Must-Know CHANGES to SBIR/STTR Phase I Funding: Securing Grant Funding from the NSF in 2025

The National Science Foundation just dropped a brand new SBIR solicitation. There are so many new changes that you founders have to know about. So in this video, I'm gonna walk you through all the new updates within the solicitation, including new budget limits and the submission deadlines for 2024 and 2025. So make sure you stick around to the end of this video so that you can capture all these new changes so that you can stay ahead of the curve and secure non-dilutive SBIR or STTR funding for you and your startup. Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're joining us for the first time, I'm Stacy Chin, a professional SBIR consultant and grant writer who has helped to raise over $15 million of non-diluted funding from the SBIR and STTR program. I've worked with startups across all technology innovation sectors, including healthcare, defense, and climate. If you're interested in learning more about these programs, I'll leave a link to another video in the description below. It is in my opinion that all startup founders should jump at the chance to secure SBIR or STTR funding from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, because it is a gold mine of non-diluted capital. Winning this prestigious and highly competitive award can supercharge you and your startup's credibility and the potential to make a huge impact in the world. Trust me, your future investors and customers will take notice. Designed for high-risk and high-reward innovations, the NSF SBIR and STTR program will not only fund your groundbreaking idea, but this opportunity can serve as your ticket to take your innovation from the benchtop towards the marketplace. So recently, the NSF launched a brand new solicitation and announced that $85 million is up for grabs for the Phase I SBIR SBIR program. And here's the breakdown: up to $72 million is budgeted for SBIR grants, and up to $15 million is budgeted for STTR proposals. Now, if you're a lucky Phase I awardee, you could then pursue NSF Phase II funding, in which the agency has budgeted a total of $120 million for its awardees. Now, in Phase II, total of $110 million has been allocated for its Phase II SBIR awardees, while $10 million has been allocated and budgeted for the STTR Phase II awardees. Now, in the rest of this video, I'm going to walk you through all these brand new changes within the 2024 and 2025 NSF SBIR Phase I solicitation. I'll leave a link in the description below in case you want to check it out for yourselves. Either way, you'll still have to submit a project pitch application and get that approved before you can pursue a full Phase I proposal. So make sure to check out our step-by-step NSF project pitch course to help you nail this application in the link below and on our website at keepyourequity.co. And with that, let's dive in and chat about all the new changes within this NSF SBIR Phase Phase 1 solicitation. The first striking difference is that the updated outline and structure of the 15-page project description is different. The project description is like the meat and potatoes of your SBIR proposal and has everything from the problem statement you're trying to solve to the innovation and then to your proposed R&D approach. The key headers that you must include within your project description: the intellectual merits, company/team, the broader impact, and commercialization potential. Now, the intellectual merits section should be around 7 to 10 pages. and this section should outline the technical solution and your proposed research and development plan. Now, the company/team section should be about 1 to 2 pages. Here, mention your company along with the founders and its team members that will be involved in this R&D approach. Next up is the broader impacts, and this is where you describe your motivation for this project and then explain how your innovation will make a huge difference in society and for its customers if successful. And last but not least is the commercialization potential, which outlines your business plan and your go-to-market strategy. Strategy. Now, if you're looking for more help on your project description, make sure to check out our website at keepyourequity.co where we have lots of great templates and step-by-step guides on how to go about your full Phase 1 NSF application. Don't forget to check that out. Now, now, I know you're wondering, Stacy Chin, where is this one-page elevator pitch within your project description? Well, in this new solicitation, they actually chopped this out, so the elevator pitch is no longer required within your project description. I know, it's such a big change, right? Now, the next biggest change I've noticed within this brand new NSF SBIR Phase 1 solicitation are due to the letters of support. So letters of support is usually a great way for founders to get endorsements from industry leaders, key opinion experts, potential customers, and collaborators. And this helps add credibility and validation to your SBIR proposal. However, in this brand new SBIR Phase I solicitation, letters of support are not allowed. So do not upload any documents within the letters of support systems within research.gov. However, if you have paid consultants or subcontractors who'll be actively involved within the R&D project, you can still include letters of commitment within the supplementary documents section. Now, the next new change is the requirement to include a one-page synergistic activities document for each senior key person, and this document allows each person to include up to 5 examples that demonstrates the broader impact of that person's scholarly and professional activities geared towards the integration and transfer of knowledge or creation. In other words, the NSF wants to know how you are contributing to the greater scientific and research communities. Some examples could include training other engineers and scientists in entrepreneurship or innovation, creating new services or products and tools using these technologies, engaging with scientific or engineering communities within your local area, or broadening the participation or group services within the research or scientific sector. Now, in addition to these synergistic activities, make sure each senior key person also includes a biosketch, a current and pending support document, and a collaborators and other affiliation or COA document as well. Those aspects still stay the same within in this brand new solicitation. Now the next new change are the 2024 and 2025 submission deadline. In the past years, the NSF had submission windows, which you're welcome to submit your proposal pretty much anytime throughout the year. However, in this new solicitation, this is completely different, and now they have switched to hard deadlines. So the NSF SBIR Phase 1 and Phase 2 deadlines for 2024 and 2025 are September 18, 2024, November 6, 2024, March 5, 2025, July 2, 2025, and then finally November May 5th, 2025. If you need help to prepare your NSF SBIR Phase I or Phase II applications, make sure to reach out to us at keepyourequity.co. Let's learn how to best support you in these efforts. And now the last new change we'll discuss are the budget limits. In this brand new solicitation, the NSF raised its Phase I budget from $275,000 all the way to $305,000. And this proposed budget is inclusive of all the direct costs, indirect costs, as well as a small business fee, or also known as the profit. I'll leave a couple links in the description of other videos of how to walk through the budget. And we also have lots of great Excel sheets and templates at your website, keepyourequity.co, to help you out in this step. If you found any of these tips helpful, I would greatly appreciate if you like this video and subscribe to this channel so you can learn other ways to keep your equity throughout your fundraising journey. And also make sure to check out our website at keepyourequity.co where you can find lots of other resources, templates, advice to help you secure SBIR funding. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I'll see you in a video very soon.