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Commerce / NIST & NOAA — SBIR/STTR competition data

Data through FY2024 · Commerce / NIST & NOAA uploads award data on a lag; FY2025 is only partially reported so far.

Phase I selection rate (real applications data) 11.1%

352 proposals → 39 awards. SBA SBIR/STTR Annual Report FY2022 (latest published edition; SBA lags ~2 years).

Phase I→II conversion (computed) 51%

2022 Phase I cohort: 20 of 39 won a linked Phase II within 3 years.

Who wins (FY2024) 1% to firms with 5+ prior awards

67% to first-time winners · n=82 awards.

Awards and typical amounts

FYAwardsPhase IPhase IIMedian Phase IMedian Phase II
202070 628 $120k$400k
202172 3042 $150k$400k
202258 3919 $150k$500k
202362 4022 $175k$650k
202482 6022 $175k$650k

Phase I→II conversion by cohort

Phase I cohortPhase I awardsLinked Phase IIConversion
202460 6 10% provisional — cohort still inside the 3-year window
202340 22 55% provisional — cohort still inside the 3-year window
202239 20 51%
202130 18 60%
202062 41 66%
201842 22 52%
201731 25 81%
201641 21 51%

First-timers vs incumbents (Phase I only)

FYPhase I awardsFirst-time winners1–4 prior5+ prior
202518 56% 44% 0%
202460 92% 7% 2%
202340 70% 18% 12%
202239 82% 15% 3%
202130 77% 13% 10%

Most-awarded firms (last 5 FYs)

CompanyAwardsTotal obligations
SYNTHETIK APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES LLC6$1.5M
CFD Research Corporation5$1.3M
CVISION AI INC4$1.1M
LYNNTECH INC.4$1.2M
AERODYNE RESEARCH INC4$1.4M
CHEM3 LLC4$700k
COASTALOCEANVISION, INC4$1.3M
Blue Ocean Gear Inc.4$1.3M
CHARLES RIVER ANALYTICS, INC.4$1.2M
AAPlasma LLC4$850k

Search Commerce / NIST & NOAA awards by topic code →

How to read these numbers (the honest part)

Sourced vs computed: Phase I/II selection rates (applications → awards) come from the SBA's SBIR/STTR Annual Report — FY2022 is the latest published edition, and SBA itself calls the rates estimates because proposal cohorts span fiscal years. Phase I→II conversion and first-timer shares are computed by us from sbir.gov's public award records. Linked by firm + agency + topic (suffix-tolerant for DOE's phase renumbering) with a title-similarity fallback for NSF; ~90% of links match on topic, ~5% ambiguity.

What nobody publishes: per-topic application counts are published by no one — not the agencies, and not the $500–$42,000-a-year intelligence platforms either; the data simply isn't public. Any per-topic number on this site is award-side only (who won, how often winners repeat), never your odds of selection.

Freshness: Commerce / NIST & NOAA uploads award data on a lag; FY2025 is only partially reported so far.

Sources: sbir.gov award data · SBA FY22 Annual Report. Free to use; verify anything critical against the originals.