Minneapolis, Minnesota — The Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) was recently awarded a $125,000 grant from the Small Business Administration’s Federal and State Technology Partnership Program. The grant will be used by the MHTA’s MNSBIR program to assist startups and small businesses to compete in the annual ~$3.7B Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs with a focus on women-owned and minority-owned businesses to participate in the programs.

SBA received 42 proposals for consideration. SBA only selected 24 federal and state technology grants this year. Minnesota is honored to be selected as one of the 24 grants.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Minnesota has been awarded the highly competitive grant. Only one proposal is allowed from each state, and the governor must endorse the organization chosen to assist small businesses. The proposals are then evaluated by panels of reviewers from SBA, NASA, the Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research and the National Institutes of Health.

“The SBA funding is critical toward launching our new SBIR/STTR Accelerator aimed at assisting up to 120 startups and small businesses to prepare and submit competitive research proposals in medical, biotechnology, defense, energy, education, etc. ,” said Pat Dillon, MNSBIR director at MHTA. “We are focused on turning new ideas and inventions into products and technologies that spur job growth and competitiveness while promoting economic development.”

Since 2014, MNSBIR has helped 38 companies to win nearly $20M in SBIR/STTR funding.  Since the creation of the SBIR and STTR programs (1982 and 1992, respectively), Minnesota firms have won nearly $718 million in SBIR/STTR funding that has led to angel and venture capital investments, new products and services, patents, high paying jobs, mergers and acquisitions and IPOs.  Notable successes include: NVE Corporation (NASDAQ: NVEC); Cyberoptics (CYBE); Hysitron, Inc. (acquired by Bruker International); Bmogen Technologies (acquired by Biotechne), VivaQuant, Inc., Adventiums Labs and many more.

MNSBIR offers business and technical assistance to firms to start, grow and exit their businesses. MNSBIR is hosted by MHTA with state funds from the Minnesota Department of Economic Development and funded, in part, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. SBA.  Additionally, MNSBIR receives in-kind support from the University of Minnesota, Technology Commercialization; the UEL; Mayo Clinic Business Accelerator, and Collider.

For more information about MNSBIR, call 952-230-4540, or email pat@mntech.org.