FundFit

Research funding software that finds the grants your researchers would have missed

FundFit reads what each researcher actually works on and matches it against federal, foundation, and corporate sponsors. Then it explains every match, screens the eligibility, and tells you who should be on the team.

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33,000+opportunities tracked
$68B+in available funding
1.1Mresearcher profiles

How it works

A match you can argue with

Anyone can rank opportunities. The reason FundFit gets used is that a research development officer can open any match and read exactly why it scored what it scored, then take that reasoning to the PI.

Scored against the researcher's own work

FundFit

A plain-language search, "machine learning for drug discovery and rare disease", scored against James Chen's profile. Each result carries a match score for the researcher, a relevance score for the words, an eligibility badge, and the sponsor's amount and deadline.

Why this score, in writing

The Why this score dialog for a 78% match — Open any score and FundFit writes out why: alignment with the grant's objectives, interdisciplinary fit, and whether the researcher's position and institution meet the eligibility rules, with an Uncertain badge where the answer is not settled.

What's in it

Built for AI from the first line

Search that thinks the way you ask

Type "STEM grants over $1.5M for new investigators" and get results. FundFit reads the intent behind the question, so you do not have to guess the keywords a database wants.

Matching that shows its work

Every match carries a score and the written reason behind it: which parts of the researcher's profile drove it, and where the gaps are. A score you cannot interrogate is a score nobody acts on.

Eligibility screened before it reaches anyone

Institution type, citizenship advisories, and sponsor restrictions are checked against the opportunity, so a researcher does not spend a week on something they were never eligible for.

Profiles built from ORCID

Link ORCID and the publication record builds the profile. There is no onboarding project, and nobody asks faculty to fill in a questionnaire about their own career.

Reverse match: start from the opportunity, get the team

Point FundFit at an opportunity and it proposes the researcher line-up that fits it, including collaborators at other institutions who were never on your radar.

Your own history, in the mix

Internal awards and past proposals feed the matching, so recommendations land in the context of what your institution has actually won before.

The product itself

What the screens look like

Eligibility screened before it reaches anyone

An opportunity's details drawer with who can apply — Every opportunity opens into its award amount, deadline, letter of intent date and who can apply, with the sponsor's own eligibility text and a link to the announcement on grants.gov.

Profiles built from ORCID

FundFit

James Chen's profile: ORCID connected, profile strength 92%, and a checklist of what matching needs. Upload a CV, biosketch or paper and FundFit reads it into the matching profile, or ask Lyn to enrich the profile.

Reverse match: start from the opportunity, get the team

A match workspace with its team analysis — Starting from an NIH opportunity, the workspace scores the assembled team at 75% and the team analysis names what it still needs: clinical imaging expertise, interoperability standards experience and a record of framework development. Below it, 32 candidate collaborators, 20 internal and 12 external, each with a score and a why link.

Your own history, in the mix

The Matches list with in progress, funded and not funded — Matches carry their outcome: five in progress with team scores and statuses, one funded with the award amount and date recorded, one not funded, and this week's five new suggestions from alerts below.

Alerts, on each researcher's cadence

Five active alerts with their cadence and channel — Each alert is a standing search with its own cadence and channel: daily or weekly on a chosen day, by email or as an RSS feed Slack and Teams can read, with a score threshold so only strong matches arrive.

Browse the catalog

1,658 funders, one page each

Every US research funder FundFit tracks has a public page here, with the programs it lists right now, their deadlines and award amounts, from the same catalog that powers the matching.

Browse the funder directory

1,658
funders with a page: 11,779
programs in the public catalog: Sep 25, 2026
last catalog refresh

Notifications

Matches go where the work already happens

A funding opportunity nobody reads is worth nothing. FundFit pushes each researcher's matches into the tools they already have open, on the cadence they choose.

I check it first thing in the morning, and within seconds, I see AI-matched opportunities that pair well with my research areas… FundFit is a huge time saver and gives me an edge in pursuing and winning funding.

Jonathan LawsonSenior Director, Data Sciences PlatformBroad Institute of MIT & Harvard

SlackCurated matches arrive in the channel the research team already lives in.
Microsoft TeamsThe same alerts and collaboration prompts inside your Teams environment.
Email digestOne digest per researcher, built from their own matches. Nobody gets the mass newsletter everyone learns to ignore.

Lyn answering a question about this researcher's matches — Lyn answers from the researcher's own matches: asked what is due soonest, it names the match, its deadline, the three gaps in the team and who to recruit first.

