NCIDEA Micro Grant

Market Opportunity

NC IDEA MICRO grants are awarded to companies that are bringing an innovative product or business model to market and on a path to become a multi-million dollar company or receive institutional investment, such as venture capital (VC) and private equity, within 5-7 years.

Stage of Development

Competitive applicants have already been actively moving their startup forward by conducting customer discovery, developing initial prototypes, testing a product/service, bringing in initial revenue, or other activities. The grant will enable these companies to validate key assumption(s) around the existence of a problem, revenue model, size of their target market, market readiness, team skill set, or other area(s) to determine a company’s ability to catalyze its business development.

Revenue

Competitive applicants are on a path to generate revenue within 12 months of receiving a MICRO grant. However, many MICRO grant recipients have initial revenue when they apply (see below). Companies, excluding food and beverage startups, that have revenue exceeding $50K in the last 12 months are less likely to be considered.

MICRO Grant Recipients: Last 12 Months Revenue at Time of Application

• Consumer Products – Food and Beverage

  • Average: $37K

  • Revenue-Generating: 100%

• All Other Business Categories

  • Revenue-Generating: 30%-50%

Direct Link: https://ncidea.org/nc-idea-micro/