A Global Tech Advocates working group
Finding the right funding can be difficult.
There are investors, banks, lenders, government programmes, grants, corporate investors, family offices and many other sources of finance, each with different criteria, geographies, sectors and stages of investment.
Knowing who funds what, where they operate and when to approach them, is often challenging.
GTA Innovation Funding isn't just another list or directory. We bring together the organisations and people that fund innovative businesses, giving them a platform to reach founders and explain their propositions, helping make the funding landscape easier to understand and easier to navigate.
About
GTA Innovation Funding is a Global Tech Advocates working group for providers of funding to innovative businesses. This global community connects the organisations that fund innovation, to the businesses, founders and technology ecosystems they want to reach.
Our aim is simple
To make it easier for innovative businesses to understand their funding options, and easier for funding providers to reach the businesses they are looking for.
We bring together
Audiences
Global Tech Advocates is a fast-growing community of more than 40,000 grassroots tech professionals across 50 countries. GTA Innovation Funding is a Global Tech Advocates working group for providers of funding to innovative businesses. This global community connects the organisations that fund innovation, to the businesses, founders and technology ecosystems they want to reach.
If you provide funding to innovative businesses, GTA Innovation Funding gives you an opportunity to explain, at our "anchor" in-person event series plus third-party events that we invite GTA chapters around the world to host, with our support:
The objective is simple: help the right businesses find the right funding providers, efficiently.
If you're building an innovative business, there are many possible routes to funding. The right answer will depend on the business, its stage, its objectives and its geography. GTA Innovation Funding helps make these different routes easier to understand and access.
Venture Capital
Investment in businesses with the potential for significant growth.
Growth Capital
Investment for established businesses looking to grow further.
Debt and Venture Debt
Finance that a business borrows and repays.
Grants
Funding available for particular projects, technologies, sectors or areas of innovation.
Corporate Investment
Investment or strategic support from larger companies.
Family Offices and Angel Investors
Private investment from individuals, families and investment organisations.
Government Funding
Loans, grants, investment programmes and other forms of public support.
International Funding
Investment and finance available outside your home market.
Activity
We help bring together funding providers, technology businesses, investors, government organisations and technology communities.
We provide an event programme for funding providers to explain what they are looking for, helping businesses understand where different funding routes may be relevant.
We help facilitate conversations, roundtables, events and other initiatives focused on funding innovation and business growth.
Global Tech Advocates has technology communities around the world. GTA Innovation Funding can connect those communities with funding providers and investment organisations across different markets.
We work with members, ecosystem organisations and event partners to create opportunities for funding providers to meet innovative businesses and their communities.
We are particularly interested in initiatives that improve the connection between funding supply and entrepreneurial demand.
If you know what you want to fund but find it difficult to reach the right businesses, GTA Innovation Funding can help. Members can use the community to:
Investment promotion agencies, accelerators, incubators, professional associations, technology communities and other ecosystem organisations can work with GTA Innovation Funding to help their audiences understand and access relevant sources of finance.
We can also explore bespoke initiatives with organisations looking to connect innovative businesses with funding providers in their market.
GTA Innovation Funding is a community and platform, not a financial intermediary. We do not:
We help participants understand the funding landscape and create connections between innovative businesses, funding providers and the wider ecosystem.
Resources
We will build a growing collection of resources to help founders research and understand the funding landscape.
Resource
A database from Pitchflix that uses video to focus on human attributes, enabling founders to research the people behind venture capital, family office, corporate venture and angel investors before approaching them.
Access is free of charge, paid for by our sponsors. Select a sponsor and explore MoneyWall.
If you would like to make the MoneyWall resource available as a service to your founder audience through your own website or ecosystem, please contact us to discuss. Pitchflix offers this free of charge.
Explore MoneyWallSponsors
Do you have a market-leading proposition for:
GTA Innovation Funding can help you take your market-leading propositions to a targeted, global audience with attribution & consent, through our live in person events plus digital channels. Contact us to explore the available options.
Contact usResource
A free investment search engine. Find the right backers by what investors fund: search over 40,000 funds and angels. shipshape.vc makes it easy to find investors that invest in what you are building, and cheques at the round size you are raising, rather than trawling static, out-of-date lists. Companies using shipshape.vc have gone on to raise over $2.1bn, including shipshape.vc themselves.
Access is free of charge, paid for by sponsors.
Create an accountResource
Programmes for international scale-up top teams and founder communities, delivered by Richard Lowe's consultancy, Hewlett Rand.
Dragonfly Academy: a tailored programme to support international scale-up top teams, maximising the upside potential for your investment.
Getting UK Ready: training for international incubators, accelerators or communities of Tech founders to learn more about navigating the UK tech eco-system. Discuss your founder community development needs with Richard Lowe.
Explore Top Team AcceleratorResource
UK tech export missions for scaleups seeking market entry and expansion to international markets.
Tech Mission to Greater Bay Area, China: 23 to 27 November 2026. A UK tech export mission for tech scaleups for market entry and expansion to Asia Pacific.
UK HealthTech Mission to Boston, USA: 26 to 30 April 2027. A UK tech export mission for health tech scaleups for market entry and expansion to USA.
