It's a kind of funding
Welcome, visitor. If you came here not just to give us a chance to humblebrag, but also to learn something, then you’ll find that bit in the last few paragraphs.
A few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of announcing that CrankWheel was one of the companies selected to receive a project grant from the Technology Development Fund (Tækniþróunarsjóður), one of the funds of the Icelandic Centre for Research (Rannís), Rannsóknamiðstöð Íslands).
At that time, we didn’t yet know what the grant amount would be per year, or for how many years our project would be funded. The maximum project grant per year is 15 million ISK, and the maximum duration that a project can receive the project grant is 3 years.
Today, we’re thrilled to be able to announce that the Technology Development Fund accepted our request for grant funding without modification, which means we will be receiving the maximum grant amount per year, and for the maximum project duration. Although this funding is conditional on progress being made, reports being turned in, the government continuing to fund the Technology Development Fund, and so forth, this represents a conditional promise of funding for our project in the amount of 45 million ISK (about 340 thousand USD) over the next 3 years.
For a young company, it goes without saying that this is a very big deal, and that we’re super happy.
As it turns out, many young startups in the Icelandic startup ecosystem get by, and are able to pursue risky technical projects, primarily because of this source of funding. The existence of the Technology Development Fund and its various grants (of which the project grants are the largest) is of great importance to our ecosystem, and it has a tremendously positive impact, especially because there are few other sources of funding for early stage technology companies in Iceland.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Technology Research Development fund and our contacts there for being very pleasant to work with so far, and for providing meaningful and useful feedback to us. We look forward to working with you for the next 3 years!
Now on to the part where you, dear guest, might learn something.
While most folks doing startups in Iceland seem to know about the Technology Research Development fund and its grants, there are a number of other grants from the government and from private organizations that you can apply for. All of the local Icelandic grants are smaller (as far as we know), and many of them are either only applicable to certain entrepreneurs (e.g., based on gender, geographical location, age or social situation), or to certain projects (e.g., based on industry sectors or themes). There is a quite comprehensive list here, which includes not just grants for technical projects but also cultural, research and sports-oriented grants. There is also quite a comprehensive site maintained by Innovation Center Iceland (Nýsköpunarmiðstöð Íslands) that lists not only grants, but also incubators and other support organizations.
The other thing not everybody seems to be aware of is that apart from grants, the Icelandic government will also give you tax credits for up to 20% of your research and development costs. There are various limits and rules, see the law for details. Again, the Icelandic Centre for Research is your friend, as they vet projects to decide if they qualify for the tax credits. The application deadline for new projects is October 1st, and details of the application process are here.
That’s it for now. Please leave your thoughts, pointers to grants and other resources, etc. as replies below.
