SBTDC Business of Innovation Sept – Google Docs
SBTDC Business of Innovation Sept. 25, 2024
John Ujvari SBTDC director of tech commercialization
Helping to identify funding sources market research and customer discovery legal in building an innovation based business
Connor Steenbock – SBIR/STTRs
What SBTDC is Small Business and Technology Development Center
Funded thru SBA and state govt
Statewide business advisory service for small businesses of NC
General business counselors are Industry agnostic advisors serve businesses with revenue and employees looking to grow
Business launch serves new entrepreneurs
Intl business
GCAP
Our team Technology Commercialization
Free and confidential
Help bring tech to market
Funding strategy dilutive and non dilutive
Sbir sttr non dilutive
Innovation driven businesses may be years away from generating revenue
Still need to pay for salaries, facilities, equipent protecting intellectual property
marketing business development
Funding options are stage specific
Pre-venture bootstrap friends and family
Startup bootstrap friends daily R*D grans/contracts angels
Eary stage R&D grants angels venture
R&D grants contract his focus
SBIR/STTR only for small businesses
For R&D
1.9B from DoD
DBIR $3.5B year STTR 450M yr
DOD is 49%
DHHS incl NIH is $1.2B
The goal is commercialization. Developing an innovative solution to aproblem
Showing that theres a real market opportunity that you have validated and shown that you can capture
Small business in business for profit and US based
R&D work will be done in US owned maj by individuals
Under 500 employees
More than 50% of grants go to under 10 people in size
Almost half are first time winners
SBIR for small businesses up to a third can be subcontracted to any sized business or federal agency
11 agencies that do sbir
Sttr designed coop between research institution and small business
Small biz is lead awardee
Min of 30% subcontracted to research institutieon
Lot of times a university but can be nonprofit R&D or federal funded R*D center
Up to 60 % can be done at partner institution
PI can be located there
6 agencies do STTR often less applicants
Contracts
No expectation you will provide any kind of good to the govt
Your deliverable is you are doing the R&D
Expected to report back
If govt give you an SBIR contract
They are interested in solving a problem that they actually have
Define closely what kind of tech solution theyre looking for
Essential to show dual use commercial potential
May dump out into eventual procurement once you complete the sBIR contract
This is one of the best ways to get into a sole-source contract if your product is successful
Extra fiscal reporting
DOD NASA DHS ED DOT EPA
Grant agencies
These are not going to be an eventual customer They are really only interested in funding R&D because that is their mission to do impactful R&D
They are interested in technology that solves a commercial marketplace driven problem
Some general areas where they want to fund R&D
Very investigator drive youre bringing opportunity to them
Three phase program
Phase 1 Concept development often the first money in for a company
On paper some prelim R&D
In DoD speak a low-technology readiness level
Short projects showing concept is feasible
And advancing it to a point where you can derisk it justify continuing to do R&D
In phase 2 prototype development you need to be successful in phase 1 to apply for phase 2
Award rate jumps up between phase 1 and 2
Applicant pool is smaller
Not uncommon to see phase 2 awards 1.5 million and up
2 years to do project
The idea being that by the time you finish your Phase 2 project you’ll have something that is a working prototype or something that is close enough to market that you could secure some additional outside funding potentially to continue R&D
Phase 3 is a little bit imaginary
That’s Not to say its not real butjust to say there’s no further funding in Phase 3
There’s not going to be a Phase 3 SBIR grant given to your company
Its at this point that the agency expects that you’ll be able to commercialize or secure outside funding from another source
Here’s a tip: Look for things that go outside of this typical structure if this shoes doesn’t quite fit
So fast track where you apply for phase 1 and 2 at the same time can be an option
And direct to phase 2 if you’ve done some of that concept development work already and its seems like a phase 1 is for earlier stage research than what you really need to do
NIH does these a lot of department of defense branches will consider doing these
How do we find the right federal agency to apply to