Reports · October 2026

State of startup grants, October 2026

Incubateer indexes 8,000+ live startup grants, government schemes, accelerators and cloud credit programmes in October 2026, after a cleanup on 16 October that merged about 1,140 duplicate copies. This report sets out what the catalog holds, what is closing, what was removed and why, read on 17 October 2026 at 11:40 UTC (5:10 pm IST).

I publish this because a grant directory should be able to show its own numbers and say where they are weak. Every figure below names its source. Catalog totals update live when the page loads; the deadline figures are a dated snapshot and say so.

Key findings

• Incubateer indexes 8,000+ live grants, schemes, accelerators and cloud credit programmes as of October 2026.
• 2,600+ of the programmes in the catalog are Indian schemes.
• 5,000+ of the programmes in the catalog are run by governments.
• 130+ programmes cover the six Gulf (GCC) states.
• 600+ investors are listed separately and are never counted as grants.
• 2,400 programmes have been removed from the catalog since 22 September 2026, when we started keeping a record of every removal.
• 1,300 live listings have an apply link our validator has checked and marked verified.
• 40 programmes have a dated deadline inside the next 60 days, counted on 17 October 2026.
• 3 of those 40 deadlines fall within a week, and 26 within 30 days.
• 13 of the 40 are Indian programmes and 4 are in the Gulf.
• All three deadlines inside a week are Indian: GRSE GAINS 2026 on 20 October, BIRAC-PATH on 21 October and Karnataka's Government First initiative on 23 October.
• On 16 October 2026 a one-time, reviewed merge cleared about 1,140 duplicate copies of programmes that were listed twice.
• 69 US federal research listings from grants.gov were removed on 16 October 2026, because no Indian or Gulf founder can win one.
• 18 moved government portals were repointed on 16 October 2026, keeping about 125 listings that the dead-link purge would otherwise have deleted.

The catalog in October 2026

Incubateer indexes 8,000+ live programmes. 2,600+ are Indian schemes, 5,000+ are government programmes from any country, and 130+ are in the Gulf. 600+ investors sit in their own section and are not added to the grant count.

Those are floors, not readings. The catalog moves every week, down as well as up, because discovery adds programmes and the dead-link sweep removes them at a similar rate. Every figure here is kept below the lowest count we have seen recently, so you should find at least that many in the product, never fewer. With JavaScript on, the figures above are read from the live catalog when the page loads and rounded down.

Coverage is not even, and it would be dishonest to write as if it were. India and the Gulf are the deepest parts of the catalog: state-level matching for India, emirate and country matching across all six GCC states, and the figures in our guides read off each scheme's own portal. Many other countries have a few dozen programmes or fewer.

Link health

2,400 programmes have been removed since 22 September 2026. Removals include dead apply links, duplicate copies merged into one listing, and listings no Indian or Gulf founder could apply to. A removed programme is recorded, so a redeploy cannot bring it back.

1,300 live listings have an apply link our validator has checked and marked verified. That is a minority of the catalog, and it is the gap we most want to close. The other listings are still re-checked by the weekly dead-link sweep, which deletes a link once it fails twice, but they have not been positively confirmed. The rules are on the methodology page.

What is closing

The open now page lists every programme in the catalog with a dated deadline inside the next 60 days, rebuilt from the production catalog. It was rebuilt from the production catalog on 17 October 2026, after the cleanup and after two AI-written Indian listings were removed the same day (see below), and the figures here come from that build.

40 programmes have a dated deadline inside the next 60 days. 3 of them close within a week and 26 within 30 days.

Only 17 of the 40 dated deadlines are Indian or Gulf programmes. That is not a sign the money is thin. Many large Indian schemes run on rolling or twice-yearly windows: BIRAC BIG opens on 1 January and 1 July, and a page of dated deadlines cannot show it for most of the year. The open now page explains this and points to the full catalog for those.

The ten soonest deadlines

Dates as the catalog holds them on 17 October 2026. Confirm each one on the programme's own portal before you plan around it.

Two Indian listings were removed from the catalog the day this report was written. One was filed under DPIIT's MAARG name and claimed ₹5 crore; MAARG is a mentorship platform with no funding. The other was a second, AI-written copy of ELEVATE NxT with the wrong amount and a 30 November date. The correct ELEVATE NxT listing, up to ₹1 crore and closing 13 November 2026 at 5 pm as the portal says, is the one counted here. No amounts from listings are repeated in this report for the same reason: a figure that came from AI discovery is unverified until someone reads it off the scheme's portal.

The 16 October cleanup

Three changes on 16 October 2026 made the catalog smaller and more useful, and the published floors were lowered to match.

• About 1,140 duplicate copies merged. The same programme often arrived twice, once from a curated list and again from AI discovery under a slightly different name. A one-time merge, reviewed and approved before it ran, kept one listing for each. Founders who had saved or applied to a copy kept their record on the listing that survived.
• 69 grants.gov listings removed. They were real open calls, but US federal research opportunities that need a US entity. No Indian or Gulf founder can win one, so they came out, and grants.gov is no longer a source.
• 18 moved government portals repointed. Indian state portals in particular move without redirects. Pointing about 125 listings at the government's confirmed new address kept them from being deleted as dead links.

How this report was made

• Catalog figures were read from app.incubateer.com/api/grants/stats on 17 October 2026 at 11:40 UTC. Totals are published as floors from a single file and rounded down; measurements, such as removals and verified links, are shown as counted and baked into the page rounded down to the nearest hundred for readers without JavaScript.
• Deadline figures were counted from the open now page as rebuilt from the production catalog on 17 October 2026, after the two AI listings were removed that day. Rolling, annual and twice-yearly schemes are excluded there because they have no date.
• The regional split was read from the organisation named on each listing.
• The cleanup figures come from our own change record for 16 October 2026. Counts given as "about" are approximate.
• Limits. Deadlines are as the catalog holds them and can be wrong; two wrong listings were found while writing this report. The removal record starts on 22 September 2026, so it says nothing about earlier months. Coverage outside India and the Gulf is thin.

If a figure here does not match what you find, email hello@incubateer.com. Corrections go into the catalog and this page.

Common questions

How many startup grants does Incubateer track?

8,000+ live grants, government schemes, accelerators and cloud credit programmes as of October 2026, including 2,600+ Indian schemes, 5,000+ government programmes and 130+ Gulf programmes. Investors are counted separately, 600+ of them. These are floors kept below the live count, which moves every week.

How many startup grants close in the next 60 days?

On 17 October 2026, 40 programmes in the catalog had a dated deadline inside the next 60 days: 3 within a week and 26 within 30 days. Thirteen were Indian and four were in the Gulf. Rolling and annual schemes are not counted, because they have no date to put on a calendar.

What changed in the catalog in October 2026?

On 16 October 2026 a one-time, reviewed merge cleared about 1,140 duplicate copies of programmes listed twice, 69 US federal research listings from grants.gov were removed because they need a US entity, and 18 moved government portals were repointed to their new addresses, which kept about 125 listings that would otherwise have been deleted.

Where does the data in this report come from?

The catalog figures were read from Incubateer's public stats endpoint on 17 October 2026 at 11:40 UTC. The deadline figures come from the open now page, rebuilt from the production catalog on 17 October 2026. The cleanup figures come from our own change record. No amount quoted by a listing is repeated here, because figures from AI discovery are unverified until checked on the scheme's portal.