Research grants for startups in 2026: SBIR, STTR, and the routes most lists miss

Andrew T. Flowers · October 29, 2026

U.S. startups can win research grants in 2026 for R&D that an agency wants done, and most of the routes are open now. The largest, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, came back in April 2026 after lapsing at the end of September 2025, and they're now authorized through September 2031. About half the states add their own funding to a federal award, and NIH's list names 25, including Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Illinois. North Carolina's and Illinois's programs are open until 30 June 2027, while funds last. And NSF's newest Regional Innovation Engines, named in July, are building programs for the startups in their regions. The awards also do more for a young company than their size suggests. In a study of Department of Energy SBIR applicants, a Phase I award roughly doubled a firm's chance of raising venture capital afterward (Howell, 2017). Below are the routes, what each one funds, who can apply, and what the research says the awards do for the companies that win them.

Can a startup get a government grant?

The Small Business Administration says on its own grants page: "SBA does not provide grants for starting and expanding a business." There's no U.S. federal grant just for being a startup, but there is federal funding for doing research the government wants done, and small companies are eligible for it.

We compiled a map of non-dilutive funding opportunities for startups that fits on one sheet you can print double-sided and keep on your desk: download the non-dilutive funding map (PDF), free and with no sign-up. It lists every route below with what it funds, who can apply, the award size from its official page or the latest report on it, whether you need a university or lab, and its status on 29 October 2026. The back has the rules that decide SBIR or STTR, the order to work in, and the sources.

1. What are SBIR and STTR, and how much do they award?

The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs are the largest source of non-dilutive R&D funding for US small companies. Eleven agencies run SBIR, and six of them also run STTR, each with its own topics and deadlines. Under the guideline amounts SBA published in October 2026, agencies may award up to $335,937 in Phase I and $2,239,578 in Phase II without seeking SBA approval. NIH's program pages now use the same figures, and its waiver topics go higher. The programs lapsed at the end of September 2025 and were reauthorized in April 2026 through September 2031.

The difference between the two: SBIR lets you partner with a university, but STTR requires it, with at least 40% of the work at the small business and 30% at the research institution, and a written allocation of rights agreement before award. If your technology came out of a university lab, or your proposal needs a capability only a lab has, STTR is built for you. The SBIR and STTR university partner guide covers how to choose between them, how to find the partner, and what the agreement has to say, and our free partner checklist puts everything you and the university need to agree on in one document. For what a professor expects to get out of an SBIR/STTR collaboration, read our article, "What to offer a professor".

2. Which defense programs fund startup R&D?

The Department of Defense runs the largest SBIR and STTR program in the government, with nearly $2.9 billion allocated in fiscal 2023, according to the National Academies' 2026 review of it. Each military service sets its own guidance, including its maximum award sizes. The Air Force and the Army each run a program that works differently from a standard SBIR topic: open topics at the Air Force and prize competitions at the Army.

AFWERX. The Air Force's SBIR and STTR arm runs topic releases on a published schedule. The current schedule lists Phase I awards up to $323,000 for up to six months and Phase II up to $2.1 million. Its STTR track supports collaborative research between small businesses and nonprofit research institutions such as universities. After reauthorization, AFWERX said it's "transitioning to a focused open topic model, which replaces traditional open topics," with fewer open-topic opportunities (April 2026 Q&A). Open topics, which let a company propose almost any technology the Air Force could use, are giving way to narrower ones, so check the current release before you plan a proposal around one.

Army xTech. The Army runs xTech prize competitions that lead to SBIR and STTR awards, and new competitions open through the year on its competitions page. They're open to small, independent, for-profit U.S. businesses. In xTechSearch, only finalists can propose for an Army SBIR or STTR Phase I of up to $300,000. The tenth round had a $1 million prize pool and, for the first time, an STTR topic. It closed to entries on 19 October 2026, and the next round will be announced on the program site.

