05.08.19
£12m made available to SMEs for Healthy Ageing Challenge fund
UK Research and Innovation is looking for UK registered equity investors to form partnerships with them for a ‘Healthy Ageing Investment Accelerator’ scheme.
The accelerator aims to deliver innovation to the ‘healthy ageing’ market as part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund’s Healthy Ageing Challenge.
Working in partnership with investors, Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, is to distribute a share of up to £12 million in grants to micro, small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and social enterprises.
The competition will stimulate private investment in business-led research and development, to grow and bring to market ideas for healthy ageing products and services that have potential to be adopted on a wide scale.
The first phase of the competition is aimed at recruiting investors who must:
- Be a UK registered equity investor
- Commit to identifying a portfolio of healthy ageing technology micro, SMEs
- Demonstrate they have, or can raise on demand, enough capital to equal Innovate UK’s grant and provide additional follow-on funding
- Investors can apply for £1 million to £6 million, and the selected investor partners will help deliver a healthy ageing project - with 50% of total eligible project costs grant funded, and the remaining 50% a equity investment into the business.
Phase 2
In phase 2 chosen investors will put forward SMEs for funding, by invitation only, and all funded projects will need to show how they tackle one or more of the following essential challenges of older life:
- Sustaining physical activity
- Maintaining health at work
- Design for age-friendly homes
- Creating healthy, active places
- Supporting social connections
- Living well with cognitive impairment
- Managing common complaints of ageing
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