2020 Tibbetts Awards

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The Tibbetts Awards recognize those companies, organizations, & individuals that
exemplify the very best in SBIR/STTR achievements.

The 2020 Winners

2B Technologies

2B Technologies has taken SBIR funded innovations to Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands, the Greenland ice sheet, the summit of Mont Blanc, the Amazon rain forest, & on buoys in the Arctic Ocean – providing portable air quality monitoring systems totaling $35M in sales since 2000.
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Backyard Brains

Backyard Brains developed education technology that allows advanced neuroscience research to be used in 6-12th grade educational programs through hands-on research and open-source tools. Backyard Brains is not only profitable, it’s getting neuroscience into the hands of tomorrow’s researchers and innovators!
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Actuated Medical, Inc.

Actuated Medical, Inc. (AMI) a woman-owned and led company has become a leading product developer for the clinical and preclinical markets. AMI is improving the understanding of the brain & pursuing FDA approval for its electronically controlled oscillated needles to improve healthcare outcomes & reduce healthcare costs.
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Bascom Hunter Technologies, Inc.

Louisiana-based Bascom Hunter has its roots at Princeton, where Professor Paul Prucnal spun the technology out & created BH– with $15+M in Phase III funding, $25M in contracts, & expected $150M follow-on funding– providing solutions for the most challenging operating environments.
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ASAT, Inc.

Nearly 3 billion people worldwide depend on burning biomass in rudimentary stoves or open fires and are exposed to smoke with a high concentrations of toxic compounds. ASAT’s Integrated Stove can not only achieve near-zero emissions- but can charge your cell phone in the process.
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BioSensics LLC

BioSensics offers turnkey solutions for collection and transfer of data from wearable sensors, mobile applications and digital technologies during site visits and at patients’ homes. Its ActivePERS technology has made medical alert solutions more effective, affordable and accessible for this population.
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ATA Engineering, Inc.

ATA has leveraged SBIR funding to create & validate a suite of modeling & simulation tools underpinning engineering methods to aid in the development & fielding of highly-engineered systems with $20M in sales & additional investment deriving directly from SBIR/STTR technologies.
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BlackBox Biometrics, Inc.

When used as part of a comprehensive program, the Blast Gauge can help reduce misdiagnosis, aid in triage and treatment, and guide tactics adjustments that reduce Traumatic Brain Injury. Now, the DoD effectively uses this system from B3 to monitor thousands of servicemen and women and improve their blast-related safety.
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Block MEMS, LLC

Block’s LaserWarnTM product saves lives by providing early warning of a chemical attack on civilian or soldiers and is sold to universities and corporate labs worldwide, leading to innovation in key research areas – from cancer pathology to graphene materials research, and wastewater treatment monitoring.
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Blue Canyon Technologies

Through its XACT SBIR-developed technology, Blue Canyon Technologies literally took the world to Mars – and, with 79 cumulative orders from 45 different spacecraft programs, and an additional 70 ADCS for user-built spacecraft, the company’s growing Phase III success could be as infinite as the space frontier in which it works.
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Braxton Technologies, LLC

Colorado-based Braxton Technologies, LLC has grown to over 120 employees and a revenue of just over $37 million since its first SBIR award in 2013 by developing and commercializing a product line for spacecraft ground control systems and simulation of those same systems.
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Colorado Engineering, Inc.

CEI, small, woman-owned business, has leveraged SBIR funding to develop, produce, and commercialize COTS and custom hardware and soware for advanced radar applications by working directly with government agencies and for commercial prime contractors generating millions in sales.
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Curi Bio (formerly NanoSurface Biomedical, Inc.)

Seattle-based Curi Bio has achieved $1.3 million in Phase III success as the business addresses the urgent need for more accurate, effective, and scalable preclinical screening tools to assess a developmental drug’s potential for cardiotoxic events in humans.
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Design Interactive, Inc.