3. What does NSF offer startups, and what replaced PFI?

I-Corps. NSF's customer-discovery program isn't a grant for research. It's a $50,000 training award for a team to interview 100 potential customers and decide whether the technology can be commercialized into a business. The evidence that it works as an on-ramp is in NSF's 2025 biennial report: 52% of the 3,231 national teams since 2012, or 1,696 teams, have launched startups, and those teams had raised $7.01 billion in follow-on funding through fiscal 2024. For a university-born technology startup, I-Corps is usually the first federal money for commercialization, and its graduates go on to SBIR and STTR. (The report says 19% of teams in fiscal 2023 and 2024 came from SBIR or STTR, which is the reverse flow.)

Partnerships for Innovation is closed, and NSF has named what replaces it. NSF's PFI program, which funded the translation of NSF-supported research toward startups and licensing, stopped accepting applications in July 2025, and the same notice points to a newer program, NSF Translation to Practice. Universities and nonprofit research organizations apply, led by their faculty or research staff. The Partner track needs a partner, preferably a non-academic one such as a company, with someone from it on the team. The Translate track funds up to $1.2 million over three years and the Partner track up to $2 million over four, with the next deadlines on 17 November 2026 and 18 May 2027. A smaller Explore track, about $600,000, extends a lab's current NSF award, and the lab can request it anytime once its program officer invites it.

4. What are the NSF Engines, and can a startup get funding from one?

The NSF Regional Innovation Engines are coalitions of universities, companies, and other regional organizations, each built around a technology area its region wants to lead in. NSF funds each Engine with $15 million for its first two years and up to $160 million over ten if it meets its milestones. It named the first Engines in January 2024 and 12 more on 14 July 2026, across 20 states. A startup doesn't apply to NSF for Engine funding. It works with the Engine in its region and field, which runs its own programs and decides which companies to back.

The Engine in our own region shows what that looks like. The Resilient Energy Technology and Infrastructure Consortium, or RETI, is led by West Virginia University with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. It works on making the power grid and the industrial energy systems of West Virginia and western Pennsylvania more reliable and secure. More than 60 partners have committed $161 million alongside NSF's funding. Carnegie Mellon leads its commercialization work. That includes entrepreneurship fellowships, business development workshops, testing facilities, and technical-assistance awards for the startups in its pipeline, which RETI aims to take to a first product demonstration within about 18 months. RETI had identified about 100 startups for that pipeline by September, and new founders can ask to join it (Technical.ly, September 2026). If your technology fits one of the 2026 Engines' fields, contact that Engine now, while its startup programs are taking shape.

5. Can a startup get funding from a Manufacturing USA institute?

Manufacturing USA is a network of 18 federally backed institutes, each a partnership of companies, universities, and government built around one manufacturing technology, such as America Makes for 3D printing and the ARM Institute for robotics. The institutes are funded by the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy and by their industry members, and they fund R&D through project calls, in which members propose projects. A project team can combine a small company and a university. In America Makes' 2020 open call, for example, a team of two companies and a university won funding to use machine learning to predict the quality of 3D-printed material. Open Additive, an Ohio company that builds metal 3D printers, led it with AddiGuru, a startup whose software monitors prints as they build, and Wright State University.

The network's own study gives the clearest startup example. The Advanced Functional Fabrics of America institute (AFFOA) provided more than $1 million through project calls and awards to Nufabrx, a startup that makes clothing that delivers medicine through the fabric. According to AFFOA's chief executive, that took Nufabrx from lab to product in about two years.

The catch is membership: many calls take proposals only from members, as the ARM Institute's 2026 call and America Makes' 2024 call did, and America Makes also required a 50% non-federal cost share (RFP). Membership has a fee, so weigh it against the calls you'd realistically bid on.

6. Which states match SBIR and STTR awards?

A Phase I award often triggers a state match. NIH's resource page lists 25 states with matching programs in its December 2025 update, and it warns that the list may be out of date, so check with your own state. Pennsylvania, our home state, isn't on it. A bill to create a match there, SB 811, has been in the Senate Appropriations Committee since July 2025, which is one reason Ben Franklin's investment programs, below, matter in Pennsylvania.

