Business Chain tracks 186 funding and accelerator programmes across every region, and the thing we keep seeing is this: a founder in Nairobi or Riyadh or Jakarta opens a 'best startup grants' list and finds five American state programmes staring back at them. NC IDEA Grants pays $10,000 (MICRO) or $50,000 (SEED), non-dilutive. Launch Minnesota Innovation Grants goes up to $50,000. SCRA Startup & Acceleration Grants runs up to $25,000 for a startup grant or $50,000 for acceleration, non-dilutive, on a rolling basis. Florida High Tech Corridor Matching Grants matches up to $150,000. Advanced Industries Accelerator Grants from Colorado OEDIT typically goes up to $250,000 depending on grant type. Every one of these requires a company registered in that specific US state before you can apply. If you're not incorporated there, the money was never for you. This is a round-up of what actually is, organised by where you're building.
MENA
Funding aimed at MENA founders is usually structured around local incorporation first, money second, which is exactly backwards if you're bootstrapping from outside a Gulf free zone or you haven't picked a jurisdiction yet. The condition that disqualifies an outsider almost every time is a local entity requirement buried three paragraphs into the eligibility page. What works instead are programmes that judge you on revenue or on the work itself, not on your company's registration address.
- Uncapped: $100K to $2M in revenue-based financing, applications taken on a rolling basis (checked 9 October 2026). No equity, no board seat, and the underwriting is on your revenue line, not your passport.
- NLnet Foundation Grants: between €5,000 and €50,000 for a first grant, next deadline November 3rd 2026 at 12:00 CET. Built for people writing open internet infrastructure, not for pitch decks.
Europe
European funding splits cleanly into two lanes: revenue-based financing for companies already selling something, and equity-for-cash accelerator deals for companies that aren't there yet. The disqualifying condition here is usually a minimum revenue threshold on the financing side, or an equity percentage on the accelerator side that you need to decide you're comfortable giving up before you apply, not after term sheet. Which lane you pick should depend entirely on whether you already have revenue to point to.
- Wayflyer Revenue-Based Financing: 5.000 €–20 Mio. €, sized to your revenue, built for ecommerce and consumer brands that already have sales data to underwrite against.
- Startup Wise Guys: roughly €50,000 for 3-6% equity, no fixed deadline stated, aimed at early B2B teams who want a programme, not just a cheque.
- Station F Fighters Program: free desk space plus programme-specific funding at the Paris campus, no fixed deadline stated, worth it mainly for the density of other founders in the building.
Asia
Most Asian programmes on generic lists assume you already have a cofounder and a company. The gap that actually matters for a lot of founders in the region is earlier than that: you have the technical skill but not yet the team or the entity. That's the condition that quietly disqualifies people before they even reach a funding page.
- Entrepreneur First: an equity-free grant to support ideation, then up to $250K investment once a company is actually formed. It invests in individuals before a company exists, which matters if you're a solo technical founder without a cofounder yet.
Africa
A lot of what gets called startup funding in Africa is really NGO or development money with reporting requirements built for grant compliance, not product velocity. The disqualifying condition is usually sector restriction, agri, health, fintech only, rather than geography itself. A straight builder residency that pays you to build, with no nonprofit reporting layer, is rarer and worth flagging on its own.
- Tools for Humanity World One: $10k/month, $30k total per resident, accepting up to five builders for the first cohort, no application deadline stated. You get paid to build, full stop.
How to choose between them
Pick based on what disqualifies you, not on which name you've heard of. If you have no revenue yet, Wayflyer and Uncapped will reject you on underwriting before they even get to the pitch, so don't waste the application. If you haven't incorporated and don't have a cofounder, Entrepreneur First's ideation grant fits you better than Station F, which assumes a formed team. If you're building something closer to public infrastructure than a SaaS product, apply to NLnet Foundation Grants before you talk to any investor at all, their November 3rd 2026 deadline moves fast and non-dilutive money with no board seat is hard to beat. And if a programme requires an entity registered in a specific US state, like the five we opened with, skip it entirely rather than hoping an exception gets made. Across the 186 programmes we track, the ones that actually pay out to founders outside the US are the ones that judge revenue, code, or individual skill, not your mailing address.