💰List of funding sources for your biotech project so you don’t have to move in with your parents💰

Getting bank. Printing paper. Securing the bag.

In the beginning stages of your journey as a biotech founder, it’s hella difficult to get $$$ to test out your brilliant idea.

I’ve been there. I’ve built labs in everything from a bullet-hole-ridden garage space in po-dunk Virginia, to the attic of a haunted mansion, to a shipping container cooking in the parking lot of an LA summer.

Yes, I’m jaded. If I had money I’d throw it at you. But I don’t. So instead you should check out this list of kind people who make sure you don’t have to weird out your parents with trying to make sperm drug delivery carriers.

Also because y’all will probably go through and open every single link here to completely destroy your computer’s tab count and make the onboard fan on your laptop scream like a banshee, I’ve made it easier on you by including them all in this link.

Funding for young people (sub-25 ish):

776 Foundation ($100k): Focused on climate, founded by Alexis Ohanian (reddit dude).

Thiel Fellowship ($100k): The OG drop-out-of-school-and-build-something.

Magnificent Grants ($100k): (DJ Khaled voice) Another one. Drop out. You wouldn’t.

LocalHost ($100k): Drop out but this time… from high school???!?!?!?!?!!!

Z Fellows ($10k): Interesting people. Founders Fund?

These don’t give you money but they seem like good communities/fellowships that definitely aren’t cults:

Foresight: Really cool old school network of folks in frontier technology.

Polaris: UK-based crew of folks working at the edge of the possible.

Longevity Biotech: a one-of-a-kind longevity fellowship.

Time Initiative: a one-of-a-kind longevity fellowship.

QB3: Advisory program in the bay area with tons of connections.

Berkeley I-Corps: Do it. It’s like eating your vegetables. Probably the healthiest thing for your idea is to talk to customers.

5050: Set up by 50 Years, seems legit.

Activator: No cost biotech accelerator.

Small Chunks of Funding for Experiments (non-dilutive):

Awesome Foundation ($1k): Nice group of 10ish people who put in $100 each and give out a grant a month.

1517 Medici Grants ($1k): Investor group that gives out funds for interesting sci-fi projects.

Emergent Ventures (up to $15k): Doing something weird and counterculture? Tyler Cowen wants to know about it and give you $$$.

Experiment.com Grants (crowdfunding): David Lang has been doing the lord’s work in adding fuel to the fire that is grassroots research.

Homeworld (variable): Do you not want the world to steadily asphyxiate from CO2? Neither do Dan Goodwin and Paul Reginato.

ACX Grant (variable): Once a year by Scott Alexander to whatever he thinks is cool.

ValleyDAO (variable): Those dudes Albert and Morgan who want to make things happen in biotech.

If you’re doing biotech things, here’s a list of stuff to get early larger non — dilutive funding/support:

Astera + Astera ($125–250k): Really Cate Hall, Seemay Chou and Jed McCaleb are single-handedly trying to shift the philanthropic ecosystem towards supporting alternative forms of research. Really cool to see.

National Science Foundation (up to $250k): The government will give you money to work on interesting things. No strings attached except for a headache of paperwork but I swear it’s worth it.

Longevity (?): just found this one so I don’t know too much but seems fine.

Activate ($275k): Cool program that hooks you up with labspace, money and more.

Breakthrough ($50–500k): Bill Gates is making it rain to stop acid rain (and more). Climate-focused generally.

Echoing Green ($100k): Also climate focused and for underserved founders.

O’Shaughnessy ($100k): Hard to pronounce, nice to get.

Once you’ve really got things going, then it’s time to hit up the Vulture Capitalists. Here’s some good funds with easy applications:

SciFounder: Founded by Nish + others, they’re good technical folks.

NFX Bio: I think Omri is still running this.

Boost VC: The younger Draper has an awesome group of founders in a cohort.

PearX: Not sure about this one but they seem nice and have good snacks.

IndieBio: The original synthetic biology funders. I went through in 2016 and still heavily recommend to get started.

Berkeley SkyDeck: Nice terms + lots of Berkeley alum support.

YCombinator: The original. Really helps with fundraising.

Sidenote:

Just going to plug this program I got into — the OnDeck Fellowship. I’ll check them out and let y’all know how it goes.

Conclusion

Okay now that you’ve made it to the very end, I’ve actually included a link of links with all of the applications here. Have fun, make good choices and build cool shit.