Funding for incubators to assist start-ups to succeed in international markets

You are not eligible to apply if you are:

• an individual, partnership or trust
• a Commonwealth, state or territory government agency or body

We consider your project to be regional if you can attribute at least 80% of your eligible project value to activities in a regional area.

You can use the mapping tool to work out the regional location of your project. For this initiative, we consider Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote and Very Remote locations as regional areas.

Examples of eligible activities include:

• expanding mentor networks to those with national or international expertise
• providing or facilitating access for start-ups to new knowledge (such as customer acquisition and/ or business development methods) to promote or facilitate international trade
• helping start-ups to access new international trade resources, such as purchase of technical equipment
• helping start-ups to access new international trade knowledge, such as customer acquisition or business development methods
• helping start-ups to access new international networks, such as investors or customers peer firms

This is not an exhaustive list of eligible activities.

The program delegate decides if an activity is eligible.

An incubator is an organisation that supports innovative start-up businesses focused on international trade. It provides services such as:

• seed funding
• co-location
• mentoring
• professional services
• access to networks

We assess your application against the eligibility criteria and then against the assessment criteria. Only eligible applications will proceed to the assessment stage.

If your application is eligible, we’ll refer it to an Innovation and Science Australia committee. The committee will assess your application against the merit criteria and compare it to other eligible applications before recommending which projects to fund.

We will assess your application against the following assessment criteria:

• Assessment criterion 1: Management and business capability (50 points).
• Assessment criterion 2: Benefit to your incubator, start-ups and the broader innovation ecosystem (40 points).
• Assessment criterion 3: Impact of the grant funding on your project (10 points).
• Assessment criterion 4: How your project will support first-generation migrant and refugee founders to expand internationally (additional 10 points).

You will receive a written offer if your application is successful.

From there, you will enter into a grant agreement with us. The grant agreement will specify the reporting requirements, payment schedule and milestones necessary to receive payments. A sample grant agreement is available to view.

If your application is unsuccessful, we will notify you in writing. You will be able to discuss the outcome with us.