5 Grants & Competitions You Should Apply to Right Now
March is Funding Season — Don’t Miss the Deadlines That Could Change Your Startup.
$20K Grants. $150K SAFEs. Rolling Moonshot Funding. Social Impact Grants. There are tons of startup grants for student founders available this March.
With so many grants and competitions setting their deadlines within March, I’ve felt compelled to write this and list them out for the many amazing founders in my network. Over the last couple of months, I’ve seen many students working in spaces adjacent to ventures and startups, from AI projects, experiments, or social impact initiatives.
If you’re one of them, this article is all about some of the grants, pitch competitions, and funding opportunities that are available to you to take what you’ve been working on to the next level, regardless of whether that’s through grants or investments. Some evaluate the readiness of exciting startup ideas, while others are geared towards helping social impact or non-profit projects get off the ground.
Here are five grants and competitions that you can check out right now!
1. a16z Speedrun Alpha
a16z’s speedrun Alpha program is selecting roughly 15 people out of 10,000+ applicants to spend 8 weeks this summer building a startup. The program provides $20,000 grants in hand, no equity taken, and a guaranteed final-stage interview for a16z speedrun funding afterward. Pre-idea founders and individuals without teams alike are welcome to join.
There are two tracks available:
The Founder Track (the $20K grant, up to $250K investment if selected to move forward)
The Joiner Track (placed as a founding engineer at a fast-growing a16z portfolio company).
Both tracks begin with a retreat kickoff and offer access to private hackathons, conversations with top a16z leaders, and more. They’re looking for individuals who have shipped products or projects before, a real problem you care about, and conviction. The first cohort begins in June with an application deadline of March 6th, 2026.
2. Honors Fund $150K Virtual Pitch Competition
Specifically for students who are building while still in college (or those who have recently graduated), Honors Fund believes that university-based founders are systematically underestimated and underfunded, which led to the creation of a virtual pitch competition specifically for student founders. They’re selecting up to 10 applicants to pitch live in a virtual competition on March 24, 2026, with a $150,000 SAFE on a $2M post-money valuation up for grabs.
Honors Fund will adjust the valuation if you have prior traction or valuation history. They also share all the pitches with their global investor network, even for those who do not win. The application deadline is March 20, 2026, at 11:59 pm.
3. Emergent Ventures
Run by economist Tyler Cowen out of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Emergent Ventures funds entrepreneurs, researchers, and thinkers with “zero to one” ideas. They look for moonshot ideas that may be interdisciplinary or exist in the intersection of traditional funding categories. There are no fixed grant amounts, no required business model, and no age ceiling (applications must be at least 13 years old). Applications are accepted on a rolling basis from anywhere in the world.
What they’re looking for: highly scalable ideas that advance prosperity, opportunity, liberty, or well-being. They also support projects across various geographies worldwide, so individuals looking to make a global impact may benefit from checking it out.
4. EALA New Champions Fund
The Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA) runs an annual competitive sub-grant specifically for leaders working at the intersection of disability, education equity, and underserved communities. The New Champions Fund awards a $35,000 unrestricted grant along with a full year of mentorship support.
This one is specifically designed for those in the equity education movement who are actively working to support students with disabilities, including students from marginalized or low-income backgrounds.
5. Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3)
The Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3) has just opened its 2026 grant call for individuals creating impact in the capital markets, impact investing, entrepreneurship, or agriculture spaces. The program funds practical, action-oriented proposals that either get more catalytic capital deployed to investable opportunities, expand the pool of investors providing it, or both.
Grant requests of up to $150,000 are being considered, with a focus on field-ready solutions. They are looking for replicable mechanisms, reduced transaction friction, and new investor types entering the ecosystem. The process is two-step: first, a 1-2 page expression of interest, then a full proposal by invitation. Expressions of interest are due March 4.
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Are you an investor or startup ecosystem builder?
I am a 24-year-old entrepreneur and ecosystem builder who runs startup networks for 75,000 top student founders globally, spanning from high schoolers to PhD candidates. I've built systems and networks that have launched over 250+ Gen Z-run startups and facilitated seed rounds from $250K to multi-million-dollar rounds.
I’m always looking for people interested in collaborating to our founder networks! If you’re interested in working together, do grab some time below:
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