Innovate UK (IUK) Engineering Biology Investor Partnerships: Round 1

Funding Amount

Up to £8 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition.

Projects must be at the experimental development stage, and the total grant funding request must be between £250,000 and £2 million.

The intervention rate percentage that applicants can claim will also depend on business size:

• Up to 45% of eligible project costs for micro or small organizations

• Up to 35% for medium-sized organizations

The absolute minimum aligned investment led by the investor partner must always be at least twice as much as the grant funding.

Eligible Applicants

This competition is open to single applicants only. To apply, organizations must:

• Be a UK-registered SME

• Carry out their project work in the UK

• Intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You can apply for this competition before you speak to an investor but initiating dialogue with investors is strongly encouraged.

Eligible Activities

Your proposal must have a clear route to market, a clear link to innovation, and evidence that you can create a team to deliver your proposal.

You must be:

• Registered in the UK as an SME by the time the award is contracted

• Able to complete the aligned investment led by the investor partner needed to qualify for the award, through the issue of new shares or convertible debt

You must also demonstrate that if your project is funded, it will:

• Have significant market impact

• Be scalable

• Be attractive to equity investors

Engineering biology is the purposeful engineering of biological systems. These will create new or enhanced functions that do not occur naturally or that cannot be achieved efficiently through conventional approaches.

This includes the design, modification, or creation of organisms, cells, genetic circuits, enzymes, proteins, or other biomolecular systems that exhibit novel or enhanced functionality.

Your solution can focus on one or more of the following technologies in which the core innovation is in engineered biological systems, for example, built on synthetic biology techniques:

• Biosensors and diagnostic

• Biomanufacturing systems

• Biocatalysis and chemical production

• Engineered biomaterials

• Metabolic engineering

• Nucleotide synthesis

• Engineered proteins and enzymes

• Cell and microbe engineering

• Synthetic biology platforms

• Gene editing and genome engineering

• AI and computational biology

Program Deadline

December 2, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. (GMT)

You must agree the private investment through a lead investor and reach heads of terms by July 29, 2027.