Applying for public grants still feels like a full-time job. The funding system has traditionally been a time-consuming, complex, and often frustrating process for many businesses, especially for startups and SMEs. 

That’s where the AI Grant Consultant comes in: the world’s first AI agent that automates the entire grant journey. From discovering relevant calls and submitting strong applications, to managing post-approval tasks and requirements. In this post, we’ll walk you through how it works, what makes it different, and why it’s changing the way businesses apply for public funding.

Grant scenario internationally

Before diving into every detail of the AI Grant Consultant, let’s have a look at how public funding works internationally. As we already know, the growth potential of grants goes beyond borders. While the structure and scale of funding programmes vary by region, the focus tends to be similar, driven by innovation agendas, sustainability goals, and post-pandemic recovery.

In the European Union, public funding is coordinated through flagship initiatives like Horizon Europe, which will allocate €95.5 billion from 2021 to 2027 to research and innovation across sectors. At its halfway point in January 2025, the programme has already funded over 15,000 projects with a total budget of more than €43 billion.

Other relevant programmes include EU4Health, Erasmus+, and Digital Europe, all reflecting the strong focus on climate, education, digitalisation, health, and green transitions. 

In the United States, the landscape is decentralised but still highly active. Agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) manage billions in annual grants. Despite recent budget cuts in research and health, major programmes like SBIR/STTR continue to offer competitive pathways for small businesses and startups.

Across Asia, countries such as China, South Korea, Japan, and India are investing heavily in strategic technologies including AI and biotech. In China, the National Natural Science Foundation (NSFC) funded over 52,000 projects in 2023 alone, totalling nearly €4 billion. 

In Latin America, public investment in R&D remains modest (usually around 0.5–0.8% of GDP) but countries like Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia have established public agencies and programmes to support research and business innovation. In Brazil, for instance, public funding for AI projects reached approximately €370 million in 2024, and the federal government announced plans to invest an additional €4.3 billion under its National AI Plan to accelerate innovation through support for startups, research institutions, and digital infrastructure. 

Why change the traditional grant process?

Clearly, grants are rooted in every country’s economy. So why change it?

The application process as we know leaves businesses with only two options: either hire an expensive consultant to handle the bureaucracy, which still doesn’t completely eliminate the time-consuming meetings and the paperwork, or do it yourself. That means scrolling through endless portals, understanding dense documents, trying to guess if your business is eligible, and then spending weeks writing an application you might never hear back from. 

The funding system itself is challenging. Information is often decentralized and fragmented, causing many businesses to give up before they even start. Eligibility requirements are complex and hard to understand, and writing strong proposals demands expertise and time most companies simply don’t have. And let’s not forget how low success rates due to errors or incomplete applications also discourage many from pursuing public funding altogether.

Watching this scenario closely, it became clear that something had to change. Grants have to become a real growth engine for businesses, and funding needs to be accessible to all kinds of companies. The AI Grant Consultant enters the picture to simplify that, supporting every step of your funding journey. 

Meet your AI Grant Consultant

Considering all the roadblocks and specificities that public funding presents to businesses worldwide, we knew something had to be done to streamline the process and make it truly work for every type of business. That’s how the world’s first AI Grant Consultant was created.

Unlike generic AI-tools like ChatGPT and other grant aggregator platforms, the agent expertise goes beyond presenting random opportunities that are out there. It acts like a real, full-time employee:  continuously scans thousands of grant opportunities, analyses your unique business profile, and identifies the most relevant funding options tailored to each company’s needs. 

Beyond matching the right grants, the AI Grant Consultant can generate high-quality draft proposals, guide users through complex application forms, manage deadlines, and monitor the opportunity requirements even post-submission. This end-to-end support eliminates guesswork, reduces errors, and drastically cuts down the time and effort required to secure grants.

How it supports every step of your funding journey

There are many stages leading up to the final submission, and even more after your application is approved. To truly change the way grants work and become a valuable tool for businesses, the AI Grant Consultant is involved in every step of the process, helping users save time and effort while securing the right opportunities.

Grant Discovery

It starts by scanning all available grants, working 24/7 to identify and match suitable opportunities aligned with your business profile. The agent continuously assesses the company’s eligibility and project admissibility based on official criteria, presenting the most relevant options.

“We onboard the company and collect all important information, like previous applications, institutional data, and any details needed to understand the business. At the same time, the agent analyzes the grant opportunity by extracting all its requirements from official documents. Then, it checks the company’s information against each requirement to see if it is eligible”, explains Bernardo Tavares, CTO at Granter. 

