Staying Alive Through Small Business Research Grants—A Primer

The panel discussion that CommNexus organized yesterday in San Diego was intended for the telecom association’s military special interest group. But since the financial markets tanked and credit dried up, many fledgling technology companies might also be interested to know how to tap federal small business research grants.

Good thing Xconomy was there, eh?

The Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR, which some speakers called “sibber,” could be a lifeline for startups trekking through the Valley of Death. The SBIR program and the Small Business Technology Transfer program, or STTR, provide more than $2 billion a year in total grants. Both are managed by the Small Business Administration and they are the largest source of early stage R&D funding for U.S. small businesses, typically providing as much as $850,000 to small companies developing advanced technologies sought by the government in specific areas.

In getting this funding, companies with fewer than 500 employees incur no debt, give up no equity, and can retain their proprietary data for five years. The company also can keep its prototype and any equipment purchased with SBIR funding. Applicants do not have to be incorporated. Startups with venture capital funding and private or public investors are eligible for SBIRs, provided at least 51 percent of the company is privately owned.

The panelists were Robert Fagaly, senior research scientist with Quasar Federal Systems in San Diego; Robert Cogan, a patent attorney and partner in the San Diego office of Nath & Associates, and Steve Stewart, SBIR program manager in San Diego for SPAWAR, the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.

Cogan provided an overview of the SBIR program and served as panel moderator. Among the key points that he made:

—SBIRs are a great tool for building technology companies, and are generally more practical because STTRs require working in partnership with university researchers.

—“Some people just fool around with the SBIR for a couple of years and then discard it,” Cogan said. “The difference between people who use SBIRs to build a company and someone who just fools around with it is generally your approach or philosophy.” The right approach requires showing

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.