---
title: "Trelis AI Grants"
slug: "trelis-ai-grants"
provider: "Trelis"
status: "verified"
verifiedAt: "2026-10-12"
listedAt: "2026-09-12"
canonical: "https://aifree.dev/offer/trelis-ai-grants"
---

# Trelis AI Grants

> Quarterly $500 equity-free grants for individuals advancing open AI models

- Provider: [Trelis](https://aifree.dev/provider/trelis-com)
- What is free: $500
- Status: verified by a person on 2026-10-12
- Credit card: not required
- Sign-up: required
- For: Startups
- Regions: worldwide
- Claim at: https://trelis.com/trelis-ai-grants/

## What you get

Trelis Research awards $500 grants per quarter, equity-free, to individuals with an active GitHub or GitLab account working on training, fine-tuning, inference, or deployment tooling for open AI models, with a parallel $10,000 SAFE investment track.

## The catch

Application, 15-minute interview, and completion summaries required; decisions within 30 days and self-sustaining project ideas preferred.

## Eligibility

Individuals of any age and location with an active GitHub or GitLab account; application and interview required.
- an active GitHub or GitLab account
- Fill out the application form (decisions within 30 days)
- Selected applicants complete a 15-minute interview
- Grantees invoice Trelis LTD and submit title, tweet-style summary, and 500-word summary on completion

## Limits

- $500 grants awarded per quarter, on a rolling basis
- Applicants need an active GitHub or GitLab account
- Grantees invoice Trelis LTD and submit a 500-word completion summary
- Separate $10,000 investment track requires a corporate entity (Delaware C Corp preferred), typically via SAFE
- Payment via bank transfer preferred, then PayPal/Stripe, or RunPod GPU credits as last resort

## Details

## Overview

[Trelis Research](https://trelis.com/trelis-ai-grants/) runs a quarterly grant program for individuals working on open AI models. Each quarter it awards **$500 grants** to selected applicants, with a parallel **$10,000 SAFE investment** track for projects that incorporate (Delaware C Corp preferred).

## What You Get

- **$500 grant per quarter**, paid to an individual.
- **Equity-free** - Trelis states it does not claim any rights to the grantee's work.
- Optional **$10,000 investment** (SAFE) track for incorporated projects.
- Payout by bank transfer to supported countries, PayPal or Stripe invoice, or RunPod GPU credits as a last resort.

## Eligibility

- Applicants must be **individuals of any age and location** with an **active GitHub or GitLab account**.
- Eligible work spans training, fine-tuning, inference, and deployment tooling that progresses open AI models - for example LoRA/QLoRA fine-tunes, quantization and serving frameworks, evaluation harnesses, or agent frameworks built on open models.
- Applications are rolling, and Trelis says to expect a response within 30 days of applying; shortlisted candidates are invited to a 15-minute interview during the quarter.
- Grant recipients submit a headline, a 280-character tweet-style summary, and a 500-word project summary; Trelis may publicise the recipient and project with permission.

## How to Get Started

Apply through the form linked from the [Trelis AI Grants page](https://trelis.com/trelis-ai-grants/). Decisions and offers are made on a rolling basis throughout the quarter, and completed cohorts are published on the page (the most recent listed are 1Q2026 and 2Q2026).

## More

- HTML page: https://aifree.dev/offer/trelis-ai-grants
- Change history: https://aifree.dev/offer/trelis-ai-grants/history
- How it was verified: https://aifree.dev/offer/trelis-ai-grants/verification
- More in [Free AI coding tools](https://aifree.dev/free-ai-coding-tools.md)
- JSON: https://aifree.dev/api/v1/offers/trelis-ai-grants