NASA — SBIR/STTR competition data
Data through FY2025
1,433 proposals → 278 awards. SBA SBIR/STTR Annual Report FY2022 (latest published edition; SBA lags ~2 years).
294 proposals → 131 awards (same source).
2022 Phase I cohort: 173 of 331 won a linked Phase II within 3 years.
23% to first-time winners · n=451 awards.
Awards and typical amounts
| FY | Awards | Phase I | Phase II | Median Phase I | Median Phase II |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 534 | 361 | 173 | $125k | $750k |
| 2022 | 482 | 331 | 151 | $150k | $750k |
| 2023 | 455 | 307 | 148 | $150k | $850k |
| 2024 | 445 | 305 | 140 | $150k | $850k |
| 2025 | 451 | 303 | 148 | $150k | $850k |
Phase I→II conversion by cohort
| Phase I cohort | Phase I awards | Linked Phase II | Conversion | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 303 | 27 | 9% | provisional — cohort still inside the 3-year window |
| 2024 | 305 | 146 | 48% | provisional — cohort still inside the 3-year window |
| 2023 | 307 | 167 | 54% | provisional — cohort still inside the 3-year window |
| 2022 | 331 | 173 | 52% | |
| 2021 | 361 | 172 | 48% | |
| 2020 | 409 | 202 | 49% | |
| 2019 | 361 | 218 | 60% | |
| 2018 | 344 | 210 | 61% |
First-timers vs incumbents (Phase I only)
| FY | Phase I awards | First-time winners | 1–4 prior | 5+ prior |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 303 | 33% | 21% | 47% |
| 2024 | 305 | 29% | 20% | 51% |
| 2023 | 307 | 27% | 24% | 49% |
| 2022 | 331 | 24% | 22% | 55% |
| 2021 | 361 | 25% | 24% | 51% |
Most-awarded firms (last 5 FYs)
| Company | Awards | Total obligations |
|---|---|---|
| CREARE LLC | 34 | $13.7M |
| CFD Research Corporation | 30 | $11.1M |
| PHYSICAL SCIENCES INC. | 26 | $11.1M |
| Alphacore, Inc. | 23 | $9.6M |
| ASTROBOTIC TECHNOLOGY INC | 22 | $17.2M |
| ADVANCED COOLING TECHNOLOGIES INC | 21 | $13.4M |
| LYNNTECH INC. | 20 | $5M |
| NANOSONIC INC. | 19 | $6.8M |
| INTELLISENSE SYSTEMS INC | 19 | $7.2M |
| Traclabs Inc. | 18 | $6.3M |
Search NASA awards by topic code →
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.
Sources: sbir.gov award data · SBA FY22 Annual Report. Free to use; verify anything critical against the originals.