Hardware grants, hackathons and bounties
68 open hardware funding programs, each checked against the organizer's official page. 18 close in the next 7 days and 8 take applications on a rolling basis.
Money for people who build physical things: hardware accelerators, chip design awards, maker contests and programs for robotics and space.
ESA BIC Hessen: 26 October 2026 application deadline
ESA BIC Hessen in Darmstadt offers space startups 60,000 euro in funding plus ESA technical support. The next application deadline is 26 October 2026.
Hackaday Retrocomputing Contest 2026
Hackaday and DigiKey give a $150 gift certificate to each of three favorite retrocomputing projects. Entries close on October 27, 2026.
ESA BIC Latvia: 27 October 2026 deadline
ESA BIC Latvia offers €80,000 for space startups in Latvia, plus incubation and coaching. Apply by 27 October 2026.
EIC Pathfinder Challenge 2026: Advanced Materials for Miniaturised Energy Harvesting Systems
EIC Pathfinder grants of €500,000 to €4 million to build tiny energy harvesting devices from new materials. Proposals close 28 October 2026.
Activate Fellowship US Cohort 2027
Activate pays a $100,000 yearly stipend, $100,000 in R&D support and travel funds for two years, with no equity, to first time US hard tech founders. Applications close October 30, 2026.
Innovation Crossroads Cohort 2027
A two year hard tech fellowship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with a $115,000 yearly stipend and lab access. Applications close on October 30, 2026.
West Gate Cohort 6
West Gate Cohort 6 pays a $115,000 yearly stipend for up to two years. Apply by October 30, 2026.
ESA BIC Andalusia: October 2026 cutoff
ESA BIC Andalusia offers space startups up to €60,000 in equity free funding and incubation in Seville. The next cutoff is October 30, 2026.
HackFW MADE Challenge 2026
HackFW MADE Challenge is a North Texas hackathon on AI, hardware and software for manufacturing, with $1,900 in prizes. Submissions close on 30 October 2026.
Chain Reaction Innovations Cohort 2027
Chain Reaction Innovations at Argonne pays technical founders $115k a year for two years to build energy and science startups. Apply by 30 October 2026.
FLITE grants open until 30 October 2026
FLITE gives grants and live airport tests to companies building air travel technology. Applications close on 30 October 2026.
NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Program 2027 to 2028
The NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship gives up to $60,000 per award to PhD students working on accelerated computing. Apply by 30 October 2026.
DigiKey & Würth Elektronik Proteus-IV Eval Board Design Contest 2026
Open theme hardware contest around the Proteus-IV Bluetooth LE 6.0 module. The top 50 ideas get a free board and the winner picks a prize up to $2,500. Ideas are due 30 October 2026.
NEURA Research Programme 2026/2027: Physical AI call for proposals
Up to €500k per project for universities, research institutes and startups in the EU, UK or Switzerland that bring Physical AI robot skills to a real pilot. Proposals close 30 October 2026.
RP2350 Hacking Challenge 2
Raspberry Pi pays $20,000 to the first person who leaks AES key material from the RP2350 by side channel analysis. Entries close 31 October 2026.
ESA BIC Switzerland: 31 October 2026 deadline
ESA BIC Switzerland offers up to EUR 200,000 without taking equity for Swiss space startups. Full applications are due 31 October 2026.
ESA BIC Denmark: November 2026 application deadline
ESA BIC Denmark gives €80,000 in equity free funding and two years of coaching to Danish space startups. The next application deadline is November 2, 2026.
Breakthrough Energy Fellows Cohort 7: Innovator Fellowship 2027
Breakthrough Energy Fellows Cohort 7 offers climate tech founders up to $500,000 in a SAFE plus a year of support. Concept papers are due 2 November 2026.
FORTIS Open Call #2 2026 for human robot interaction projects
FORTIS Open Call #2 funds European consortia with up to €250,000 per project to test and deploy human robot interaction tools. Apply by 4 November 2026.
Build on Trainium call for proposals: Fall 2026
Amazon offers AWS credits of up to $250,000 and beyond for research on Trainium kernel agents. Proposals close 4 November 2026.
Tehnopol DeepTech Accelerator 2027 cohort
The Tehnopol DeepTech Accelerator gives Estonian science based startups up to €170,000 in equity free grants over 18 months. Apply by November 8, 2026.
FIERCE 2nd Open Call for Financing 2026: space data vouchers for green SMEs
The FIERCE 2nd Open Call gives EU SMEs vouchers of up to €50,000 to build green solutions with space data. Apply by November 9, 2026.
