Funding for small to medium businesses in Northern Australia to scale up and diversify

Eligible activities may include:

• buying, constructing, installing or commissioning of plant and equipment
• construction and/or fit out of new infrastructure
• relevant training and skills development directly related to your project
• feasibility studies
• process design and engineering
• business planning
• marketing activities

We may also approve other activities.

You are not eligible to apply if you are:

• an individual
• partnership
• unincorporated association
• any organisation not included in section 3.1 of the guidelines
• trust (however, an incorporated trustee may apply on behalf of a trust)
• a Commonwealth, state territory or local government body (including government business enterprises)
• a non-corporate Commonwealth entity
• an organisation, or your project partner is an organisation, included on the National Redress Scheme’s list of ‘Institutions that have not joined or signified their intent to join the Scheme’
• an employer of 100 or more employees that has not complied with the Workplace Gender Equality Act (2012).

We review your application against the eligibility criteria. Only eligible applications will proceed to the assessment stage. An independent committee of experts along with government representatives will then assess eligible applications against the assessment criteria. The committee may seek additional advice from independent technical experts as required.

The committee will meet periodically during the year, and assess applications in batches against the assessment criteria before recommending which projects to fund.

The Minister will make the final decision taking into account the application assessment, the recommendations of the committee and the availability of grant funds.

We will assess your application based on the equally weighted assessment criteria. We will only consider funding applications that score at least 50% against each assessment criterion, as these represent best value for money.

Assessment criterion 1: How your project will create new jobs, scale-up, diversify and build economic resilience for your business and Northern Australia

Assessment criterion 2: Your capacity, capability and resources to deliver your business project

The amount of detail and supporting evidence you provide in your application should be relative to the project size, complexity and grant amount requested. You should provide evidence to support your answers.

You must attach to your application:

• a project plan
• an accountant’s declaration
• a trust deed (where applicable)
• a project budget 
• evidence of funding strategy.

If your application is successful, you’ll receive a written offer. If you are unsuccessful, we’ll notify you in writing and give you the chance to discuss the outcome with us.

Successful applicants must enter into a grant agreement with the Commonwealth. The grant agreement will specify the:

• reporting requirements
• payment schedule 
• milestones necessary to receive payments.

Payments are subject to satisfactory progress on the project.

Payments will be made by direct credit into a nominated bank account.