How Roadrunner Wins Non-Dilutive Funding for Founders

Earlier this month, all three Roadrunner portfolio companies that applied to the New Mexico Economic Development Department's Advanced Energy Award won. Startups that work with the Roadrunner platform are now averaging nearly $1M in non-dilutive funding over the course of their studio tenure. Our founders have secured grants and contracts from state governments like the EDD, federal agencies like the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army, and non-profits like Breakthrough Energy.

This doesn't happen by accident. It is the product of a deliberate system that Roadrunner has built with and for its founders.

The Importance of NDF

The average pre-seed startup raises less than $1M (opens a new window) in venture capital. For deep tech companies, that won't last the 12 to 36 months (opens a new window) they need to hit benchmarks for a next raise. Deep tech is capital intensive. These builds require extensive materials, laboratory access, and complicated pilots and field demonstrations. Venture dollars alone rarely allow founders to fully bridge that gap.

Non-dilutive funding (NDF) is one of the few mechanisms that can supplement VC at the earliest stages. Grants and contracts from governments and non-profit organizations let founders extend runway, further de-risk technology, and reach inflection points without giving up equity. It is one of the surest bets for founders in need of capital to retire the heaviest technical risk they will face.

The U.S. Federal Government has historically been the largest and most important NDF source in the industry. SBIR and STTR programs distribute billions of dollars annually to early-stage companies working on hard technology. State governments and philanthropic funders add another layer of capital for founders who know where to look. But competition is fierce, calendars are unforgiving, and most founding teams don't have the bandwidth or the institutional knowledge to pursue these opportunities well.
That is the problem Roadrunner was built to solve.

The Roadrunner Method

Winning non-dilutive funding consistently requires more than writing good grant applications. It requires a platform and a critical knowledge set.

Know where and when to look. The funding landscape is vast and fragmented. Roadrunner actively monitors federal, state, and philanthropic programs to identify the opportunities that are the best fit for each portfolio company, at the right stage, at the right time. We are also developing a proprietary platform that scans for the best grants and contracts automatically. Founders should be building their technology, not scanning DSIP, reading RFPs and RFIs, and digging through SAM.gov appendixes. What is more, the founders who win consistently plan 12 to 18 months ahead, understand which programs align with their milestones and when to expect them, and submit with enough lead time to iterate. Roadrunner builds that cadence into the studio process from the start.

Master the little things. Grant applications can be thrown out for trivial things like using the wrong TRL level, not explaining their technology in simple terms, even using the wrong font. Other times, allocating grant dollars to partners in a budget outside of the contract's profit margin can turn a runway extending grant into a rejection letter. Roadrunner has learned the most common mistakes and reviews every application against our own experience. We work to factor out as many "unforced errors" as possible.

Learn from our scars. Roadrunner has been in the room for applications that won and applications that didn't. We've learned what can kill a submission at the review stage, what program officers actually want to see, and where well-intentioned founding teams leave points on the table. Borrowing that institutional memory from a partner who has been through it before is the best way to continue winning while developing your own muscle.

Deep relationships. Program officers and grant reviewers are human beings making judgment calls. Roadrunner maintains active relationships across the agencies and organizations that matter most to our portfolio sectors. Those relationships provide context that no public database can offer, including informal signals about program priorities, review criteria, and timing that can meaningfully change how an application is positioned.

Build a "Treasure Box." The most skilled writers in the world rarely can paper over a weak team, thin IP, or a technology roadmap that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. What wins grants is akin to what wins over investors: a compelling founding team with deep domain expertise, defensible intellectual property, meaningful traction, and credible backers. Roadrunner works with founders from day one to build the underlying substance that makes applications fundable, assembling the technical credibility, commercial clarity, and proof points that fill a treasure box with something worth opening.

Don't Chase Fool's Gold. The NDF landscape is littered with opportunities that look attractive on the surface but are a poor fit for where a company actually is, what reviewers are prioritizing, or what the award would require. A single well-matched application is worth more than a dozen mediocre fits. Sequencing matters too. A Phase I SBIR that builds a track record, deeper relationship with a program office, and technical credibility is a better investment than two years chasing a Direct-to-Phase II that may never materialize. The founders who win consistently are not the ones who apply to everything. They are the ones who apply to the right things, at the right time, with a real strategy.

Ladder Your Wins. A $75,000 Phase I SBIR might not feel like much. But in a matter of months it can become a $1M+ Phase II, and eventually a contract with a U.S. federal agency. Each award builds track record, improves relationships, and creates technical credibility that make the next one more attainable. Grants are also a form of traction. Investors notice when a company has won competitive federal funding. It signals that independent, technically sophisticated reviewers have validated the technology and the team.

What This Means for Founders

For deep tech founders evaluating their critical venture partners, the question worth asking is not just "how much capital can you deploy?" It is "how much total capital can you help me access?" Venture is one input. The founders who build durable companies in deep tech know how to stack it with non-dilutive sources.

Roadrunner founders are doing exactly that. If you are building in quantum, advanced energy, or advanced manufacturing and want to understand what that looks like in practice, we would like to talk.

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