New Industries and Innovation Fund: Innovation Booster Grant

Assisting WA-based startups and small businesses commercialise their innovative ideas or projects, and to expand to create jobs.
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Applications are now open for the 2026 Innovation Booster Grant program! To learn more about the program and how to apply, visit the Application Information page.

 

About 

The Innovation Booster Grant (IBG) is a competitive Western Australian Government grant, funded through the $40 million New Industries and Innovation Fund (2025-29).

The IBG is administered by the Department of Energy and Economic Diversification (DEED) and targets early-stage founders, innovation-driven small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), and startups in Western Australia to improve capability and commercialise innovative projects.

Startups and innovative SMEs face barriers to successfully execute their ideas due to a lack of resources. They lack the necessary capital to access the support services and expertise required to refine, test, protect, validate, and certify their innovation.

The objective of the IBG is to enable startups and innovative SMEs to progress their innovations through access to support services and expertise that improve the capability of the business to validate or commercialise a product.

The NIIF is the primary tool for the State to deliver against Western Australia's Innovation Strategy, and is a key enabler of the State’s economic development framework Diversify WA.

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Application information

Applications for the Innovation Booster Grant are now open for 2026, closing 30 March 2026, 4pm (AWST).
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2025 recipients

Meet the recipients of the Innovation Booster Grant 2025 program.
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Past recipients

See past recipients of previous rounds of the Innovation Booster Grant.

Purpose of the Grant

The IBG is designed to assist businesses to:

  • develop or enhance products or services that are commercially ready, or to reach a commercial ready stage;
  • test, validate, or certify their Minimum Viable Product (MVP);
  • procure specialist consultancy services to assist with Intellectual Property, marketing or commercialisation support; and/or
  • address a specific technical problem that the business cannot solve themselves, or for which the solution is not readily available.

Intended outcomes of the program are that:

  • businesses have greater access to capital to engage support services and experts
  • businesses access support services, enabling them to address a technical problem, progressing their innovation towards commercialisation
  • businesses develop new to market products that are commercially ready
  • the number of commercially ready innovations in WA increases, and
  • Western Australia is a location of choice for product testing and development. 

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