The table lists the 21 state programs we could confirm on the states' own pages on 29 October 2026, with the latest match each one publishes. It includes Maryland and Kansas, which aren't on NIH's list. Most take applications in one or two rounds a year, so check the program page for the next one.

State	Program	Phase I match	Phase II match
Alabama	Innovate Alabama Supplemental Grant Program	50%, up to $100,000	50%, up to $250,000
Arkansas	Arkansas SBIR Matching Grant	50%, up to $50,000	50%, up to $100,000
Hawaii	HTDC Hawaii Small Business Innovation Research grants	50%, up to $75,000	50%, up to $500,000
Illinois	DCEO SBIR/STTR matching funds	Up to $75,000	Up to $250,000
Kansas	Kansas SBIR/STTR Matching Program	Up to $25,000	None listed
Kentucky	KY SBIR/STTR Matching Funds Program	Up to $100,000	Up to $150,000
Maryland	TEDCO SBIR/STTR Matching Funds	25%, up to $25,000	25%, up to $75,000
Massachusetts	MassVentures START	None listed	$100,000 to $500,000
Michigan	Emerging Technologies Fund (MEDC)	Up to $25,000	Up to $125,000
Montana	Montana SBIR/STTR Matching Funds Program	Up to $60,000, in two stages	None listed
Nebraska	Nebraska SBIR/STTR Grant Program	65%, up to $150,000	65%, up to $300,000
New Jersey	CSIT SBIR/STTR Direct Financial Assistance (NJEDA)	$25,000	$50,000 while a Phase II decision is pending
New Mexico	NM SBIR/STTR Matching Grant (EDD)	Up to $50,000	Up to $100,000
North Carolina	One NC SBIR/STTR Phase I Matching Funds	50%, up to $75,000	None listed
Oregon	Business Oregon SBIR/STTR Matching Grants	Up to $50,000	Up to $100,000
Rhode Island	STAC SBIR/STTR Matching Grants	Up to $75,000	Up to $150,000
South Carolina	SCRA Federal Matching Grant	50%, up to $50,000	None listed
Tennessee	LaunchTN SBIR/STTR Matching Fund	50%, up to $100,000	50%, up to $300,000
West Virginia	WV SBIR/STTR Matching Funds Program (WV SBDC)	Depends on the fund's balance	Depends on the fund's balance
Wisconsin	SBIR Advance (Center for Technology Commercialization)	50%, up to $75,000, in some rounds	Up to $100,000
Wyoming	Wyoming Business Council SBIR/STTR match	Up to $100,000	Up to $200,000

North Carolina's and Illinois's programs are open until 30 June 2027, while funds last, and so is Nebraska's. North Carolina also pays back part of the cost of preparing a Phase I proposal, up to $12,000 (One NC incentive). Rhode Island's next round opens on 6 April 2027, and West Virginia takes applications each January and July. NIH's list also names Delaware, Indiana, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia, and Vermont runs a match called Elevate Vermont. We couldn't confirm current terms on those states' own pages, so ask the program office before you count on one. Florida's entry on NIH's list matches applied research done with a university, not an SBIR award, and Maine's Technology Institute helps with proposals instead of matching an award. California, New York, Texas, and Colorado aren't on NIH's list, and a 2025 bill to create a Texas match didn't pass the state Senate (SB 209). State matches are the closest thing on this page to funding for simply being a startup in a particular place.

7. Which programs look like startup grants but aren't?

Regional investment programs. Pennsylvania's Ben Franklin Technology Partners is investment, not grant money. The Southeastern Pennsylvania partner makes core investments of $50,000 to $500,000 that require at least a 1:1 match. Innovation Works, the partner for the Pittsburgh region, makes initial seed investments of $150,000 to $250,000 and up to $800,000 in total. Both are good money for the right company, and both expect a return.

