TEDCO, an independent entity established by the Maryland General Assembly in 1998 to facilitate the creation of technology companies and encourage collaboration between emerging businesses and federal and state research laboratories, last week received a $125,000 grant from the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) to support small business innovation, research, and development. The grant is one of 24 awards granted by the SBA under the Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program.
Along with funding, the FAST program is designed to help grow economic development by providing candidates with outreach, training, business assistance, and mentoring. FAST also aims to assist research and development focused small businesses compete in the SBIR/STTR Programs — which for 2020 will have more than $4 billion in early-stage seed capital to be awarded to early-stage, high-tech small businesses.
“TEDCO is committed to providing a full range of resources and opportunities to Maryland’s diverse and competitive start-up ecosystem,” said Troy LeMaile-Stovall, TEDCO’s CEO and executive director. “This program is an excellent example of a valuable resource that allows us to continue driving economic empowerment throughout the state to support our start-up community.”
According to a TEDCO press release:
Through the support of FAST, TEDCO will be working with the GovCon Incubator of OST Global Solutions, Inc. (OST), and the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) to help small businesses win government Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) seed capital.
With the FAST grant, the TEDCO team will be offering the SBIR Proposal Lab developed with the goal of improving proposal quality, submissions, and win rates for SBIRs/STTRs funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. The SBIR Proposal Lab objective is to double the success rate of the SBIR/STTR applications through a series of training workshops, mentoring, and consulting leading to the SBIR/STTR submission. The SBIR Proposal Lab will target the National Science Foundation SBIR solicitation. There is no specific technology area focus. Rural, women-owned, and socially disadvantaged entrepreneurs that have never won an SBIR/STTR are especially encouraged to apply.
