter process. The project could not start until the grant offer letter was signed, the investor partner had confirmed the investment through the required annex, other required investor annexes were complete, the documents were uploaded to the Innovation Funding Service, and Innovate UK had confirmed that the investment met the aligned-investment requirements. Costs incurred before the approved start date could not be claimed under the grant.

What readers should do now

There is no open application route for this Round Two page. A business should not rely on the closed date, the old Innovation Funding Service form, or the historical preparation sequence as evidence that submissions are still accepted. Anyone researching the programme can use this entry to understand the completed round’s rules, funding structure, scope, and investor condition, then check Innovate UK and UKRI for a separately announced competition before preparing a new proposal.

If a future Growth Catalyst or Investor Partnerships round is announced, applicants should verify its title, dates, budget, research categories, sector scope, investor-partner process, and application questions on that new official listing. The next round may use different funding limits or conditions. Until such an announcement appears, this page should remain an archive of Round Two rather than presenting an invented renewal date.

The central lesson from the completed competition is that grant readiness and investment readiness were assessed together. The company needed a defined innovation project, a market and growth case, a capable delivery team, and an approved investor partner with real traction. That combination—not a generic funding request—was the basis on which Innovate UK could consider grant additionality and the likelihood that aligned private investment would complete.

Official source

The authoritative references for this historical entry are the UKRI opportunity page and the linked Innovation Funding Service competition overview. The UKRI page records the closed status, funder, minimum competition allocation, eligibility summary, and closing date. The Innovation Funding Service page contains the detailed scope, funding rates, project-cost bands, investor conditions, application sections, appendices, assessment factors, project-setup requirements, and historical timeline.

Official opportunity page: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/growth-catalyst-investor-partnerships-round-two/

Official Innovation Funding Service listing: https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/2360/overview/37d8f6e1-5600-4e9e-bbfc-11bc320f8808

Because the round is closed and no successor is announced on the official pages checked for this update, this entry is intentionally marked historicalReference = true in its front matter.