EDA Build to Scale. The Economic Development Administration's program funded regional organizations, including universities, to build startup support, with awards up to $5 million in its last round. The Congressional Research Service reports that EDA last issued a Build to Scale funding opportunity in fiscal 2024 and none since, although money has been appropriated each year and bills to reauthorize it (H.R. 8866 and S. 5198) are pending. Even when it ran, it funded the organizations that support startups, such as accelerators, rather than the startups themselves.

Are SBIR awards worth it? What the evidence says

Founders ask whether an SBIR award is worth the time it takes to write and the compliance it brings. The economics literature has studied this for more than 25 years, and the answer is more mixed than either the agencies or the skeptics say.

The first long-run study, by Lerner, matched SBIR awardees against similar firms and found the awardees grew substantially faster in employment and sales over the following decade, with the effect concentrated in regions with active venture capital (Journal of Business, 1999). Wallsten, using a different design, found that SBIR grants displaced firm-financed R&D roughly dollar for dollar and had no measurable effect on employment, which is the crowding-out result every later paper has to answer (RAND Journal of Economics, 2000). The most convincing answer is Howell's, which used the ranking of applicants within Department of Energy competitions to compare firms just above and just below the funding line. A Phase I award roughly doubled a firm's probability of receiving venture capital afterward, raised its patenting, and raised its chance of reaching revenue, with the largest effects for young firms and firms in financially constrained conditions (American Economic Review, 2017). For state match, Lanahan and Feldman used the Kentucky and North Carolina programs and found the match "effectively stabilized Phase II trends" through the recession while neighboring states declined, with effects that varied by sector and by the firm's prior SBIR record (Review of Economics and Statistics, 2018). And the National Academies' 2016 assessment of STTR found the program meeting its goal of moving university research into small companies while noting that the required university partnership is the part firms find hardest to manage.

Taking all of this evidence into account: the award matters most to a young, constrained firm as a signal and a bridge, less to an established firm that would have funded the work anyway, and the university partnership the STTR requires is the operational challenge that decides whether the funding turns into a product. That's the challenge Helikon Labs is focused on.

Where should you start?

Start with the calls that are open to you now. On our Helikon platform, the Funding tab under Discover lists the open federal calls from Grants.gov and the SBIR and STTR notices posted on SAM.gov, refreshed daily. You can search them by topic and filter them by agency, deadline, who can apply, and SBIR and STTR. Once your profile is complete, the Matched to you tab sorts the open calls by how closely they fit your work, and a Monday email brings you the new calls that match. Each call's page also lists the past NIH, NSF, and SBIR and STTR awards closest to it, so you can see what the program has funded before you start writing. Searching and your closest matches are on the free plan.

If the call you choose needs a university partner, our SBIR and STTR university partner guide covers finding one and agreeing on the terms.

