NIA Start-Up Challenge
Funds US entrepreneurs and small businesses developing healthy-aging technologies through NIA's Start-Up Challenge cash prizes and accelerator.
The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), runs the Start-Up Challenge and Accelerator as a cash-prize competition, not a research grant. NIA's Office of Strategic Extramural Programs administers it alongside NIA's SBIR/STTR grant program, and the Challenge is explicitly designed to feed entrepreneurs and early technology into that SBIR/STTR pipeline.
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Technologies and products that aim to improve healthy aging, addressing aging biology and age-related diseases in the older adult population, with a focus on increasing the impact and reach of NIA-funded small-business R&D.
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Guides for this application
All guides →NIH Biosketch Guide: Format, SciENcv Steps, and Examples
Learn what an NIH biosketch is, how the format works, what to prepare for SciENcv, and how startup teams should avoid common biosketch mistakes.
Write proposalHow to Write a Specific Aims Page
Learn how to write a specific aims page for NIH, SBIR-adjacent, and translational R&D grants, with structure, reviewer logic, examples, and common mistakes.
Where to applyGrants for Biotech Startups: NIH, NSF, SBIR/STTR, and Non-Dilutive Funding
A practical guide to grants for biotech startups, including NIH SBIR/STTR, NSF, translational funding, evidence, regulatory readiness, and budgets.
Write proposalHow to Write a Grant Proposal Reviewers Can Score
Learn how to write a grant proposal around reviewer criteria, evidence, work packages, budget logic, and commercialization for deeptech and R&D funding.
More from NIA
All grants from this funder →2026 NIA Mentorship Prize Competition
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Pays $100,000 to each of up to six faculty mentors recognized for outstanding aging-research mentorship.
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Supports small businesses developing aging and memory technologies at the feasibility stage.
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Funds small businesses advancing aging biology and Alzheimer's disease technologies through full development execution.
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Supports small businesses partnering with universities on aging innovation at feasibility stage.
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