Woman-owned DI offers improved PTSD therapy effectiveness and efficiency for military personnel – simply by wearing the company’s OSI on their wrist. OSI may be small and noninvasive – but, used as a part of therapy, is a powerful tool promoting positive health outcomes.
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Endurica, LLC

Prior to Endurica, tires had to be designed, produced & tested until they literally blew out in a long-winded, repetitive process. Endurica has revolutionized rubber product design to get durability right every time – reducing costs & keeping customers safer while they’re at it.
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Fuchs Consulting, Inc.

Virginia-based FCI has developed an innovative approach that enables bridges to be inspected without interrupting traffic, through ThermalStare – in the process, not only creating a new business entity, but transitioning beyond infrastructure inspection to meet military needs.
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Harmonia Holding Group, LLC

With a focus on blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, Virginia-based Harmonia is no stranger to Phase III success – having seen over $74.6 million in funding, the company has grown from 25 employees at 1 location to more than 345 at 8 – and calls SBIR its foundation.
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ImmunogenX, LLC

SBIR Phase III success of $117M+ achieved twice through the leadership of Dr. Syage of Syagen Technologies and now co-founder of ImmunogenX – developing a promising therapy for the treatment and management of Celiac disease, as well as related food safety concerns.
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KCF Technologies, Inc.

Pennsylvania-based KCF has seen $200 million in Phase III success with its SmartDiagnostics innovative wireless sensor products – providing predictive condition-based maintenance in moving parts spanning industries across the country, and safety for millions of American workers.
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Orbit Logic

Orbit Logic specializes in software for scheduling & situational awareness for the aerospace & geospatial intelligence markets. Its off-the-shelf products, customized solutions, & services help create better plans faster with fewer resources & more insight for all mission phases.
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Pain Care Labs

In 2009 an SBIR award allowed Amy Baxter a Pediatric Emergency MD to develop Buzzy®, a device for vaccination pain. Today Pain Care Labs is a global innovator making revolutionary science-backed, drug-free pain relief therapies.
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Porifera, Inc.

Porifera’s SBIR-funded proprietary membrane reduces the environmental impact of food and beverage distribution & helps turn wastewater into clean water for reuse in any industry, generating $8.5M of Private Investment & >$20M in non-SBIR revenue since its product launch in 2013.
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QT Medical, Inc.

Frustrated with the impracticality of conducting ECGs on his youngest patients, pediatric cardiologist Dr. Chang founded QT Medical to create a new system that has since identified countless cardiac conditions, from newborns to adults – not only enabling early treatment, but empowering at-home care.
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Raptamer Discovery Group

Houston-based Raptamer Discovery Group specializes in the development of next-generation, high-quality DNA molecules – called RaptamersTM – that can be used as therapeutic, diagnostic, or research agents and have been deployed to combat malaria, HIV/AIDS, and influenza virus.
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re:3D Inc

Having endured Hurricanes Harvey, Irma & Maria between its Houston & Puerto Rico locations, re:3D has witnessed the opportunity onsite manufacturing provides in disaster response – which it offers via Gigabot X’s industrial strength, large-scale, affordable 3D printing.
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Red Balloon Security

As our world becomes increasingly connected & automated, each additional embedded device becomes a potential attack surface for threats. Red Balloon provides security allowing society to benefit from connected infrastructure – while substantially reducing the risks of doing so.
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Referentia Systems

Hawaii-based Referentia Systems is protecting the National Power Grid while improving its reliability and security with its SBIR-developed in2lytics Internet of Things big data analytics platform – and has garnered more than $35 million in Phase III funding along the way.
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Ripple LLC

Utah-based Ripple’s work focuses on prosthetics patients – not only working to improve the reliability and intuitive control of limbs, but toward enabling patients to feel touch sensation through their prosthetics – and has seen $10M in Phase III success along the way.
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RockStep Solutions, Inc.

