Kickstarter Award
Give your start-up business the Kickstart it needs.
Kickstarter is now closed for 2024/25 - Register your interest to be notified when the opportunity reopens!
Important Links
What a Kickstarter Award?
Small grants of up to £2000 are available for you to explore and test new entrepreneurial ideas in the market. This can include validating and testing the assumptions of the market, learning more about what is needed to develop the concept and trialing it on a small scale, right through to developing a basic prototype for more robust testing of the idea.
How can I use the award?
- To support market validation, stakeholder engagement and early proof of market activity over a period of 3 – 6 months
- To conduct customer discovery, gather market feedback and/or prototype development
Who can apply?
The Kickstarter fund is open to University of Manchester
- Students (UG, Master's/PGT, PhD/PGR)*
- Recent graduates (within 2 years of graduating)
- Staff**
*excluding exchange students spending time at the University away from their home institution
**excluding employees of the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre
Eligibility:
- You can submit an entry as an individual or with a team of up to four people, but at least 50% of the team must be from the University of Manchester in the above categories.
- The lead applicant should be the business founder, and any additional team members must have an active role in the business.
- Businesses applying to the Kickstarter fund must not have been trading for more than 2 years.
What is the application process?
- To apply, complete the online application form.
- Entries will only be valid when the application is submitted using the ‘finalise’ button on the platform.
- If your initial application is successful, you will be invited to a 30-minute online meeting. During this meeting you will be given 5 minutes to present your idea followed by 15 - 20 minutes of questions.
- If your initial application is unsuccessful, you will receive feedback and suggestions to take forward.
Key Dates
Kickstarter is now closed for 2024/25 - Register your interest to be notified when the opportunity reopens!
Information Sessions
To help you to submit a successful application join an online Kickstarter Information Session
These sessions will cover;
- What you need to demonstrate in your application
- Supporting information
- An opportunity to ask questions
Dates TBC
FAQ
The Kickstarter fund is open to all students (excluding exchange students spending time at the University away from their home institution) recent graduates (< 2 years) and staff with a business idea they wish to develop. Employees of the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre are not eligible to apply.
Yes, we encourage previous applicants to consider their feedback and to reapply.
Yes, as an awardee you are eligible to apply for a second time however, you must demonstrate the application is a completely new idea and not connected to your previous successful entry.
No, previous winners or winning ideas are not eligible to apply to the Kickstarter Fund.
All applications need to be submitted via the F6S platform link https://www.f6s.com/kickstarteraward/apply
Contact the support team directly at support@f6s.com
Awards of up to £2000 are available to students, recent graduates and staff. A typical award value is £1000 based on the activities and expenditure you have outlined in the application i.e. to engage with potential customers/users to validate your idea.
No. The award is only for project costs and activities in support of the project.
The deadline is the last Friday of the month.
You can expect to receive feedback within 4 - 5 weeks of the monthly deadline.
Awards will be made directly to the Lead Entrant listed in the application form, unless otherwise agreed with the Director of the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre.