Message board for finding private grants I am a PhD student studying in the US and I am interested in finding research-grants relevant to the research area to which I have recently switched to, viz. computational geometry problems in robotics. 

As of now, I don't want to apply for a grant, but I want to get an 
overview for what kinds of problems do public and private research grants get offered to researchers in my field.  

While googling I stumbled upon grants.gov on which different government agencies post funding opportunities relevant to their interests, and that this
database is searchable by keyword. 

The NSF website is also very useful.  However
their grant solicitations like this one  seem quite open-ended
and are not more specific on what kinds of problems need to be solved, (but please correct me if I am wrong, I am still exploring this website! :-D )

QUESTION:

Are there similar "messaging-boards" where private companies, interested in funding university research for a relevant problem post their funding opportunities? If not, how do you efficiently find such grants ?  

I am interested in this because I feel private companies will be more specific on what kinds of problems they encounter and would like to be solved.
In the US, students generally do not apply for grants (except for specific fellowships for graduate students - NSF, DoD, Hertz, and the like); it is the advisor's job to find funding for the student.

If you want to get a general sense of the funding picture in computational geometry, I suggest you look at recently funded proposals on nsf.gov (their abstracts should be publicly visible) and follow up directly (and with due preparation) with the principal investigator of the corresponding grant.

Your best bet is to attract the attention of a well-known researcher in the field, and, given the current academic pressures, they are very likely to have some funding for students.