Grants for builders

Use this as a starting list to find non-dilutive support for your next project.

1. Students and Young Founders

Grants focused on youth, college students, dropouts, and early-stage builders.

Grant name	Amount	Target audience and focus
1517 Medici Project	$1,000	High school, college students, and dropouts.
Cactus Capital	$50 - $100	Student builders at any stage.
Feather Grants	INR 15,000	Students bringing bold ideas to life.
Forge Grants	Up to $250	Creator-engineers aged 13-25.
Inflection Grants	$2,000	Builders under 25 fueling a passion or idea.
Lift Off Grant	$50 - $100	Young innovators 18 and under.
Magnificent Grants	$10,000	Exceptional outliers under 25 bypassing traditional hierarchies.
Non Trivial	$2,000 - $12,000	Ambitious teenagers solving pressing problems.
Thiel Fellowship	$100,000	Young people (16-22) who skip or stop out of college to build.
Xor Grant	Varies	High school seniors in CS or cybersecurity.
Young Builders Society	$100 - $600	Builders under 23 focusing on original, practical ideas.
Z Fellows	$10,000	Early technical thinkers taking a week to go all-in on an idea.

Grants aimed at developers, AI researchers, and open-source contributors.

Grant name	Amount	Target audience and focus
Trelis AI Grants	$500	Individuals advancing AI models (training, fine-tuning).
cache money grants	$5,000 (Crypto)	Hackers/artists tackling ideas in the crypto space.
Da Vinci Fellowship	EUR 150,000	Exceptional engineers and builders shaping European tech.
NLNet Foundation	$5,000 - $50,000	Independent researchers and devs building open-source projects.
Unitary Fund	$4,000	Open-source quantum computing projects.
Gitcoin Grants	Varies	Discovering and funding public goods.
Next Generation Internet 0	$5,000 - $50,000	Projects contributing to an open, resilient, human-centric internet.

Grants restricted to or heavily focused on builders in specific countries or regions.

Grant name	Amount	Target audience and focus
Bellare Grants	Up to INR 1 Lakh	Indian initiatives in education, healthcare, and open source.
Emergent Ventures India	>$5,000	Indian entrepreneurs with highly scalable, zero-to-one ideas.
WTFund	~$25,000	Founders 25 and under with an Indian registered entity.
Nagarathna Memorial Grant	Up to INR 80,000	No-questions-asked grants for individuals in India.
Patch Grants	Up to EUR 1,000	Young people based in Ireland working on early-stage projects.
Prototype Fund	Up to EUR 47,500	Open-source projects for people living in Germany.
Bed-Stuy Create and Connect	$1,000	Builders and makers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Grants targeting research, life sciences, climate, and community development.

Grant name	Amount	Target audience and focus
Biohackers Fund	$2,000	Accelerating human enhancement (software, hardware, biotech).
VitaDAO Fellowship	$100 - $3,000	Individuals pursuing efforts in longevity and translational research.
Clarity Health Fund	$1,000	Progress in psychedelics and drug policy.
Echoing Green Fellowship	$80,000 - $90,000	Social sector leaders challenging the status quo.
776 Fellowship	$100,000	Young people tackling climate change.
SciFounder Fellowship	$400,000	Early-career scientists starting their own companies.
EA Animal Welfare Fund	Varies	Projects improving the well-being of nonhuman animals.

No-strings-attached microgrants for indie hackers, creatives, and ambitious projects.

Grant name	Amount	Target audience and focus
Merge Grant	$50 - $1,000	Ambitious builders pursuing compelling projects.
Emergent Ventures	>$5,000	Entrepreneurs with zero-to-one ideas to improve society.
Awesome Foundation	$1,000	Autonomous chapters funding awesome projects globally.
Gumroad Creators Fund	$500 - $5,000	Creators and creative projects.
Indie Fund	Varies	Independent game developers.
O'Shaughnessy Grants	$10,000	Ambitious people who want to build something great.
Pollination Project	Up to $1,000	Social change leaders and community groups without paid staff.

Know another grant we should add? Email us at team.launchd@gmail.com.