Nobody publishes this number, which is the reason to publish it. A directory's headline count is the easiest thing in the world to grow and the hardest thing to keep honest, because a grant that quietly disappears leaves the row behind. The row still renders. The button still looks clickable. The founder finds out at the end.
Here is what a 400-link sample looked like on 26 September 2026, and how we got it.
The method, so you can repeat it
The population was 2,550 unique apply URLs from our raw seed catalog, the unpurged list as it was first assembled. We sampled 400 of them spread evenly across the sorted list, rather than the first 400, so the result is not biased toward whichever source happens to sort early.
Each URL got an HTTP GET with a desktop browser user agent, redirects followed, a 20 second timeout. On a connection failure we asked DNS whether the host exists at all before calling anything dead. Every 404 was then checked a second time, hours later, and one of them had changed its mind, so it came out of the dead count.
Two rules kept the number conservative. A 401, 403 or 429 is a site that is up and does not like robots, so it is never dead. And a host that resolves but will not answer a machine outside India is not dead either, it is just not talking to us; many .gov.in hosts refuse foreign traffic and no honest audit can tell those apart from a shut-down.
What we found
| Verdict | Count | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Reachable | 255 | Answered 2xx or redirected somewhere that did |
| Dead, no DNS | 57 | The domain itself no longer exists |
| Dead, 404 or 410 | 13 | Site is up, the page is gone, confirmed twice |
| Blocked | 34 | Bot defence. The site is fine, we are not counting these |
| Inconclusive | 41 | Resolves, will not answer from outside India |
70 of 400 are reliably dead. About one in six. And 75 more sit in buckets we refuse to count, so the true figure is higher than 70 and we are not going to pretend we know by how much.
The part that surprised us: government links rot fastest
19 of the 70 dead links were on government hosts. Thirteen on .gov.in, two on .nic.in, three on university .ac.in domains. Not deep pages either. Whole state startup portals, gone at the domain level:
- startupjharkhand.gov.in
- megstartup.gov.in (Meghalaya)
- innovationap.gov.in (Andhra Pradesh)
- startup.cgstate.gov.in (Chhattisgarh)
- elevate.karnataka.gov.in
- online-kiran.dst.gov.in (DST's KIRAN portal for women in science)
- nbm.nic.in (National Bamboo Mission)
- pharmaceuticals.gov.in
Each of those returned NXDOMAIN from our own resolver, from Google's at 8.8.8.8, and from Cloudflare's at 1.1.1.1. Three independent answers, same verdict. These domains are not slow or geo-blocked. They do not exist.
A handful of live sites had simply moved the page and left a 404 behind: serb.gov.in/srg.php, nsrcel.org/apply, callaghaninnovation.govt.nz/products/grants, macfound.org/programs/100change, stationf.co/programs/founders-program.
A dead link is not a dead scheme
This is the distinction most directories get wrong, in both directions.
Karnataka ELEVATE is open. It is paying up to Rs 1 crore on the NxT deep-tech track, and applications opened on 21 September 2026. But elevate.karnataka.gov.in does not resolve, because the programme lives at elevate.startupkarnataka.in now. Anyone who deleted ELEVATE on the strength of a dead URL would have removed a live scheme from a founder's options. Anyone who kept showing the old URL sent founders to nothing.
Correct behaviour is neither. It is: the link is dead, go find where the scheme moved, and if it did not move, remove it and remember that you removed it.
What this means if you are hunting grants
Check the domain before you trust the page. If a directory lists a scheme with a link to a host that does not load, assume nothing else on that page was checked recently either. The same neglect that left the link also left the amount, the deadline and the eligibility rules.
When a link dies, search the department, not the scheme. Schemes get rehoused under new portals constantly. "ELEVATE" plus "Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society" finds the live portal. "elevate.karnataka.gov.in" finds nothing.
Treat any directory with no last-checked date as unverified. Not wrong, just unverified, which is a different thing and worth exactly as much.
What we do about it
A dead apply link means the grant is deleted, not archived and not hidden. It leaves the counts entirely. In July 2026 that purge removed 1,771 grants in one pass, and the catalog has run a weekly sweep since. This is also why the number on our home page is a floor rather than the latest reading: discovery adds programmes every week and the sweep removes them at a similar rate, so the live total moves in both directions, and we would rather publish a number you can always beat inside the product than a record high we once touched.
The audit script is scripts/dead-link-audit.mjs and its rules are written down on the methodology page, including the ones that stop us over-claiming. If you run something similar and get a different answer, we would like to hear it.
The honest caveat
This sample came from the raw seed catalog, not from what the product serves today. That is deliberate. It is the before picture: what a grant directory looks like when nobody checks. The live catalog has been through the sweep, which is the whole point of having one. Read 70 in 400 as the cost of not checking, not as a claim about what a founder sees in the app.
Common questions
How many startup grant links are dead?
In a 400-URL sample of an unpurged startup grant catalog checked on 26 September 2026, 70 apply links were reliably dead, about one in six. 57 pointed at domains that no longer resolve at all and 13 returned 404 or 410 on two separate passes. A further 75 were left uncounted on purpose: 34 blocked by bot defence, where the site is plainly up, and 41 that resolve but will not answer a machine outside India.
Do government grant links go dead too?
Yes. 19 of the 70 dead links in the sample were on government hosts, 13 on .gov.in and 2 on .nic.in. State startup portals were the most common failure: startupjharkhand.gov.in, megstartup.gov.in, innovationap.gov.in, startup.cgstate.gov.in and elevate.karnataka.gov.in all returned NXDOMAIN from three independent resolvers.
Does a dead link mean the grant is closed?
No. Karnataka ELEVATE is open and paying, but elevate.karnataka.gov.in no longer exists; the programme moved to elevate.startupkarnataka.in. A dead URL tells you the directory stopped checking, not that the scheme ended. Search the running department's own site before assuming a scheme is gone.
Checked, not just counted
See which grants fit you, with links that work.
Incubateer scores your startup against the catalog and says honestly which ones fit. Strong match, worth a look, or long shot.
Find your grant