Phase III SBIR/STTR Portfolio Snapshot

Author

SHELDON

Published

November 21, 2025

Executive Summary

This report compresses the FPDS feed (as accessed through SHELDON) into a Phase III SBIR/STTR roll-up.

How The Table Was Built

  • Pulled the Arrow dataset with sheldon::arrow_fpds() and filtered to records flagged is_phase_03_sbir_sttr.
  • Grouped the filtered records by research code to count unique contracts, entities, funding and awarding agencies/offices, while also capturing aggregate obligations and obligation date bounds.
  • Generated human-friendly research type labels (e.g., “Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III”) for each code so the presentation mirrors FPDS terminology.

Phase III SBIR/STTR Summary

Phase III SBIR/STTR Summary
Distinct awards, funding offices, and obligations by research code
Research Type Count Actions Amount Obligation Total Count ID Contract Analysis Distinct Count ID Unique Entity Distinct Count ID Agency Award Distinct Count ID Agency Funding Distinct Count ID Office Award Distinct Count ID Office Funding Distinct Date Obligation Min Date Obligation Max Name Agency Award Top By Amount Obligation Name Office Award Top By Amount Obligation Name Agency Funding Top By Amount Obligation Name Office Funding Top By Amount Obligation
Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III 78,197 $35,290,150,127 18,065 2,838 81 106 999 2,178 Nov 4, 1997 Nov 19, 2025 DEPT OF THE NAVY NAVSEA HQ DEPT OF THE NAVY NAVSEA HQ
Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase III 6,646 $2,660,670,003 1,895 891 63 72 458 690 Aug 1, 2000 Nov 14, 2025 DEPT OF THE AIR FORCE NAVAIR WARFARE CTR AIRCRAFT DIV DEPT OF THE AIR FORCE F2TS3A SMC RN
Source: FPDS via SHELDON

Key Signals

  • Who is active: Distinct contract and entity counts immediately expose the depth of participation within each research track.
  • Where the money flows: Obligations and their date range (minimum/maximum) reveal which research codes remain financially current.
  • Which offices matter: Top funding and awarding offices highlight the stakeholders most engaged with Phase III performers, providing instant leads for follow-on coordination.

Linking Earlier Explorations

  • Context: In our 2023 briefing on Phase III lineage detection (see the discussion here), we experimented with topic modeling and targeted REGEX searches across FPDS Phase III descriptions to infer the parent awards.
  • Learning: Even without modern LLMs, simple pattern-matching could often pinpoint lineage indicators (e.g., references to Phase II contract numbers, solicitation IDs, or technology keywords).
  • Today’s opportunity: With readily accessible large language models, the same workflow can evolve into an interactive assistant that cross-references narratives, validates matches, and surfaces supporting evidence alongside the quantitative summary shown above.

Connecting The Threads

  • Data Backbone: FPDS via SHELDON supplies verified contract metadata, enabling structured Phase III roll-ups.
  • Narrative Layer: Historical topic modeling and REGEX experiments demonstrate that descriptions contain latent lineage signals.
  • Modern Assist: LLMs can now bridge structured summaries and narrative clues, rapidly confirming lineage hypotheses and spotlighting follow-on opportunities.

Prepared by SHELDON using FPDS contract data.