RESOURCES
Where to find funded pilots right now
Database
40+ funded pilot programmes across energy, waste and heavy industry, each with a named corporate backer and a defined application window.
A funded pilot is more than just an operational test: it is a powerful go-to-market engine. Whether you are making your first commercial sales out of the lab, scaling your growth, or penetrating new markets and verticals, these programmes prove your commercial viability at the buyer's expense.
In a paid corporate pilot, an industrial company puts a technology into one of its own operations and pays for the test, whether that is Rio Tinto at a mine, Holcim at a plant, or EDP on the grid. The site is theirs, the conditions are theirs, and so is the standard for whether it worked.
That gives a hardware or deeptech company three things: budget from a buyer rather than from a round, a reference the next investor can verify, and people inside the operation who have watched the technology run.
Every programme here is selected on the backer rather than the size of the cheque, so mentorship-only schemes and investors who fund without committing to a deployment are left out.
What is inside:
The selection spans energy and grid, industrial tech, waste and circularity, and decarbonisation, with backers including ArcelorMittal, Caterpillar, BASF, Iberdrola, TotalEnergies, Shell, Siemens Energy, and Equinor.
Each entry records:
What is actually on offer (a paid pilot, a grant, an investment, or a supplier contract)
Minimum Technology Readiness Level (TRL)
Deployment geography
Exact window to apply (19 take applications at any time)
Verified in September 2026.
A funded pilot is the most direct way into the buyer's own operation, and it is worth winning on that alone. The vendor list sits with the production side, and getting onto it is your next conversation.