Spark Grants
Funds student startup ideas at Carnegie Mellon with early product validation grants.
Spark Grants are micro-grants of up to $3,000 offered by Carnegie Mellon University's James R. Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship through its Project Olympus incubator program. The grants are available exclusively to current CMU student founders who are actively engaged in Swartz Center programming, including Customer Discovery Kickstart, NSF I-Corps, Innovation Scholars, Swartz Fellows, or who ar…
Customer discovery, MVP development, and prototype building for current CMU student founders actively enrolled in Swartz Center or Project Olympus programming, with awards up to $3,000.
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Guides for this application
All guides →Grant Work Plan Template: Work Packages, Gantt, Milestones, and Risks
Use this grant work plan template to structure work packages, tasks, owners, deliverables, Gantt timing, dependencies, and risk registers.
BudgetGrant Budget Template for R&D Applications
Use this grant budget template to structure R&D costs, personnel, subcontractors, equipment, indirect costs, and budget justification for startup grant applications.
Start hereDeep Tech Funding Playbook 2026
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