SCRA Acceleration Grant

SCRA Acceleration Grant

Funds established early-stage South Carolina firms through SCRA acceleration support before further private capital growth.

Eligibility · United States · US-SC

The SCRA Acceleration Grant provides up to $50,000 in non-dilutive funding to established early-stage South Carolina technology companies working toward market readiness and preparation for equity investment from SC Launch Inc. Administered by the South Carolina Research Authority — a state-chartered public non-profit corporation founded in 1983 — the Acceleration Grant is the highest-value non-dilutive grant in SCRA's commercialization ladder, sitting above the $25,000 Startup Grant and below the equity investment threshold of SC Launch Inc., SCRA's separate 501(c)(3) investment affiliate. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis with no fixed annual deadline.

Eligibility is limited to for-profit, South Carolina-based companies that are past the early startup stage and have demonstrated sufficient commercial traction to be considered established early-stage businesses. Applicants must be SCRA member companies — membership is invitation-only with an acceptance rate below 40 percent — and all member companies are required to submit an Annual Economic Impact Assessment. The grant's explicit purpose is market readiness preparation and positioning the company for SC Launch Inc. equity investment, which typically involves convertible loans or equity at seed through Series B stages. Full eligibility criteria, page limits, and the scoring rubric are published in a criteria PDF (most recently a June 2022 edition) at scra.org; applicants should verify that the current version has not been superseded before applying.

The Acceleration Grant is reviewed and disbursed against defined commercial milestones agreed between the company and SCRA. Companies that complete the programme successfully are positioned for evaluation by SC Launch Inc.'s nine-member investment board, which includes venture capital professionals and university faculty from across South Carolina. The pathway from SCRA membership through Startup or Academic Startup Grant, Acceleration Grant, and SC Launch investment is the core commercialization pipeline SCRA supports. Prospective applicants should contact SCRA through scra.org to begin the membership process.