Innovate UK Innovation Loans Round 23

Innovate UK innovation loans are for highly innovative late-stage research and development (R&D) projects with the best potential for the future. There must be a clear route to commercialisation and economic impact.

Your project must lead to innovative new products, processes, or services that are significantly ahead of those currently available, or propose an innovative use of existing products, processes, or services. It can also involve a new or innovative business model.

To receive an innovation loan for a new project you must:

• Be a UK registered SME
• Carry out your project from or in the UK
• Intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• Give evidence that your business is suitable to take on a loan

Your project must focus on one or more of the following themes or sub-themes:

Net zero

• Energy
• Impact of industrial processes and use of materials
• Agriculture, food, and other sources of emissions
• Capital intensity

Health and wellbeing

• Tackling ill health
• Enhancing wellbeing
• Diet and food

Next-generation digital technologies

Technology families

• Advanced materials and manufacturing
• Artificial intelligence digital and advanced computing
• Bioinformatics and genomics
• Engineering biology
• Electronics, photonics, and quantum technologies
• Energy and environment technologies
• Robotics and smart machines

This competition allows you to include a pre-commercial work package within your project. This will allow you to include some of the new eligible costs that will help you to take your project innovation to market and are over and above typical R&D costs. New eligible costs that can be included in the pre-commercialisation work package include labour, market testing, real world validation, initial tooling or production scale up, capital usage, and up to 20% working capital where it supports commercialisation. Loans can cover up to 100% of eligible project costs.

The funding available will be allocated across a series of competitions, with the next round opening on the day the previous round closes:

• Round 23 (this round) opened on 4 September 2025 and will close on 22 October 2025
• Round 24 will open on 23 October 2025 and close on 7 January 2026