ESA BIC Barcelona: November 2026 application deadline
ESA BIC Barcelona gives space startups in Catalonia 60,000 EUR of non equity funding plus technical support. Apply by November 13, 2026.
Physical AI Growth Lab 2027 by UnternehmerTUM, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Infineon
Physical AI Growth Lab is a free, equity free accelerator in Munich for physical AI and robotics startups, with up to €350K in Azure credits. Apply by November 13, 2026.
RISC-V Summit North America 2027 Scholarships and Travel Fund
Free passes and travel refunds for open source developers who cannot pay to attend RISC-V Summit North America 2027. Apply by 13 November 2026.
UGREEN Hackathon 2026: build AI Skills for a NAS
The UGREEN Hackathon pays $46,000 in cash prizes for AI Skills built for the UGOS NAS system. Send a proposal and test Skill by November 15, 2026.
EIT Spark New Ventures in Creative Tech 2026
EIT Culture and Creativity offers up to EUR 30,000 for early creative tech ventures. Apply by 16 November 2026 at 17:00 CET.
Techstars Anywhere Accelerator Spring 2027
Techstars Anywhere is a remote first accelerator that invests $220K per company. Applications for Spring 2027 close on November 18, 2026.
Techstars Boston Accelerator Spring 2027
Techstars Boston invests $220K in early stage startups, with a focus on AI, robotics and health. Spring 2027 applications close November 18, 2026.
ESA BIC Brindisi: November 2026 round
ESA BIC Brindisi gives space startups in Italy €50,000 without equity, plus mentoring and incubation. Next closing date is 18 November 2026.
Imagine H2O Accelerator and Imagine H2O Asia: 2027 cohort
Imagine H2O runs two equity free virtual accelerators for water startups, one global and one for Asia Pacific. Apply for the 2027 cohort by November 20, 2026.
UKRI NQS Mission 2 components, systems and architectures 2026
UKRI offers up to £2.56 million full economic cost for quantum networking research in the UK. Apply by 24 November 2026.
UKRI NQS Mission 2 Coordination Network 2026
UKRI offers up to £630,937 full economic cost for a UK quantum networking coordination network. Apply by 24 November 2026.
Xecs Quantum Call 2026: funding to bring quantum technology to market
The first Xecs Quantum Call funds international projects that move quantum sensing, metrology and communications towards market. Outlines due 26 November 2026.
RobotX PhD and Postdoctoral Fellowships 2027 at ETH Zurich
Paid PhD and postdoc fellowships in robotics at ETH Zurich, with one application seen by up to three RobotX professors. Apply by 27 November 2026.
Nebraska Innovation Fellowship
The Nebraska Innovation Fellowship gives a $2,500 materials allowance and studio access. Apply by 30 November 2026.
Joules Accelerator Cohort 18
Joules Accelerator takes six grid technology startups into a free three month program. Cohort 18 applications close on 30 November 2026.
heypcb Hardware Challenge 2026
heypcb pays two $1,000 prizes for original circuit boards published on Circuit World. Entries close 30 November 2026.
Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge 2027 for deep tech startups
The Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge 2027 selects deep tech startups worldwide, with a €200K equity prize for the winner. Apply by November 30, 2026.
MedTech Innovator Accelerator 2027
Five month nonprofit accelerator for medtech, diagnostics and digital health startups, with $700,000+ in prize capital. Apply by 1 December 2026.
ARIA Robot Dexterity call: standards and benchmarks for dexterous robotics
ARIA offers up to £3 million per project for shared benchmarks, standards and test infrastructure in dexterous robotics. Proposals are due December 1, 2026.
2027 European Prize for Women Innovators
The 2027 European Prize for Women Innovators awards up to €100,000 to women who founded innovative companies in the EU or associated countries. Apply by December 1, 2026.
Centech Acceleration Program: Winter 2027 cohort in Montreal
Centech's free 12 week Acceleration Program in Montreal supports deeptech, medtech and edtech startups. The call for the Winter 2027 cohort is open until December 1.
UKRI doctoral focal award: chip design and verification
UKRI offers up to £6,000,000 for a doctoral award in chip design. The call opens 7 October 2026 and closes 2 December 2026.
Oxford Technical AI Governance DPhil Studentships 2027
Fully funded Oxford DPhil places on the technical side of AI governance, from compute and hardware to model evaluations. Apply by 2 December 2026 for October 2027 entry.
Conception X Raise: Spring 2027 investment readiness programme
Conception X Raise is a 10 week programme that gets science founders ready to fundraise, with up to £300k for top teams. Apply by 6 December 2026.
