Freight Innovation Fund Accelerator 2024
What is the Freight Innovation Fund?
The UK Government has committed to a dedicated £7m cross-modal Freight Innovation Fund (FIF) as part of the Future of Freight strategy, which sets out the Government’s long-term vision for the UK freight sector. Funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) and delivered through Connected Places Catapult, the Freight Innovation Fund is a multi-faceted programme which will accelerate the adoption of commercially ready solutions into the sector.
About the Accelerator Programme 2024
The Freight Innovation Fund Accelerator will support up to 10 Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to trial their solutions in real-world environments to help solve pressing challenges within the freight sector. The SMEs will be selected by the DfT and Connected Places Catapult to join a 6-month programme, where each of them can access up to £150,000 of grant funding to trial their solutions.
SMEs have two options when applying to the programme:
- Apply to be matched with an industry partnerConnected Places Catapult will work with industry partners, who will provide access to testing environments and internal expertise. They will also play an active role in the SME selection as part of the due diligence process.The industry partners supporting the accelerator programme are Maritime Transport, Freightliner, Wincanton, FedEx Express, Portsmouth International Port, Port of Tyne and DP World UK. If you would like to get additional details about the programme partners, their motivations, potential trial facilities and resources available, you can view them here.
- Apply with your own Industry Partner
We also welcome applications from SMEs who already have a partner they wish to trial their solutions with and can offer access to testbed facilities.
Bespoke Support for Successful SMEs
As part of the programme, SMEs will also benefit from trial and business support tailored to their needs. This will include but is not limited to trial design training, monitoring and evaluation, investment readiness, pitch coaching, marketing support, and business modelling.
All applicants will also be able to join the Freight Innovation Cluster, a community for stakeholders operating in the freight industry. Learn more here
Application Support Webinar
We held an application support webinar on 1 November with the DfT, which included an overview of the programme, challenges, guidance on the application process and a live Q&A.