Maine-based RockStep hopes to help improve the success rate of drugs entering clinical trials with its flagship SaaS platform, Climb – allowing research teams to collaborate across sites with state-of-the-art tools that organize their work and data and provide real-time awareness and better control of laboratory.
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Sabel Systems

Sabel Systems is an Economically Disadvantaged Minority Woman Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) 8(a) embracing technological innovation. Seeing a void in the market for an agnostic engineering environment, Sabel leveraged SBIR funds to rapidly provide its Digital Engineering Cloud®.
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SafeLi, LLC

Women-founded, Midwestern SafeLi is working to commercialize a new material – the first known form of solid carbon monoxide known to mankind – for use in lithium ion batteries to improve their capacity and speed of charge for applications in electronics and electric vehicles.
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SIMBA Chain

Blockchain is complicated – but thanks to SIMBA Chain, it doesn’t have to be hard. The Indiana-based company makes it easy for organizations to integrate blockchain to bolster trust, security, and risk mitigation – with no blockchain experience required.
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SinnovaTek

Raleigh-based SinnovaTek is having a significant impact on the lives of young children a world away in Sub-Saharan Africa, where almost half of children under five suffer vitamin A deficiency– thanks to their Nomatic processing system, and locally-available sweet potatoes.
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SubUAS LLC

A drone that can fly, float, swim, dive, and transition between air and water in less than one second? New Jersey-based SubUAS has made this a reality with its SBIR/STTR-developed Naviator platform – and seen more than $4M in Phase III funding in the process.
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Ubiquitous Energy

Ubiquitous Energy has successfully raised over $25M in funding from the private sector as it approaches full-scale commercialization of its ClearView Power™ – the NSF SBIR program was critical in advancing the state of the technology and general transparent solar development.
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UltraVision Corporation

Florida-based UltraVision sees beyond industry-standard mammography to introduce patent-pending ultrasound method for breast cancer screening – potentially reducing the pain and cost associated with detection, while increasing access to early and frequent screenings for the 1 in 8 U.S. women diagnosed in their lifetime.
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Vita Inclinata Technologies

Colorado-based Vita Inclinata was born of a tragic and unnecessary loss of life when a helicopter was unable to safely rescue a friend in cardiac arrest. Today, the company offers its Load Stability System across the DoD and around the world to bring people home – every time!
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Zeteo Tech, Inc.

Zeteo Tech’s mass spectrometry technology identifies airborne microbes, proteins and lipids, and can be used to screen for infectious diseases or for the identification of aerosolized bio-threats in near real-time – allowing critical infrastructure protection & near real-time screening for disease at the point-of-care.
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Ed Baron

Ed Baron

Following a decorated career in the Air Force, Mr. Baron’s work at Braxton Technologies and the Catalyst Campus for Technology & Innovation has directly resulted in over $370M being funneled into downtown Colorado Springs and helped bring dozens of jobs to the area.
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Rodney Couick

Rodney Couick

Dr. Couick spearheaded SBIR contracting via GSA’s Assisted Acquisition Service’s (AAS) that provides increased access to cutting-edge technology for the federal Government while helping small businesses meet their commercialization goals.
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Jodi Black

Jodi Black

Dr. Black has been instrumental in NIH’s SBIR/STTR programs – in establishing new ofices to promote technology commercialization and research, she has generated millions in funding and investment, and furthered scientific research supporting the NIH’s mission.
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Richard Duke

Richard Duke

Dr. Duke has made a career out of innovating, teaching, learning, and successfully commercializing technologies. His efforts have led to numerous policies benefitting innovation and business as well as generating millions of dollars through successful tech ventures.
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David Boone

David Boone

Dr. Boone has revolutionized prosthetics, blazed the trail for activity monitoring, and Orthocare Innovations’ StepWatchTM has become a gold standard for activity monitoring. He is a leader in the SBIR/STTR arena though his commitment to mentoring scientists and engineers.
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Imre Gyuk

Imre Gyuk

Dr. Gyuk’s leadership and curiosity has driven technical and commercial development and innovation in energy storage technology through meaningful relationships with small business, industry, academia, and government.
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Anthony Brescia

