The Funding Readiness Rubric
A structured framework for assessing what it takes to compete credibly for external funding — at every stage from translational grants to Series A.
The Problem
›
Most healthcare innovation teams have a funding problem that is not what they think it is. The science is sound. The unmet need is real. But funders pass — because the narrative is unclear, the evidence is incomplete, or the team cannot yet demonstrate that it understands the path from technology to clinical adoption.
The gap between a strong innovation and a fundable one is rarely scientific. It is almost always a gap in how the team has assembled, documented, and presented the evidence that funders need to make a decision.
That gap takes three forms, and they are not equally fixable. A team may meet the criteria and be unable to show it, which is a presentation problem and can be closed in weeks. It may not yet meet the criteria, which is work not yet done. Or it may be unable to meet them, because decisions taken years earlier foreclosed the outcome: the market was too narrow, the buyer was never identified, the evidence plan answered the regulator and never the payer. The third case is why this framework is written to be read early.
The Solution: Think like an investor. Before you need one.
›
The most effective teams do not pick up this framework when they start preparing for a funding conversation. They pick it up when they start planning their work. The GAITS Funding Readiness Rubric gives teams a clear picture of what funders will evaluate — so that picture shapes the work from the start, not after the fact.
The framework is built on five foundations:
Readiness is not a finish line — it is a planning discipline. Teams that use this framework early make better decisions about what to build, what to validate, and what to document. By the time a funding conversation starts, the evidence exists because the work was planned with that standard in mind.
Most teams pursue funding they believe they can get without testing whether it actually fits their current evidence. Targeting too high means walking into a conversation you cannot yet win. Targeting too low means leaving resources and credibility on the table. The framework gives you the criteria to make that call with confidence rather than assumption. The same applies to the kind of money. Financial funders underwrite a return and will ask about the scale of the business, the unit economics, and the route to liquidity. Mission funders underwrite an outcome and assess reach, affordability, and sustainment instead. Preparing for one while pitching the other is a common and avoidable error.
Funders assess two independent dimensions. Project readiness is largely objective — the evidence either exists or it does not. Team readiness has objective elements too: role coverage, domain expertise, execution history. But funders also bring their own judgment about fit and conviction, which varies from funder to funder. The framework helps teams control what they can control, and know clearly where they stand on the rest.
Both dimensions are re-assessed at every level, and both bars rise. Technology viability at Translational is a plausible rationale; at Seed it is a working product used in the setting it was designed for; at Seed+ it is consistent performance across multiple settings. Teams that were entirely convincing at one level fail at the next on a criterion they considered settled.
At every stage, some criteria are threshold requirements — without them, other strengths do not matter. Others significantly strengthen your position once those thresholds are met. Knowing which is which changes how you prioritise your work.
Every gating criterion carries two standards. The pitch standard is what must be true to survive the first meeting. The diligence standard is the category of evidence that must exist behind that claim before anyone examines it. A team can clear the first and be nowhere near the second, win the meeting, and lose the round weeks later in a data room without ever learning why. Planning the work against both standards is what closes that gap before it costs you a round.
Concept to Capital Pathway
›
Healthcare innovation funding follows a progression from early research grants through increasingly commercial investment stages. This framework begins where research funding ends — at the point where teams move from scientific exploration to structured development with a defined path to clinical and commercial adoption. The five levels covered here represent the funding journey from first translational grant to institutional Series A. Each level has a distinct primary risk, a distinct funder profile, and a distinct set of readiness criteria. The criteria apply across both US and EU contexts; where regulatory pathways or funding instruments differ by geography, this is called out at the relevant criteria level.
Select a funding level to view detailed criteria
What Funders Actually Evaluate
›
The Funding Readiness framework defines what funders actually evaluate at each stage of the funding ladder. It does not describe what funders say they evaluate — it describes what they act on. For each stage, criteria are separated into two categories and assessed across two independent dimensions.
Two aspects of the framework deserve particular attention before you work through the criteria.
Project readiness is largely objective. The evidence either exists or it does not. Following the GAITS framework systematically will build the project dimension — it is a process with a clear path.
Team readiness is different. There are objective attributes — role coverage, domain expertise, execution history, time commitment — that can be built and documented. But funders also bring their own judgment about fit, relationships, and conviction. Those factors vary from funder to funder and cannot be fully controlled. The implication is not to ignore the subjective dimension, but to focus your energy on what you can control, and enter funding conversations knowing exactly where your objective team strengths are and where genuine gaps remain.
Funders assess Project and Team independently because a weakness in either dimension represents a different kind of risk that requires a different response. A strong project with a weak team signals execution risk — the opportunity may be real but the people needed to realise it are not yet in place. A strong team with a weak project signals that effort and capability are being applied to an insufficiently validated opportunity. Conflating the two masks these distinctions and produces misleading readiness assessments.
A third set of factors sits alongside these two dimensions. Unlike Project and Team, these are not criteria a team can build toward directly — they are structural indicators that funders observe, often as symptoms of the choices a team has made about who to fund with, how to structure raises, and how to pace the funding journey. They are most consequential at Seed+ and Series A, where investor relationships and funding stack composition directly affect conversion rates. They cannot be fully controlled, but understanding them should shape fundraising decisions from the start.