Also included

Lyn comes with it, and benchmarking is free

Every FundFit subscription includes Lyn, the AI assistant. Ask it in plain language about funding, matches, or alerts, and the answer arrives with the reasoning behind it.

Benchmarking is not a line item either. The HERD Visualizer is free and public, so forward-looking funding discovery and backward-looking competitive intelligence end up in the same place, which is where they were always more useful.

See what HERD Visualizer does →

The funders use it too

The Science Philanthropy Alliance runs on FundFit

SPA is a consortium of philanthropic foundations with more than $26B in available funding and 40+ member foundations, among the largest science and research funders in the world. They use FundFit to find researchers, which means member foundations can reach out to FundFit institutions about opportunities that were never posted publicly.

FundFit is helping our Advisees to discover researchers outside of their usual networks to pinpoint the institutions they may want to invite to non-public opportunities. It is truly unique and impressive in its capabilities.

Sue MerrileesSenior Director, Philanthropic AdvisingScience Philanthropy Alliance

Customers

What it changed, in their words

FundFit has genuinely made research development work easier at NMSU with its AI capabilities. I’ve seen firsthand how challenging the funding landscape can be, especially lately. Supporting faculty in finding funding beyond federal sources is often hit-or-miss, but this tool has changed that. At its core, FundFit’s AI-driven matching capability is designed to help us win research funding. Significantly, FundFit goes to the next level with its ability to build best-fit teams and custom notifications. It feels like we finally have a smart, reliable partner that helps us connect the dots between our researchers’ work and matched funding opportunities. A major benefit of FundFit is how personalized it is. The recommendations are relevant, timely, and tailored to researchers’ strengths and priorities. It’s made a real difference in helping teams stay proactive and competitive, and that’s a win.

Alisha GironAVP, Research AdministrationNew Mexico State University

FundFit transformed how our office approaches funding, it’s now an essential part of how we manage institutional research development at CUSM. The onboarding was fast and intuitive; our faculty, staff, and now students were up and running within days. Almost immediately, the platform surfaced private and less-visible funders we had been missing for years. The reverse-match team-building feature helped us identify complementary collaborators early in the process. With seamless AI-matching notifications and responsive support, FundFit isn’t just a tool it’s like having an extra team member helping us work smarter, not harder.

Leighsa WashingtonExecutive Director, Sponsored Projects & RACalifornia University of Science and Medicine

Rolling out FundFit felt like getting an operations upgrade for our whole research community at UNCO. Adoption was smooth thanks to effective training and support from the FundFit team. Faculty engagement has been good. We’ve seen quicker response times to new, matched funding opportunities and better visibility into which ones serve institutional investment. For leadership, that means smarter decisions and clearer ROI on our research-development efforts. FundFit didn’t just save time; it brought clarity to how we coordinate funding strategy across campus.

Jeri-Anne Lyons, PhDFmr. AVP for ResearchUniversity of Northern Colorado

Limited submissions

When the sponsor caps how many you may send

FundFit Competitions builds the internal competition from the sponsor's solicitation, collects the applications, and runs the review that picks who goes forward. It is part of FundFit, and it arrives in October 2026.

See FundFit Competitions →

Questions

Before you bring it to your office

How is this different from the funding databases we already pay for?

A database answers the question you knew to ask. FundFit works the other way round: it holds a profile of each researcher and pushes matched opportunities to them, with the reasoning attached. The difference shows up in engagement: searching is something faculty mean to do, and a match landing in Slack is something they read.

Does it only cover federal funding?

No, and the non-federal coverage is the reason most institutions buy it. Federal agencies, state programs, corporate R&D sponsors, foundations, and opportunities that sit in less-visible places are all in scope.

Do researchers have to set up a profile?

They can link ORCID and FundFit builds the profile from their publication record. Anyone who wants to tune it can, but nobody has to fill in a form to get their first matches.

Can we see why something was matched?

Yes. Every match opens into a written explanation of what drove the score and where the gaps are. That is deliberate, because it is what makes the score usable in a conversation with a PI.

Does it work for early-career researchers, or just established PIs?

Both, and the early-career case is where it earns its keep. Mass funding newsletters reward the people who already know where to look; a matched, explained opportunity reaches people who would otherwise be overlooked.

What does an institutional subscription include?

Unlimited institutional seats, natural-language search, AI-generated match insights, tailored notifications, suggested collaborators, Slack and Teams integration, and Lyn, the AI assistant, built in. The HERD Visualizer is free and public, so benchmarking never depends on the subscription.

See it match your own researchers.

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Research funding software that finds the grants your researchers would have missed