Anthony Brescia

Mr. Brescia managed the transition of technologies from a successful SBIR UAS project into a small robotic unmanned surface vessel, EMILY, resulting in a life-saving platform as well as sonar enhanced victim recovery capability for military and civilian overboard emergencies.
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Thomas Hill

Thomas Hill

Mr. Hill’s focus is on making SBIR/STTR contract execution simpler, faster, and easier – while the number of awards has increased, Phase I time to award & time without funding between phases has decreased. Recently, CCOE executed 79 fully-funded Phase I contracts in just 23 days.
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Stephen Lee

Stephen Lee

Dr. Lee has not only authored a large number of topics and led a program that issued over 800 SBIR contracts valued at over $500M, but has also managed $19.5M+ in Phase I and Phase II SBIR/ STTR contracts, as well as Phase III contracts totaling more than $247M.
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David Metzger

David Metzger

David Metzger is a retired partner of Arnold and Porter. He has dedicated a large part of his practice to the issue of SBIR data rights and made a deep and lasting impression on the SBIR program and the success of many companies.
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Dave Noel

Dave Noel

Having served the US Navy for a combined 46 years, Mr. Noel has spent the past 20 of those years providing leadership and vision to spearhead the charge to support new Phase III SBIR development for the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
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Jack Syage

Jack Syage

As a serial entrepreneur and SBIR ambassador, Dr. Syage is a leading expert in mass spectrometry and trace chemical detection who has not only seen Phase III success of $117M+ with his own businesses, but shared his expertise to help others in his community succeed alongside him.
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Abby Trotter

Abby Trotter

Ms. Trotter has worked tirelessly throughout her career to ensure Tennessee entrepreneurs have an opportunity to be supported by and leverage SBIR funding to achieve commercialization. She advocates for entrepreneurs, ensuring their voices are heard at the Tennessee legislature.
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Thomas Wavering

Thomas Wavering

As the founding Executive Director of the Tom Love Innovation Hub at OU, Mr. Wavering created OK Catalyst – providing networking, training and mentoring to entrepreneurs and small businesses in OK. Since 2018, OK Catalyst has helped 13 companies win $8.5 million in SBIR awards.
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Arrowhead Center

Over 190 SBIR/STTR clients served and $9.4M in SBIR/ STTR funding since NM FAST program inception in 2015. To date, 23% of businesses are rural, 36% are minority- owned and 31% are women- owned; 89% of clients are first-time applicants.
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Michigan State University Foundation

MSU Foundation is part of the MSU Innovation Center that focuses on technology commercialization and economic development. Its venture development organization, Spartan Innovations (SI), has increased the number of startup companies winning SBIR/ STTR awards from 1 in FY2016 to 8 in FY2019.
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BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting, LLC

Over the past 18 years the program has assisted over 400 companies, trained more than 1,200 attendees, and $302 million has been awarded to Michigan companies directly served by the program.
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Oklahoma Catalyst Programs

OK Catalyst is focused on reversing Oklahoma’s historically poor performance in the SBIR/STTR arena, relative to more successful states, through leveraging SBIR/STTR as an economic development tool to launch and grow a new generation of Oklahoma startups.
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Delaware Small Business Development Center

Since 2016, 73% of all Delaware-based technology companies receiving SBIR funds have been clients of the Delaware Small Business Development Center (DSBDC), and these clients received 86% of all SBIR/STTR funds awarded in the state.
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Wisconsin Center for Technology Commercialization

Since 2005, the CTC has assisted small businesses across Wisconsin to win over $132 million in Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) funding, and more than $271 million in additional capital.
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Louisiana Technology Transfer Office

LTTO has provided SBIR/STTR assistance to 1,000+ small companies, university faculty & entrepreneurs with 85 Phase I & II awards made to LA small businesses from 2016- 2019 – Louisiana has doubled its Phase III success rate, securing $35 million in Phase III federal contracts.
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