Executive Summary

Many small businesses and small non-profits struggle to find relevant grant opportunities because discovery is fragmented across federal, state, local and corporate programs with diverse eligibility rules, changing deadlines, and inconsistent award reporting; with 33 million U.S. small businesses, most lack dedicated grant teams and routinely miss funding opportunities. This problem disproportionately affects firms with under 50 employees, minority- and women-owned businesses, and community organizations that cannot afford subscription research services or full-time grant writers. You could build a centralized, continuously updated database plus automated alerts and an AI-driven matching engine that ingests program and award data via open APIs, extracts eligibility and required materials, and delivers prioritized, verifiable opportunities with application-ready checklists. Pricing at roughly $100 annual contract value per business implies a $3.3 billion addressable market (33M x $100), and the timing is favorable: government and corporate grant activity is expanding, open data/APIs make ingestion more feasible, and advances in AI document understanding materially reduce manual curation costs. This market scores highly (95/100) with strong revenue potential (88/100), but success requires clear differentiation against a medium level of competition. The best defensible angles are verified award outcomes and ROI tracking, deep local/state program coverage, integrations with accounting/CRM systems for eligibility signals, and transparent matching accuracy metrics; strengths are a large TAM and technical feasibility, while challenges include uneven data quality, privacy/regulatory considerations, and the need to acquire many low-ACV customers. Pursue this if you can secure early partnerships with 5–10 state/local agencies or large funders to anchor data and distribution in the first 12–18 months; without those partnerships the cost of customer acquisition and trust-building will be the primary barrier.

Analysis, scores, and revenue estimates are for educational purposes only and are based on AI models. Actual results may vary depending on execution and market conditions.

Market Opportunity

Small-business grant discovery — centralized database + automated alerts targets a $3.3B = 33M US small businesses x $100 ACV total addressable market with medium saturation and a year-over-year growth rate of 12% annual growth in grant-discovery tools and GovTech spending.

Key trends driving demand: Gov and corporate grant expansion -- increased supply of targeted programs creates more opportunities for matched discovery; Open data and APIs -- easier access to award and program data enables richer matching and verification; AI document understanding -- automates extraction of eligibility, deadlines, and required materials from heterogeneous sources; Shift to digital assistance -- small businesses favor SaaS tools that reduce administrative burden and increase applied-to-awarded ratios.

Key competitors include Grants.gov, Instrumentl, GrantWatch, DIY Alerts & Automation (Google Alerts + RSS/Zapier/Sheets).

Small-business grant discovery — centralized database + automated alerts

Executive Summary

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Market Opportunity

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