What was broken
Evoxia Labs, a DeepTech startup, needed structured access to a grant ecosystem it did not have time to learn program by program — knowing which programmes fit, and getting applications right.
What we did
We mapped 10+ grant programmes against Evoxia’s profile and shortlisted the 5+ with the strongest fit.
We then managed the applications and documentation end to end — including a public seed-fund program, structured as a grant or convertible debt, never both.
Where it landed
Evoxia Labs secured 5+ of the 10+ programmes mapped, with the public seed-fund program applications managed end to end and structured correctly as either grant or convertible debt.
Map before you apply — business.gov.au’s finder is a portfolio tool, not a wishlist
The mistake a DeepTech founder makes is working one grant at a time: find a program, build a budget for it, apply, repeat. The engagement above did the opposite — map the whole ecosystem against the company’s actual profile first, then shortlist by fit, and only then start writing. business.gov.au’s Grants and Programs Finder is built for exactly that first step: a five-minute guided search filtered by industry, business structure, operating stage, funding type (grants, loans, tax benefits, mentoring) and — critically — program status, so the output is a shortlist of what is genuinely open now, not every program that has ever existed.
Run the finder against your actual profile and it returns a working list, not a single answer: which programmes are open, which are "coming soon," and which have already closed. business.gov.au itself flags that new programmes launch often and to check back — the map is a living document, refreshed on a cadence, not a one-time exercise before a single application.
The R&D Tax Incentive is the layer under the map, not a line on it
Before the shortlist, there is a baseline that applies every income year regardless of what else is open: the R&D Tax Incentive (R&DTI). Under current rules per business.gov.au’s R&DTI overview, a company with aggregated turnover under $20 million gets a refundable offset at its corporate tax rate plus an 18.5 percentage-point premium; at or above that turnover the offset is non-refundable, stepped by R&D intensity. Claimable R&D expenditure caps at $150 million a year, and registration with the Department of Industry, Science and Resources is due within 10 months of the end of the income year the R&D activities took place in — a deadline that runs on its own clock, independent of any grant round. Confirm the current rates directly on business.gov.au before relying on them, since offset settings are set by government and can change.
Because it runs every year rather than opening and closing, the R&DTI is the layer a DeepTech company plans around first, then stacks state and federal grants on top of — not a program competing for the same slot on the map.
State programmes are a second, separate layer — and they move on their own state’s calendar
business.gov.au’s finder surfaces federal programmes well but state-run funding lives on state government sites and moves on a separate, state-specific calendar. NSW is a working example: the state’s innovation grants page currently lists the MVP Ventures Program, funding early-stage startups to reach a minimum viable product, and the Boosting Business Innovation Program, which partners SMEs with publicly funded research organisations to commercialise research — a natural second step for a DeepTech company whose core IP started in a lab. Other states run their own equivalents on their own sites, each with a different eligibility bar, closing date and reporting requirement.
The map, done properly, has three tiers a DeepTech founder tracks separately: the R&DTI baseline that never closes, the federal grant rounds surfaced through business.gov.au’s finder that open and close on the Minister’s schedule, and the state programme layer that has to be checked on the state’s own site because the federal finder does not carry every state’s full list.
One cost base, reused — the discipline the earlier engagement already proved
The method that shortlisted 10+ programmes down to 5+ secured wins transfers directly: build the eligibility and cost picture once, then test it against each programme’s specific rules — rather than starting each application’s budget from a blank page. Evoxia’s seed-funding engagement also demonstrates the second half of the discipline — structuring the instrument correctly (grant or convertible debt, never both, never stacked) rather than taking whatever a scheme offers without checking it against every other commitment already on the books.
For an Australian DeepTech company the equivalent artefact is R&D expenditure tracked at the project level, month by month — the same cost base that supports the R&DTI schedule, a state grant’s matched-funding evidence, and a federal grant’s eligible-expenditure declaration, prepared once and pointed at whichever form is due next. CapEasy prepares that map and that cost base: the shortlist against your profile, the project-level records, the budget built against each programme’s permitted spend. The eligibility determination, the registration with the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, and the lodgment itself are prepared for your registered BAS or tax agent to lodge — the programme, the agent and the ATO make the calls; we prepare the file.
What to take from it
- Map the whole ecosystem against your profile before writing a single application — business.gov.au’s Grants and Programs Finder filters by industry, stage and live status in about five minutes, and it is a portfolio tool, not a single-shot search.
- The R&D Tax Incentive is the standing baseline underneath the map — it runs every income year on current rules, unlike grant rounds that open and close.
- State programmes sit on a separate calendar from the federal finder — check your own state’s site directly; NSW’s MVP Ventures Program and Boosting Business Innovation Program are the kind of layer the federal tool does not fully surface.
- Build the cost base once, at project level, and reuse it — the same R&D expenditure records support an R&DTI schedule, a state grant’s evidence and a federal grant’s eligible-spend declaration.
- Structure the instrument correctly before you take it — grant or convertible debt, never both — the same discipline that shaped the earlier engagement applies to stacking any two non-dilutive sources.