Sources

U.S. Small Business Administration, Grants. https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/grants
SBIR.gov, About the SBIR and STTR programs. https://www.sbir.gov/about
National Institutes of Health SEED, Understanding SBIR and STTR. https://seed.nih.gov/small-business-funding/small-business-program-basics/understanding-sbir-sttr
AFWERX, Get funded. https://afwerx.com/get-funded/. SBIR/STTR reauthorization webinar Q&A, April 2026. https://afwerx.com/wp-content/uploads/26-0423-SBIR_STTR-Reauthorization-Webinar-QA-_Final-1.pdf
U.S. Army, 2026, xTechSearch 10 competition RFI. https://xtech.army.mil/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/xTechSearch-10-Competition-RFI_Final-1.pdf
U.S. Army, 2026, news release on xTechSearch 10, 10 September 2026. https://www.army.mil/article/295227
U.S. Army, xTech competitions. https://xtech.army.mil/competitions/
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2026, Review of the SBIR and STTR Programs at the Department of Defense. https://doi.org/10.17226/29329
National Science Foundation, 2025, Partnerships for Innovation: program update, 21 July 2025. https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/pfi-partnerships-innovation/504790/updates/120073
National Science Foundation, 2026, NSF Translation to Practice, NSF 25-540. https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/nsf-ttp-national-science-foundation-translation-practice/nsf25-540/solicitation
National Science Foundation, 2026, NSF I-Corps 2025 Biennial Report. https://www.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/i-corps/2025-biennial-report
National Science Foundation, 2026, NSF awards 12 new Regional Innovation Engines to fuel research, jobs and economic growth nationwide, 14 July 2026. https://www.nsf.gov/news/nsf-awards-12-new-regional-innovation-engines-fuel-research
Resilient Energy Technology and Infrastructure Consortium (RETI). https://reticonsortium.org
Crow, A., 2026, CMU, Pitt, and WVU kick off a 10-year effort to support grid-focused entrepreneurs, Technical.ly, 17 September 2026. https://technical.ly/civics/reti-appalachia-energy-grid-startups/
National Institute on Drug Abuse, State matching funds for SBIR and STTR. https://nida.nih.gov/funding/small-business-innovation-research-sbir-technology-transfer-sttr-programs/resources/state-matching-funds
Congressional Research Service, 2026, Tech Hubs and Build to Scale (B2S) Program Updates and Considerations, IF13310. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13310
Manufacturing USA, home page and list of institutes. https://www.manufacturingusa.com/
Manufacturing USA, 2022, How the Manufacturing USA network nurtures startup companies across the innovation gap. https://www.manufacturingusa.com/studies/how-manufacturing-usa-network-nurtures-startup-companies-across-innovation-gap
America Makes, 2020, America Makes awards $2.3M in total funding for three project calls. https://www.americamakes.us/america-makes-awards-2-3m-in-total-funding-for-three-project-calls/
America Makes, 2024, IMPACT 2.0 Project Call RFP, Part A. https://www.americamakes.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMPACT-2.0-Project-Call-RFP-Part-A-REV.pdf
ARM Institute, Active project calls. https://arminstitute.org/active-project-calls/
North Carolina Department of Commerce, 2026, One NC SBIR/STTR Phase I Matching Funds solicitation FY2026-27. https://www.commerce.nc.gov/oncsbp-matching-solicitation-fy-2027/download?attachment
Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, SBIR/STTR matching funds. https://newkentuckyhome.ky.gov/Entrepreneurship/SBIR_STTR
State SBIR and STTR match program pages, each linked in the section 6 table, checked 29 October 2026.
North Carolina Department of Commerce, 2026, One NC SBIR/STTR Phase I Incentive solicitation FY2026-27. https://www.commerce.nc.gov/oncsbp-incentive-solicitation-fy-2027/download?attachment
Texas Legislature, SB 209 (89th Legislature, Regular Session), bill history. https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=SB209
Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, SBIR/STTR Phase I and Phase II matching funds, NOFO 2419. https://omb.illinois.gov/public/gata/csfa/FileView.aspx?nofo=2419 and https://dceo.illinois.gov/whyillinois/sbir-sttr-phase1.html
Pennsylvania General Assembly, Senate Bill 811 of 2025, Pennsylvania SBIR/STTR Matching Funds Program. https://www.palegis.us/legislation/bills/2025/sb811
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, How we invest. https://www.sep.benfranklin.org/investors/how-we-invest/. Innovation Works, Seed Fund. https://www.innovationworks.org/founders/seed-fund/
Lerner, J., 1999, The government as venture capitalist: the long-run impact of the SBIR program, Journal of Business 72(3), 285-318. https://doi.org/10.1086/209616
Wallsten, S. J., 2000, The effects of government-industry R&D programs on private R&D: the case of the Small Business Innovation Research program, RAND Journal of Economics 31(1), 82-100. https://doi.org/10.2307/2601030
Howell, S. T., 2017, Financing innovation: evidence from R&D grants, American Economic Review 107(4), 1136-1164. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20150808
Lanahan, L. and Feldman, M. P., 2018, Approximating exogenous variation in R&D: evidence from the Kentucky and North Carolina SBIR state match programs, Review of Economics and Statistics 100(4), 740-752. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00681
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016, STTR: An Assessment of the Small Business Technology Transfer Program. https://doi.org/10.17226/21826

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