Program 03 · Money out
Grants Program
Seed grants to external researchers, sized to unlock the far larger grants that follow. Venture philanthropy, not charity.
What it does
- 01
Make seed grants of 25k to 250k US dollars to external researchers, open-call and directed, starting with STRC and adjacent hearing-loss loci.
- 02
Size each grant to buy the preliminary data a lab needs to win a grant ten to fifty times larger downstream.
- 03
Record every grant over 25k as a public decision, with the reasoning, so the trail is auditable.
Why it matters
This is the move that has repeatedly turned small early capital into approved therapies. The Usher 1F Collaborative's early grants moved a university lab into the disease and unlocked a 1.2M dollar follow-on from the Foundation Fighting Blindness. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation put roughly 150M dollars into the research behind Kalydeco, then sold the royalty rights for 3.3 billion and recycled it into the field.
Where it stands
Planning. The first seed grant is being scoped now, for STRC mouse-model and vector work. We do not name a recipient lab until the grant agreement is signed.