Montana Innovation Partnership

Many of us have seen the accolades given to Montana’s startup ecosystem like the recent Motley Fool post “Top 10 Best States to Start Your Small Business in 2021” and Kauffman’s Index of Entrepreneurial Activity which ranked Montana as having the highest entrepreneurial rate of all states. Yeah, we know. Nice of you toRead More

Last month, we looked at the profile of a good candidate for SBIR/STTR. Beyond having a brilliant innovation, building a team that can transition your early-stage idea to a marketable product is everything (even if you don’t pursue SBIR funding). If you’re a technical founder, who will be your business partner andRead More

If you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of fangirls of the SBIR/STTR programs. Across Montana and the nation, some fabulous companies have been able to launch new disruptive products that address critically important problems. Many of these companies scale and grow and create lots of jobs and continue to innovate.  But, SBIRRead More

Montana State University’s TechLink Center has been awarded a federal grant to expand its assistance to technology-related businesses across Montana. The U.S. Small Business Administration announced on September 18, 2020, that it had awarded a Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program grant for $125,000 to fund TechLink’s Montana Innovation Partnership.Read More

Technical Readiness Level What’s a TRL? Technical readiness levels represent a scale for estimating the development of technologies throughout the life of a project. This system was developed by NASA in the 1970s as a way to stimulate “consistent, uniform discussions” about the level of maturity for a range ofRead More

The Project Pitch and F.A.Q. The first step in the NSF SBIR program is submitting a project pitch. This three-page submission gives startups and small businesses quick feedback before applying for Phase I NSF funding. Program directors let applicants know within weeks whether or not they are a good fitRead More