A US venture fund is ready to grant as much as $500,000 for Covid-19 projects, in 48 hours

• A venture fund — Fast Grants — is offering $10,000 to $500,000 funding to scientists at the institutional level for projects related to Covid 19 treatment.
  
• The funding process will kickstart from April 12.
  
• The grants, backed by y-Combinator co-founder Paul Graham, entrepreneurs John Collison, Patrick Collison and other venture capitalists, will be approved or discarded within 48 hours.
  
• However, the venture fund will pay only 10% of the overhead costs to the university.

Research projects usually have a lengthy approval process, and in times of the global Coronavirus pandemic, it might get slower.

To counter that, a US-based venture fund — Fast Grants — is offering $10,000 to $500,000 funding to scientists at an institutional level. These grants are specific to research projects related to Covid 19 treatment.

“Most existing funding bodies focus on supporting longer-term work. Given COVID-19's human costs, speed is of paramount importance,” the Fast Grants website said.

The funding process will kickstart from April 12. “Fast Grants open at 12:00 Pacific Time on Tuesday, April 7, 2020. We will wait until Sunday, April 12 before we award our first grants in order to give our reviewers time to calibrate,” it added.

The grants, backed by y-Combinator co-founder Paul Graham, entrepreneurs John Collison, Patrick Collison and other venture capitalists, will be approved or discarded within 48 hours. “If we approve the grant, you'll receive payment as quickly as your university can receive it,” it said.

Each of the investors committed over $10 million to fund. “We'll prefer projects that are cheap (so that our fund dollars go further) and that will yield results quickly (during COVID-19, days matter),” the website read.

The research projects will be supervised by biomedical scientists, who will make funding recommendations to Emergent Ventures at the George Mason University.

How can I apply?

The principal investigators (PI) of a project at an institution can apply for fast grants. In addition, those who require additional funding to complete existing projects that can help contain Coronavirus, are also eligible.

However, for all the researchers outside the US, the selected PIs will have to send monthly updates and progress reports of the project — for the next six months.

The venture fund will pay only 10% of the overhead costs to the university. “You must upload all manuscripts reporting work supported by the grant to a preprint server such as bioRxiv or arXiv upon submission to a peer-reviewed journal,” the official instructions said.

The idea and fast grants efforts dates back to the time during World War II, when the NDRC (National Defence Research Committee) pushed research in a short span of time. "Within a week, NDRC could review the project. The next day the director could authorize, the business office could send out a letter of intent, and the actual work could start,” Vannevar Bush said in a memoir.

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