Evidence and execution
The deliverables, validation evidence, regulatory position, and commercial clarity a funder can examine. Assessed independently of the team.
Funders evaluate the project dimension to answer a specific question: is there enough documented, reproducible evidence to justify the risk of this investment at this stage? A compelling verbal narrative does not substitute for documented evidence — it directs attention to where the evidence should be found. At early stages, funders weight feasibility and hypothesis quality. At later stages, they weight demonstrated outcomes, regulatory progress, and market clarity. The project dimension captures what exists independently of any individual — it is what survives a change in team composition.
Capability and commitment
The expertise, role coverage, execution history, and time commitment of the people behind the project. Assessed independently of the project.
Funders evaluate the team dimension because the project alone cannot execute itself. At early stages, the team signal is primarily about whether anyone on the team can actually build what they are proposing — a track record of completing things matters more than credentials. At later stages, funders look for evidence that the team can operate at scale: commercial instincts, organisational experience, and the ability to attract and retain talent. Part-time commitment is a persistent concern at every stage, and funders weight increasing time commitment as a signal of conviction.
The Evidence Loop
›
Readiness is not a test you sit once. The same three questions are asked at every funding level, and the bar rises at each one. A team that was entirely convincing at Seed can fail at Seed+ on a criterion it considered settled.
Does the project work, as expected at this level? This covers technology and business together. At Translational it is a plausible scientific rationale and a defined unmet need. At Pre-seed it is a functional prototype and a documented value proposition. At Seed it is a working product used in the setting it was designed for, with a named economic buyer and a tested price. At Seed+ it is consistent performance across multiple settings and a repeatable deployment. At Series A it is a stable product at volume and an investment thesis that is defensible on its own terms.
Does the team work, as expected at this level? Early on this is whether anyone has a record of finishing things, and whether the founders are committing real time. Later it is whether a second layer of leadership is running its own functions, and whether the company still operates when the founders are not in the room.
Clearing both means the pitch standard is met. You can get the meeting. It does not mean the round closes.
Can you evidence it? This is the question teams discover last. The first two ask whether you can make the claim. This one asks whether the file behind the claim exists.
What a no means
The three questions differ in what a failure implies, and that difference is the reason to ask them separately rather than forming a single overall impression.
- A no on the project can be terminal. The mechanism does not work, the effect size is not there, or the market is wrong. It may mean re-engineering, it may mean a different indication or buyer, and sometimes it honestly means stop.
- A no on the team is a capability gap. It is addressed by hiring, by delegating decisions beyond the founders, or by raising the time committed. Rarely terminal, but it will hold a round open indefinitely if it is left alone.
- A no on evidence is neither. It means work not yet done, and the answer is to go and do it.
Each no returns you to the same level, not to the start. The loop closes at that level and only opens onto the next one when all three answers hold.
Types of Funder
›
Two kinds of money are available at every level of the ladder, and they underwrite different things. Preparing for one while pitching the other is a common and avoidable error.
Angels, venture funds, corporate venture arms, and the equity component of blended instruments. They are accountable to a fund, not to the merit of the solution, and they cannot proceed without an answer on the scale of the outcome however strong the clinical case.
They assess the size of the addressable market and the share you expect to hold, the unit economics and the path to contribution margin, the durability of the position over a seven to ten year hold, and the route to liquidity with comparable transactions behind it.
A team that can describe a viable business but not a venture-scale outcome will be well received and will not be funded.
Government agencies, foundations, and public programmes. In the US, SBIR and STTR at the early stages, and capability programmes such as BARDA and ARPA-H at Seed+ and Series A scale. In the EU, EIC Pathfinder, EIC Accelerator, and national translational schemes.
They substitute affordability for contribution margin, sustained availability for competitive durability, and a transition or dissemination plan for the route to liquidity. What happens when the award ends is a first-order question rather than an afterthought.
The return criteria do not apply, and a team that leads with them has misread the funder.
Blended finance
The distinction is a property of the instrument, not of the organisation. EIC Accelerator awards a grant and an equity investment in a single decision, and blended finance is the usual outcome rather than the exception. A team applying to it faces both assessments at once. Preparing only for the grant half is preparing for half the decision.
What this changes in practice
Most criteria are identical for both. The difference sits on a small number: the scale and return criteria apply to financial funders and are replaced for mission funders; the unit economics criterion becomes affordability at target volume; and the defensibility criterion becomes continuity of supply. Everything else — the evidence, the regulatory position, the buyer, the team — is assessed the same way by both.
Decide which you are asking for before you write anything. The preparation is not interchangeable.
Must Have and Should Have
›
At every stage, criteria are divided into two tiers. Must-Have criteria are gating: a team that cannot demonstrate them is not fundable at that stage regardless of other strengths. Should-Have criteria increase confidence and competitiveness, but they do not compensate for a Must-Have gap. Because Must-Haves gate, a single outstanding one holds the level open however strong everything else is. Readiness is therefore not a percentage. A team at 94% with one criterion outstanding is not nearly ready; it is not ready. The percentage shows how close you are, and the outstanding count is what blocks.
Both dimensions — project and team — must meet the readiness threshold independently. A strong project with a weak team signals execution risk. A strong team with a weak project signals an underdeveloped opportunity. Both must be addressed.