Grantly Launches: AI Grant Discovery for Small Businesses, Built with Parsippany EDC
PARSIPPANY - Small businesses in Parsippany and across Morris County now have a faster way to find funding. Grantly is a new, patent-pending platform built by Mountain Lakes High School student Anikait Sota in collaboration with the Parsippany Economic Development Committee.
Release date: Oct 25, 2025
What it does
Grantly asks for a few details about a business-size, location, industry, and community impact-then recommends relevant grants in seconds. No endless searching or generic lists.
A beta feature can also autofill portions of grant applications with AI, helping teams reduce repetitive form work and focus on strong answers and documentation.
Why IT and development teams should care
This is a practical case of AI moving paperwork off the critical path. If you support local teams or internal ventures, Grantly can standardize discovery and cut cycle time on applications.
- Reduce manual search and triage of grant opportunities
- Create a single flow for intake and application drafts
- Shift effort to reviews, evidence, and compliance
How it likely works (at a high level)
While specifics aren't public, tools like this typically combine structured eligibility filters (entity type, location, headcount, NAICS-like signals) with text matching across grant notices. Ranking usually mixes rules with NLP/embedding similarity to surface the best fits. The autofill beta likely uses an LLM with prompt templates fed by your business profile and the grant's questions.
Translation: clean inputs matter. Provide accurate business attributes and keep documents handy (EIN, incorporation status, impact metrics) to improve match quality and autofill outputs.
Practical checks before your team rolls it out
- Data handling: confirm how business data is stored, retained, and deleted
- Review loop: keep a human-in-the-loop for all autofilled answers
- Versioning: track which draft was submitted and by whom
- Evidence: attach supporting docs early (financials, certifications, impact proof)
Community-backed and patent pending
Grantly's methodology is patent pending and has early positive feedback from local owners. The project is supported by the Parsippany-Troy Hills Economic Development Committee, which helped bring it to market.
"We designed Grantly to eliminate the friction between small businesses and the resources meant to help them grow," said Anikait Sota, Founder of Grantly. "Many business owners don't even realize how many grants are out there. Our tool changes that."
"This project exemplifies the innovation and leadership coming out of our community," said Frank Cahill, Chairman of the Parsippany-Troy Hills Economic Development Committee. "We are proud to stand behind Anikait and the work he's done with Grantly."
Get started
- Visit grantlyai.net and create a business profile
- Review recommended grants and shortlist the best fits
- Test the AI autofill (beta), then refine with your team before submitting
- Need help? Email grantlyfinder@gmail.com or contact Parsippany EDC leadership
For deeper grant research
Use Grantly as your primary matching layer, then cross-check details on authoritative sources like Grants.gov.
If you're tasked with building similar AI workflows (matching, form autofill, review gates), this resource on prompt/LLM systems may help: Prompt Engineering Guides.
Bottom line
Grantly trims the busywork from grant discovery and first-draft applications. For IT and dev teams supporting small businesses, it's a straightforward way to save time, create consistency, and channel effort into the parts that win funding.
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