SECURE Second Open Call 2026: Cyber Resilience Act grants for EU SMEs
The SECURE Second Open Call pays up to €30,000 for EU small firms working toward Cyber Resilience Act compliance. Apply by December 11, 2026.
Build the Autodesk University 2027 Product
A Hackster design challenge to create the official Autodesk University 2027 product, open until December 21, 2026. The winning concept is manufactured for about 750 attendees.
EasyEDA Spark 2026 hardware program
EasyEDA Spark 2026 offers an $85,000 prize pool for hardware projects, with up to $30,000 for the top entry. Project submissions close 31 December 2026.
MassRobotics Healthcare Robotics Catalyst Program: Cohort 6 (2027)
Free four month MassRobotics program for healthcare robotics startups worldwide, with no equity taken. Cohort 6 applications close 31 December 2026.
Infineon Boss Battle in the AI Arena 2026
Infineon is running a hardware contest on the PSOC Edge E84 AI kit with a $2,000 prize pool. Submissions open 13 October 2026 and close 3 January 2027.
Luminate accelerator cohort 10 for optics and photonics startups
Luminate cohort 10 gives optics, photonics and imaging startups $100K at the start and a shot at $1 million. Apply by 11 January 2027.
Xecs Call 6 2026: Eureka funding for electronic components and systems projects
Xecs Call 6 backs international R&D projects on chips and electronic systems with national public funding. Project outlines are due 21 January 2027.
PCBWay 9th Project Design Contest
PCBWay runs its 9th Project Design Contest with cash prizes up to $2,000 plus hardware for electronics, robotics and mechanical projects. Submissions close January 24, 2027.
SMART Eureka Call 10 2026: funding for international advanced manufacturing projects
SMART Call 10 labels international R&D projects in advanced manufacturing for national grants or loans. Project outlines are due 26 January 2027.
STM32Cube Innovation Challenge 2026: Design with STM32C5
An online embedded design contest from Elektor and STMicroelectronics with €5,000 in prizes and free STM32C5 boards. Ideas by 30 November 2026, projects by 31 January 2027.
Sustain the System 2026: Nordic Semiconductor contest with an $8,000 prize pool
Nordic Semiconductor is giving away $8,000 for predictive monitoring projects built on the nRF54LM20 DK. Submissions close 23 April 2027.
tinygrad bounties for open source GPU and compiler work
tinygrad pays cash bounties of $200 to $2,000 for merged work on its open source deep learning framework, from GPU emulators to new backends.
Apple Security Bounty: rewards up to $2 million for Apple platform flaws
Apple pays up to $2 million, and over $5 million with bonuses, for proven security flaws in iPhone, Mac, iCloud and other Apple platforms. Reports are accepted at any time.
Android and Google Devices Security Reward Program
Google pays up to $1,500,000 for exploit chains against Pixel, Nest and Fitbit devices, and up to $25,000 for strong single bugs. Rolling, no deadline.
Silicon Catalyst accelerator for semiconductor startups
Silicon Catalyst runs a 24 month accelerator for chip startups, with in kind tools and services worth millions per company. Applications are rolling.
ESA BIC Estonia open call
ESA BIC Estonia offers €60,000 in equity free funding and incubation to space tech startups in Estonia. Applications are open, with the next selection in November.
Tenstorrent Bounty Program for open source contributors
Tenstorrent pays bounties for merged pull requests on GitHub issues tagged bounty. Tiers run from $1 to $3,000, and one open issue lists $35,000.
SOSV HAX hard tech accelerator
SOSV's HAX program invests up to $550,000 in pre seed hard tech startups and gives them a six month lab residency in New Jersey. Applications are rolling.
Jane Street protocol emulator ASIC competition
Jane Street will fabricate the most novel open source protocol emulator chips. Designs are due on 18 January 2027. The submission form is not open yet.
NVIDIA Inception programme for startups
NVIDIA Inception gives startups free cloud credits, preferred hardware pricing and technical training. There are no fees, no deadlines and no cohorts, so companies can apply at any time.
BlueQubit Quantum Flywheel 2026: $150,000 in quantum and AI compute
BlueQubit is giving $150,000 of quantum, GPU and AI compute to research teams for three months. The open call runs for about five weeks.
Snapmaker Innovation Fund 2026: Open Competition Phase 2
Snapmaker pays $50,000 in cash prizes, up to $5,000 per project, for firmware, software and hardware mods for its U1 printer. Submit 28 October to 24 December 2026.