Visit Tech West England AdvocatesResource
Make sure every event achieves its full potential, with networking before, during and after.
Founders and funders share what they are looking for before the day, so the right people find each other in the room.
Free for founders at every event. GTA chapters and members get their first event free: self-serve, up to 50 guests, no tickets or sponsors. Use code #GTAFIRST in the comment field using the link below.
Visit CameThruResource
Unlock your startup's full potential with a half-day Financial Health Check. We audit your cash flow, optimize your burn rate, and build a clear roadmap to growth, giving you instant clarity and investor-ready confidence in just four hours.
We cover:
Resource
A curated funding library by Alpesh Patel OBE, founder of Tech2Great and a Dealmaker for the UK Government's Global Entrepreneur Programme.
If you would like to offer a resource for founders in the GTA Innovation Funding community to use, free of charge, please get in touch.
If you are hosting an event relevant to innovation funding, we are happy to consider listing and amplifying it through the GTA Innovation Funding community.
Online · 19 October 2026, 1:00pm to 2:00pm
A free, practical webinar on where Innovate UK Business Connect fits in the innovation support landscape, with insights from two founders who have used its support.
Further detailsLondon · 8 December 2026
Eight VCs and four accelerators deliver a "reverse-pitch" to founders, explaining what they fund, and what they don't.
Further detailsInternational programme · November 2026
Tech West England Advocates trade and investment mission
Founders, what if your next customer or investor isn't from the UK?
Email RichardLondon LATE SPRING 2027
GTA Innovation Funding will collaborate with London Tech Advocates to host the bi-annual Investor Showcase.
Further details to follow. Register your interestWorking group
Chandila Fernando
Chair
Chandila began his career with Sri Lanka's Board of Investment in an active conflict zone and subsequently worked for 20 years across Government, Capital Markets and technology in the Middle East, the US, Europe, and South-East Asia. He has advised four Prime Ministers and two Heads of State, and founded Pitch Pit PLC, formerly listed on the Aquis Stock Exchange and co-founded Collectivault, bringing sports memorabilia to investors as a new asset class. Chandila chairs Foundervine, backing under-represented founders; is Community Champion at Minerva Business Angels, Warwick University's angel network; and sits on the advisory board at Pitchflix. A passionate cricketer, he chairs the East Midlands Lord's Taverners and says of this and his other passion, politics, that both teach the same lesson: "you can control your preparation, not the outcome. The discipline is in showing up ready regardless."
LinkedIn profile
Shane Smith
Co-chair
Shane is an alumnus of the Bloomberg founding team in London, with a career spanning Market Data technology, financial markets research (foreign exchange, commodities, bonds & equities), and investor relations, building the PLC he founded in 1992 into the global leader in IPO, depository receipt, and dual-listed stocks research, with operations in Mumbai, Bangkok, Shanghai, London and New York, ultimately listing the company on London Stock Exchange. Shane introduced rev™ - the investor reverse-pitch format - at Pitchflix and has since hosted 30-plus episodes in London and internationally, showcasing 250 VCs representing £40bn AUM to 3,000 founders, with investor participants acknowledging the power of the series in initiating conversations and deals. He has been an Advocate since 2014, since when Russ Shaw CBE has grown the organisation to some 40,000 members internationally.
LinkedIn profile
Richard Lowe
Co-chair
In 2022, Richard founded Tech West England Advocates (TWEA), a not-for-profit supporting tech eco-systems and tech scale-ups to grow globally as part of the Global Tech Advocates (GTA) network. Richard founded his own scaleup and training consultancy, Hewlett Rand, in 2006. He is a certified Non-Executive Director and Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development qualified supporting scaleups, top team performance, providing business development and international market access for growth. Richard is a Co-Chair for GTA Innovation Funding working group and partners with VCs and Accelerators to support scaleups and programmes to strengthen top team performance, business development and internationalisation. In 2024, Richard was appointed a Scaleup Ambassador for the Institute of Directors (IoD) and a member of the IoD China Special Interest Group. Richard has been a Board Director of the Bristol & West of England China Bureau since 2012 and leads an annual UK Mission to China for UK Tech Founders.
LinkedIn profileGet involved
If you provide funding to innovative businesses, we would like you to be part of the community. Register your interest to participate in the working group, events, conversations and initiatives.
GTA chapters, globally
Engage with us to host an in-person event in your location, and inform your members about the GTA Innovation Funding resource.
Funding providers
Join the community and explain your funding proposition to founders. Add your showcase to the MoneyWall database, so that founders can better understand what sets you apart.
Accelerators
Join the community to explain the support your programme offers, just at the moment founders are evaluating alternatives. And we'll be happy to advertise your demo day.
Ecosystem organisations
Work with us, and inform your community, current cohort and alumni.
Founders and innovators
Explore funding resources and research the people behind the money.
Event organisers
Submit an event relevant to innovation funding for listing and amplification.
Membership application
Tell us who you are and how you fit into the innovation funding landscape. We maintain a dedicated GTA Innovation Funding register, separate from other Global Tech Advocates lists.
Thank you. Application received.
We will be in touch about the community, events and next steps.
