Small Business Grants for Women in the UK
Discover how small business grants provide vital funds for female founders to accelerate innovative projects, and the grants available to you right now.
Starting a business is a challenge for any founder, but female entrepreneurs often face additional barriers throughout their journey compared to men. One significant barrier to entry for female founders is access to funding.
Despite significant progress in recent years, women still receive a relatively small share of external investment compared to male founders. This funding gap means many promising businesses struggle to secure the capital needed to launch, grow, or scale, even though female entrepreneurs continue to lead groundbreaking innovations worthy of funding. A lesser-known funding route that can make a major difference is small business grants.
Last year, Grantify analysed tens of thousands of UK tech grant funding enquiries, which revealed a disparity in the number of men and women seeking tech grant funding. Unlike loans or venture capital, grants are a non-dilutive, equity-free option. This means that you don’t have to repay the money you’re granted or give away equity in your company, either — a major missed opportunity!
More broadly in the UK, female founders face a similar gap. A House of Commons committee 2025 report on female entrepreneurship states:
- In 2023, all-male teams raised £6.5 billion, while all-female teams only raised £2 billion over the past 10 years combined.
- Women-led businesses receive 68% fewer loans than male-led businesses.
- Female entrepreneurs launch their business with, on average, 53% less capital than their male peers.
- In 2024, just 2% of equity investment went to female founders, down from 2.5% in 2023, while all-male teams got over 80%. This was despite female-led businesses outperforming them.
- Women are underrepresented in fast-growing sectors like AI, fintech, and deep tech, where most of the investment is going. For example, just 7% of founders in AI are women.
- If female entrepreneurs were funded to the same level as men, it could add £205 billion to the economy (now £310 billion, adjusted for inflation).
But what are the causes? According to the report, there is evidence to suggest that the gender funding disparity is caused by several factors, including:
- Systemic bias
- Lack of diversity among decision-makers in the investment world
- A culture in the entrepreneurial world that makes women feel they cannot access funding
While female entrepreneurship is increasing, women-led businesses still receive significantly less venture capital funding than male-led businesses. At the same time, many female founders rely more heavily on personal savings or small loans to launch.
Grants play an important role in addressing this funding gap because they provide:
- Non-dilutive funding: Unlike equity investment, grants allow founders to raise capital without giving away ownership of their business. This can be used for specific uses, such as buying new equipment or hiring the right team.
- Early-stage support: Many grants are designed specifically for startup or early-stage businesses, giving founders the runway to test ideas or launch new products.
- Credibility and validation: Winning a grant can strengthen your company’s credibility with investors, partners, and customers, and pave the way for future investment.
- Access to mentoring and networks: Many grant programmes include business support and mentoring, or accelerator programmes, which can be just as valuable as the funding itself.
Several notable grants are currently available to women starting or growing a business in the UK. Each grant scheme will have different eligibility criteria and requirements, such as various match funding amounts or technology readiness levels. Here are some key grants for women to explore:
Women in Innovation Awards
The Innovate UK Women in Innovation Awards are among the most significant funding opportunities available to female entrepreneurs. The programme offers a comprehensive 12-month package of support, including grants of up to £75,000 and bespoke business support with no match funding required. Winners receive a suite of training, as well as invaluable networking and role-modelling opportunities.
One of the many great things about this programme is how broad it is, offering support for businesses across a wide range of sectors, spanning Agrifood, Biotech, Digital, Electronics, Energy, Health, Manufacturing, Materials, Quantum, Robotics & AI, Sustainability, and Transport!
The Women in Innovation Awards typically run on an annual basis, announced late in the year for the next year’s cohort. The competition has been running since 2016 and has supported hundreds of innovators.
Innovation grants for female-led businesses
While there are several grants for women starting a business, female entrepreneurs should also consider applying for major innovation grants and even loans that are open to all businesses. Many women-led companies successfully secure funding through programmes such as Innovate UK Innovation Loans and grants. Our Grant Experts have worked closely with female founders to help them secure Innovate UK funding for game-changing projects. See our case studies to explore some of these projects.
These programmes are highly competitive but can provide substantially larger funding than most gender-specific grants, making them an important option for ambitious female founders looking to scale innovative businesses.
In addition to major innovation grants and business grants for women, there are countless regional, local, and sector-specific opportunities out there.
When looking for a small business grant, it can be overwhelming and hard to know where to start. Government and local council websites or funding portals can be a good place to begin, as they regularly update with new funding schemes.
That said, it can be difficult to understand how your business relates to the grants listed and whether or not you are eligible to apply. You can end up searching dozens of websites before finding a suitable grant, taking up time that entrepreneurs simply don't have!
That’s why we built our new grant matching platform that contains hundreds of the best grants in the UK with over £1.6B funding available. Enter your business details, and our algorithm scans our grant database to match your business profile to suitable opportunities. You’ll receive an easy-to-use dashboard view containing your total funding potential, ranked grant matches, and eligibility fit scores.
Grant funding can be competitive, but submitting a strong application significantly improves your chances of success. Here are some key strategies used by the most successful applicants.
Apply for grants that align with your business
You’d be surprised how many founders try to apply for grants that don’t align with their project. Grant applications take time and effort, so choosing a random grant and hoping for the best is not a sensible approach! Grant programmes have strict eligibility criteria, and if you don’t meet them, you’ll have wasted precious time and resources for nothing.
Instead, focus on opportunities where your business clearly fits the programme’s goals and priorities to avoid unnecessary disappointment.
Demonstrate impact in your application
Funders want to see how their investment will make a difference. Strong applications clearly explain:
- The problem your business solves.
- The potential impact of your solution.
- How the grant funding will help achieve measurable outcomes.
Some programmes focus on how you make an impact in the wider community. We partnered with Zendesk to help you learn more about the importance of social impact for startups and how to demonstrate impact in funding applications.
Show growth potential
Grant providers often prioritise businesses with the potential to scale. There are several ways you can demonstrate this to assessors, such as market demand, revenue potential, job creation, and industry impact.
Provide evidence to back up your application
Where possible, it’s always best to support your application with evidence, such as customer feedback, pilot results, partnerships, prototypes, or early sales. Evidence also helps demonstrate growth potential, as explained above.
Grantify’s AI grant writing platform includes an AI Reference Finder, giving you access to public sources and premium databases, such as Statista Enterprise. You can use these tools to bolster your application, making it more credible and competitive.
Follow application guidance carefully
Each grant programme has specific eligibility criteria and application requirements. Applications that ignore these guidelines are often rejected before review. You must ensure that you meet the eligibility criteria, provide all the necessary documentation, and answer every question in the application.
Grantify ensures your application is high-quality and fully aligned with application guidance. We do so across multiple layers:
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While grants are an excellent funding option, they are not the only path to growing your business. Many entrepreneurs combine grants with other funding sources, such as startup loans, angel investment, venture capital, and accelerator programmes.
Each funding option has advantages and trade-offs, so founders should choose the approach that best suits their growth plans.
Learn more about non-dilutive funding options.
Female entrepreneurs are launching innovative companies across the UK, but access to funding remains a challenge.
Fortunately, a growing number of grant programmes, competitions, and innovation funds are working to support women-led businesses. This provides all entrepreneurs with vital capital to grow their businesses. The key is knowing where to look and how to apply effectively.
If you’re curious about the funding potential of your business, create a free account on our grant matching platform!
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