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Am I the only one who thinks the IRAP money stats are misleading for small shops?
I was digging through the NRC IRAP site last Tuesday after a friend in Halifax told me his biotech got $1.2 million from them. That number bugged me so I read the fine print, and the average for small firms is way lower, something like $150k, and most of it has to go to staff wages, not the tools or parts you actually need. My own experience with a $40k ask in 2023 was a mess of forms and a reviewer who wanted a 3 year roadmap for a product I was still sketching on paper. People keep saying IRAP is the easy money for Canadian startups, but my take is it mostly rewards founders who already have the paperwork machine and the patience of a saint. If you are a two person shop in London or Moncton, the odds feel stacked toward labs and unis, not the person welding in a bay. Anyone here actually get a small IRAP grant under $100k without a full time grant writer? I want to know if I just did it wrong.
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reese_lane294d ago
The $150k average is the same trick as "average salary" stats, one $1.2M biotech in Halifax pulls the number up while a hundred two person shops split $40k and a pile of forms. I know a guy in Moncton who gave up after round two and just funded his own parts, so you're not the only one.
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