For independent research orgs
Diversify your institute’s funding.Without breaking the budget.
Federal funding is shifting. The institutes still standing are the ones already diversified across foundations, private, and international funders, running on a research development engine sized for a lean team.
Research institutes running on Atom
Proof
The institutes scaling fastest are scaling on Atom
The institutes still growing through the federal funding shift are the ones already diversified across foundation, private, and international funders before the change started, running a research development engine that took weeks to stand up, not a year-long senior hire.
Read case studies9k+
Funders monitored across all sources
5k+
Foundations monitored daily
58:1
PI-to-RD-staff ratio sustained on Atom
“If federal funds are paused or terminated, the cost of not looking at non-federal funding can completely stop a company in its tracks. It can make or break an institution.”
Melanie Das, PhD
Founder · BrainWaves Consulting · Grants per client tripled
Funder diversification
With a changing federal landscape, diversifying grant sources becomes the priority
Continuing resolutions, agency restructuring, and shifting priorities: federal funding is moving under everyone. The institutes still standing are the ones who already had foundation, private, and international pipelines online before the change started.
“I absolutely love your AI system. It correctly interprets my keywords and phrases and sends me relevant results. Great timesavings, quality results.”
Cat Albert
Grant Preparation Officer, University of North Dakota
Grant discovery
2,847 matches across 4 streams
Sorted by match
NIH · R01 Neuroinflammation
Sloan · Research Fellowship
Chan Zuckerberg · Open Science
Wellcome Trust · Discovery Awards
NSF · CAREER Award
Operational depth
The research office of a major university with the team you already have
You're a small research institute with an R1's workload and a startup's staff: every PI to support, every funder to track, every deadline to hit. Atom is the operational layer underneath: discovery, digests, Collaborators search, and CRM run in the background.
“If you're at a PUI or a small office like mine, Atom makes operations far more efficient. It's a labor-saving device.”
Dr. Rene Munoz
Director, OSP, Franklin & Marshall College
Live agents
142
PIs covered
5
RD staff
28:1
Ratio
3 actions this session
Sloan, Moore, BrightFocus · 4 with deadlines in 30d
Foundation + international focus this week
Aligns with Sloan symbiosis priorities and extends prior PET work.
Cost discipline
Cheaper than the engineer
you’d hire to do it
Building this capacity in-house means a senior research development hire: $150-200k loaded, plus tooling, plus 9-12 months to search and ramp into productivity. Atom is a fraction of that, live in a week, and scales as your portfolio grows without another hire.
“It was about the low barrier to entry, quick implementation and low burden on faculty. That was a big deal for me. This is a no brainer.”
Heidi Grunwald, PhD
Associate VP of Research, North Dakota State University
Build vs. buy
Atom wins on every rowBuild in-house
Hire a senior RD
Partner with Atom
Live in a week
Time to productive
9–12 months
Search + onboard + ramp
1 week
Signed → live PI digests
Year-one cost
$150–200k+
Loaded senior RD hire
Fraction of an FTE
All-in subscription
Scaling to more PIs
Hire another
Proportional headcount
Same engine
No extra hires
Tooling
License separately
CRM, search, digests
Included
One source of truth
Why teams pick Atom
Built for institutes where grants are the business
Research development teams across institutes, academic medical centers, R1s, and PUIs are scaling their funding without scaling their headcount.
“Atom is taking the burden away from our pre-award unit because they're guiding the PIs in the submission process.”
Lydia Perry
Grant Writer · UA at Little Rock
“This fiscal year we have set records for submissions and I attribute that to the fact people are engaging with Atom.”
Brian Evans, PhD
Assistant Director · University of Memphis
55+
research institutions building their research development programs on Atom.
Questions research institutes ask
Atom Grants works for independent research institutes as well as universities, matching every PI to federal, foundation, private, and international funding with no profile setup. Institutes including the Institute for Systems Biology, UCAR, and IMEC run on Atom. Pivot-RP, GrantForward, and SPIN are the established alternatives (SPIN fits best at institutes already running InfoEd), while nonprofits seeking operating support rather than research funding are better served by Instrumentl or Candid.
A research institute diversifies by building foundation, private, and international pipelines before federal funding shifts, which takes more monitoring than a small team can do by hand. Atom watches foundations daily alongside federal agencies, private funders, and international sources, and ranks every opportunity by fit for each PI so non-federal calls get the same attention as federal ones. Each match arrives in the PI's weekly digest, already checked for eligibility.
Atom lets a small team support every PI by running discovery, personalized weekly digests, collaborator search, and proposal tracking in the background. Institutes on Atom sustain a 58:1 PI-to-research-development-staff ratio, and the team's time goes to strategy and PI coaching instead of searching and forwarding.
Yes. Atom costs a fraction of a senior research development hire, which runs $150,000 to $200,000 a year loaded, plus 9 to 12 months to recruit and ramp. Atom is live in about a week and scales to more PIs without another hire. Pricing is an institutional license, quoted on a demo call.
Yes. Atom reads each funding call end to end and checks its eligibility rules, including institution type, career stage, citizenship, and prior awards, against each PI before the grant reaches them. Calls limited to universities or other institution types are screened out, so your PIs only see opportunities your institute can apply for.
Atom matches each foundation call to a PI's publications and prior funding rather than keywords, so it finds grants that describe the same research in different words. For a small foundation or a niche program, the Deep Research agent writes a brief with the key requirements, why it fits, and recommended next steps.
Most institutes are live on Atom in about a week, from signed contract to PI digests. You send a CSV of names and emails, Atom builds each profile automatically, and the first personalized digests go out within days, with no technical lift from a small team.