One Technology, Three Funding Decisions. VC, Corporate and Grant

A science-led company often takes one presentation to a venture capitalist, a strategic corporate and a public programme. The facts can be accurate in every meeting and the case can still fail three times, for three different reasons.

The company needs one set of facts and three cuts of the case. Each institution has its own decision, its own rules and its own idea of a good outcome. The evidence stays the same. The question each document answers changes.

Founders often default to the venture version. Dimitry Gershenson, co-founder and chief executive of Enduring Planet, a lender that offers non-dilutive financing to climate companies, described the habit in his Brighter Future interview, published in May 2023. “Many founders lack a comprehensive understanding of the capital landscape available to them. Venture-backed founders have been given the false narrative that VC money is the best tool to finance all their needs, but this is just not true.” He speaks as a lender with a stake in the alternative. For a founder raising from more than one kind of capital, the working point is that each source needs its own case.

Three readers, three decisions

The next commitment differs too. A venture fund moves to a partner meeting, diligence or a term sheet. A corporate moves to a sponsored pilot, a development agreement or an equity stake. A grant programme funds a work package with defined outputs.

The venture fund tests an investable company

A venture fund checks the opportunity against its mandate, return expectations, cheque size, ownership needs and time horizon. Our 16 investor interviews show funds setting the size of outcome they need before they look at the science.

The venture case leads with the first repeatable market, the customer or usage evidence, the financial logic and the milestones the next round reaches, with the open uncertainties named. A large impact claim leaves the return question open, and a better deck leaves a mandate mismatch where it was. What an Investor Deck Actually Has to Make Easy to Decide sets out the venture version slide by slide.

The corporate tests fit and the cost to its own teams

A corporate investor may want a financial return. The internal case can also rest on sourcing advantage, product access, strategic options or technical compatibility. The first question inside the corporate is often what a partnership allows the business to do, and what it will ask of the operating teams.

Name what the corporate gains, which function would sponsor the relationship, how governance would work and which diligence or pilot step comes first. Interest from one team carries no authority over the others. Procurement, legal, research and development, the business unit and the venture arm may each hold a different approval. What Your Buyer Has to Defend After You Leave the Room follows a case through those functions.

The grant funder tests mandate and additionality

A grant programme may ask for evidence that the work serves a defined objective, that the costs are eligible, that activities and outcomes can be evidenced and that the funding adds something that would otherwise be missing. The company's valuation is rarely the organising argument.

State the technical uncertainty plainly and explain why support is justified at this stage. A programme may exist to reduce a public-good risk, pay for a demonstration or widen access, and it may decline to pay for work that commercial capital would already fund. Each funder has its own rules, so read the call itself before deciding what the application needs to say. Why Are FOAK Climate Projects Hard to Finance? shows where a grant sat in one first-plant stack.

Some investors treat grants as part of the plan. Jonny Everett, a founding partner at the Paris venture studio Marble, made the point in his Brighter Future interview, published in July 2024. “It's also important to think about how you can maximise that runway with less expensive capital, like grants, prizes, and even debt (where possible in the early stages).” A grant that pays for a defined work package can then appear in the venture case as a milestone already funded.

Keep one evidence register behind all three

Build one register of the technical results, commercial commitments, projected economics, regulatory assumptions, team and dependencies. Every version draws on it, and nobody edits a figure in one version alone.

The founder's origin stays the same when the capital provider changes. The framing of the decision moves. Brighter Future's Story System works the same way, with one source written in depth and cut for each room. Our guide to the scientific claims evidence register sets out how to build the register itself.

Test each version with the hand-off question

Before each meeting, check the version against the person who will carry it once you have left.

If the champion cannot find the evidence or the commitment, fix the order before adding slides.

When no version will work

If the funder cannot support the project under its mandate, no adaptation changes that. Find out why it declined before rewriting anything. When the case is sound and you need the venture, corporate and grant versions built from one source, that is investor storytelling work, and we do it.

Questions people ask

How should a deep tech founder prepare a deck for a corporate venture investor?

Show the strategic fit, the application and the business unit that would own the relationship or buy the product. A corporate investor may weigh supply, licensing, procurement and strategic position alongside financial return. Say whether the request is for equity, customer development, an offtake or another commitment, because different people approve each one.

Sources and further reading

• Dimitry Gershenson, Enduring Planet, founder interview, Brighter Future, 2023
• Jonny Everett, Marble, investor interview, Brighter Future, 2024
• What 16 Investor Interviews Teach Founders About the Decision After the Pitch, Brighter Future, 2026
• What an Investor Deck Actually Has to Make Easy to Decide, Brighter Future, 2026
• What Your Buyer Has to Defend After You Leave the Room, Brighter Future, 2026
• Why Are FOAK Climate Projects Hard to Finance?, Brighter Future, 2026
• The Story System, Brighter Future
• Investor Storytelling, Brighter Future