In this interview, the founder explains why their academic‑origin startup chose to apply for an NIH SBIR Phase I award. They note that, from the start, they recognized SBIR as an alternative to venture capital for early‑stage funding. The timing of the application was delayed by uncertainty around the SBIR re‑authorization cycle, which took about six months. Initially the team pursued VC and angel investors, but after the SBIR program was re‑authorized they shifted focus. Participation in the regional i‑Corps program at UMass Boston provided customer interviews that validated the problem they were tackling. Consequently, they decided to frame their SBIR proposal around a central scientific hypothesis and technical challenge rather than a conventional product pitch, emphasizing measurable experiments and benchmarks. The founder hints that the grant money will be used to advance the core scientific thesis, develop the technology, and hire/retain AI talent, aligning the funding with a research‑focused growth strategy.
Why did you decide to pursue an NIH SBIR Phase 1 application?
So I think being in academia, I always knew about that. Like, I mean, this is not just like VC is not the only pathway to get like funding. So we knew that we could do this route as well. Again, as I mentioned initially, that we just weren't sure like when SBIR would be reauthorized, because I think it took us like about 6 months. I think nothing was going on in the landscape between like, I don't even know, like maybe September to like March, April. I think April was when SBI got reauthorized. So I think we always knew that we wanted to apply, but our game plan was different. I guess we were like approaching VCs and angels before trying to get to SBI. So yeah, to answer your question, I guess we always knew that we wanted to apply, but we just weren't sure like when SBI would be reauthorized. were fortunate to like participate in the regional i-Corps program at UMass Boston. So that's another way we kind of like knew that since we did like more customer interviews through that program, we knew that this problem existed. And then what we wanted to like focus on for SBI was like our central hypothesis and like being more geared towards like the scientific side of the product that we're trying to develop and not like just— give like a product pitch because I was doing that initially with our research strategy as well. Like listing features is not the way to like do it, right? So we wanted to find the core hypothesis, the technical challenge that we wanted to solve. So yeah.
Do you mind sharing like what was your high-level goals of the SBIR program? Like what was your strategy? What did you want the money for?
Yeah, so I guess as I was saying before, I mean, the biggest decision was not to pitch SlabOps as just like an AI product. We wanted to get the scientific feasibility out as well and like design measurable experiments and also like benchmarks and like the team behind developing the whole research work. So I think the reason why we wanted the money, I mean, all of us want the money to like get the talent and retain the talent. I think the most difficult thing right now is to like retain AI talent because, I mean, there are so many companies popping up. So, I mean, you need to pay the employees fair wage to be able to retain them. So I think our reason, one, is to like get the money for like retaining the talent. And second, someone from MassVentures like told me, and I can completely agree with this, is that SBI is like one of the things that kind of like helps you develop your company's core thesis and core technology. Like it's a very robust way. of defining your company's core thesis and core technology. So I think we are way more mature as a company as well after like submitting the SBR. So yeah.
