Local Grants & Funding Opportunities

Innovate Charlotte is proud to announce the launch of its microgrant program for early-stage startups.

For the program’s inaugural year, Jabian Consulting provided $20,000 to offer founders of early stage ventures the opportunity to win one of four $5,000 grants to support their development and growth. The finalist pitch competition will be held on November 11th during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

The first cycle of the program will be open to women and minority entrepreneurs whose ventures are in the pre-seed or early seed stage of growth.

Companies should have an established product or service with the ability to scale and annual revenues of less than $100,000. A majority of their operations must be in the Greater Charlotte Area.

Applications for the program will close on October 25th of 2021.

Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUB) are vital to the community and economy in North Carolina. Since Fall 2020, the North Carolina Small Business Impact Grant Program, RETOOLNC, has helped to address the challenges that certified NC HUBs and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) firms are facing as they work to recover from the pandemic.

Grants of up to $25,000 are awarded to select certified small underutilized businesses to help them with pivotal industry business changes needed during the pandemic. Governor Cooper established the RETOOLNC program to help certified HUBs and DBEs recover from some of these costly, unexpected adjustments to their business.

Applicants must be certified with NCHUB or NCDOT DBE.

The HUB Office has created an expedited process to help those vendors who need HUB Certification quickly in order to apply for RETOOLNC. See below:

1. Register electronically in the Electronic Vendor Portal
   – Click “Vendor Not Registered. Register Now.”
   – Complete the entire registration process. (You have to register for IPS and HUB. Registering for NC e-Procurement is optional but recommended.)
   – If you need assistance with registration, please call the Vendor Portal Help Desk at 1-888-211-7440, option 2.
   
   
2. Complete the expedited HUB Application and Documentation:
   – Application
   – Documents
   
   
3. Return the documents via email to: hub.retoolnc@doa.nc.gov
   – They can also be mailed or faxed – see the top of the application – but for the quickest turn around we are asking vendors to scan and email directly to us.

With the support of the Flywheel Foundation, the Cabarrus Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship wrapped up its first grant cycle of $5,000 Spark Grants offered to entrepreneurs located in or adding jobs to the county. The grants are helping Founders test out ideas that can be commercialized successfully.

Visit the link below to learn more about our 2021 Spark Grant recipients.