Smart Writing

When it comes to writing, the AI agent understands the specific requirements of each grant and uses the business information to draft strong, personalized, applications that boost your chances of success. Different from generic AI tools, it is built specifically to act as your dedicated grant consultant, meaning it doesn’t just answer questions and write generic copy, it leverages all the information provided to truly translate the business project into a compelling application for evaluators. 

Besides that, it also allows you to decide whether to automatize all the writing steps or to co-write with the agent, adding your own inputs and references to the final document. In the editor, users can validate their application against official criteria and improve the content with structured feedback.

Automated Submission (coming soon)

Most AI-powered tools stop at the grant writing phase, but the AI Grant Consultant goes much further. It truly simplifies the entire application process, including the submission itself. You don’t need to generate a document, then manually navigate to portals and fill out complex forms. 

The AI agent automatically completes these steps for you, submitting your application directly through the official channels. This automation lets you finalize your grant applications with greater speed, eliminating tedious manual work and reducing the risk of errors.

Effortlessly Management (coming soon)

After submission, the AI agent helps users to manage all post-approval requirements. It keeps businesses informed and prepared for any follow-ups, allowing them to manage multiple submissions efficiently. Beyond just providing updates, the agent also tracks invoices, automatically generates payment requests, and prepares necessary reports, ensuring full control over the entire post-approval process.

What kinds of grants are covered?

There are really no geographical limitations for the AI Grant Consultant. The agent is designed to work across borders; finding national, regional and local opportunities. The platform covers a wide range of grants, making it easy for businesses to explore different strategies for their funding journey.

It includes research and innovation grants, sustainability and green technology funding, startup and SME development programmes, as well as sector-specific grants in health, education, and technology. It connects businesses with public grants such as EIC Accelerator, Portugal 2030, America’s Seed Fund and others. 

What makes it different from other platforms?

While traditional grant search engines mostly just aggregate information, still leaving businesses with the hard task of curating and analysing each opportunity, the AI Grant Consultant works 24/7, constantly scanning for new grants, offering users an AI-driven matchmaking experience that is both dynamic and personalised. It doesn’t just present grant opportunities, it selects the best options, allowing businesses to be precise in their funding strategy. 

It also allows more companies to initiate their grant journey by removing the need for specialised writing skills and reducing dependency on expensive human consultants. The AI agent adapts itself to each company’s context, understanding the project, funding needs, and industry to draft an application that truly highlights the business potential. As Tavares states, “It works like a team member working quietly in the background.” 

And it keeps evolving over time. “The agent continuously gathers new information and stores it in its memory to improve future recommendations. Past applications are saved and referenced for similar opportunities, and conversations with the agent help refine the process. Basically, each time you submit an application, the AI gets even better at assisting you the next time.”

All of that happens in fast, simple, and intuitive steps, helping to cut up to 90% of the time usually spent on applications. That means users can keep up with new opportunities and apply to more grants, increasing their chances of success across multiple calls.

Benefits of a dedicated AI agent for grants

As we mentioned earlier, applying for grants is a full-time job. No wonder some institutions have dedicated teams to find, write, apply and manage grants. And even then, the workload can be so overwhelming that they still miss out on valuable opportunities. Now imagine that scenario in a SME or startup, where there’s really no professional support or budget to hire a consultant or external help. Grants become practically unreachable. 

That’s why having a dedicated AI agent for grants can be truly transformative for businesses. It acts like a digital employee, learning with the company and becoming a team member focused on one task: getting your business to grow.

It saves significant time by automating research, writing and submission tasks, increases accuracy to minimise errors, improves application quality, and personalises funding recommendations to specific business goals. 

Who should use it?

Since the AI Grant Consultant adapts to each unique context, all types of organisations can benefit from having their own agent. Startups seeking their first rounds of non-dilutive funding, SMEs aiming to scale through digitalisation, universities and research centres unlocking innovative solutions, non-profits looking for financial support and even consultants and agencies managing multiple clients can leverage the platform to streamline their workflow and improve success rates. 

Hire your own AI Grant Consultant

The AI Grant Consultant is here to transform how businesses access public grants. Stop wasting time on the process and missing out on opportunities that could truly boost your company’s growth. Let the AI agent manage every step and become a game-changer in your funding journey.

Join the waitlist now and get early access to your very own AI Grant Consultant.