Every investor in your startup, even friends and family, normally expects a share of your company (equity), which means your return for all your effort goes down quickly. Thus founders seeking funding for a good cause or a new technology often seize on grants from universities, government agencies and philanthropic organizations as free money to solve their problems.
In the U.S. they can visit the directory of government grant alternatives, which is searchable and features more than a thousand federal programs, or more locally the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), with opportunities for high technology startups. hey can find additional grants from large philanthropic directories, and your favorite alma mater site.
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