The DOE’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs offer small businesses around $100 million annually to fund innovative energy R & D projects, and, if your startup is thinking about applying, contact us to get a fast, free fee quote. As of November 7, 2022, for example, a Phase I Release 2 set of topic areas was released (see also grants.gov). Some SBIRs are very specific; on June 22 2023, the DOE released an SBIR for “Revolutionizing Ore to Steel to Impact Emissions (ROSIE).” Revolutionizing Ore to Steel is great but also specific. Call us at 800.540.8906, ext. 1, or email us at seliger@seliger.com to get help today.
Department of Energy (DOE) SBIR are critical ways of funding small business concerns and startups. Some of the more notable topics include separation and detection technologies, particularly for rare-earth elements and lithium; advanced grid technologies (which includes materials for components and grid enhancing technologies); decarbonization of agriculture, buildings, transit, and industry; fuel cells; electric vehicle battery cells; vehicle technologies; solar energy; sustainable chemistry; advanced materials; and more. Previous topics include those related to lithium-ion batteries, flow batteries, data management, rare-earth metals mining, manufacturing, and recycling, membranes for electrochemical energy storage applications, geothermal energy, and more.
SBIRs are ideal for startups and other small businesses that don’t want to dilute their cap table through angel or venture investing, but that have promising technologies. DOE grants are usually issued in tranches, twice or three times yearly. The next FOA was issued on Dec. 12—with an LOI due Jan. 3.
The SBIR/STTR program is designed to provide R & D funding for early-stage businesses, and that can be applied to basic research or to early manufacturing, with the overall goal of bootstrapping the small-business concern into a larger business concern by bringing innovative products to market. We’ve written extensively about what kinds of startups and small businesses should seek SBIRs, and, in addition to that, some academics have studied how 2009 ARPA-E SBIR/STTR grantees performed over time. As you’d expect from a portfolio of unknown grantees, many failed, but some succeed, and, from a macro perspective, the overall program has been a success.
We’ve written a variety of DOE SBIR/STTR and other similar R & D applications (most Federal agencies offer version of SBIR/STTR grants). Some of the many R & D projects we’ve worked on include:
* A project related to pure lithium extraction, which will allow for the creation of lithium metal at purity levels greater than 99.9%.
* A project for a company that sought to shift from a primarily fracking organization to a primarily geothermal energy organization (it turns out that the skills involved in the former can apply to the skills involved in the latter).
* A project for electrochemical separation of a variety of elements.
* A project for lower-cost, low-carbon concrete.
* An array of solar-power-related projects.
* A number of projects involving MIT materials science faculty as advisors, board members, or outright employees.
* A project for consortium developing new open source software to control particle accelerators around the world.
Call us at 800.540.8906, ext. 1, or email seliger@seliger.com, for a fast, free fee quote on any Department of Energy SBIR—or other R & D grant proposal. Every year brings new programs, and new topic areas. Department of Energy (DOE) SBIR/STTR applicants can be helped with their, and your, grant writing needs. It’s best to act fast, before the approach of deadlines. Although we can and do work on very short deadlines, longer lead times are preferable, if possible.
As energy infrastructure projects become more and more important, we’re likely to see additional federal funding from the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and other Federal agencies. The clean-energy revolution is happening, but it’s happening slowly, and it needs R&D unconstrained by conventional metrics of profit and loss. Many businesses need more runway than venture capitalists (VCs) will tolerate, and federal funding can fill the gap.
We’ve written funded SBIRs before (here is one example). Want your SBIR to be funded? Call us.