Webinar Series: GE Extend North Carolina – First Flight Venture Center – Capitalizing on Non-Dilutive Funding

What To Expect

• 45 minutes: The session
  Funding update and outlook, what it takes to write a winning application, where AI fits, and long-term funding strategies.
• 15 minutes: Live Q&A
  Bring your questions for the Grant Engine team.
• 30 minutes: Meet the team
  Optional one-on-one in-person consultation after the session.

Federal non-dilutive funding has changed more in the past year than in the prior decade. SBIR/STTR is reauthorized through September 2031, annual proposal caps arrive in FY2027, and every applicant now faces a national security risk assessment. NIH is catching up on a delayed FY26 cycle, with roughly half of its $1.5B SBIR/STTR budget still to obligate in September. Meanwhile, submission volume is up more than 40% in two years and average win rates have fallen by nearly half.

Funding Update & Outlook. Status, budgets, deadlines, and best fit across Life Sciences & Health (NIH SBIR/STTR, ARPA-H, BARDA) and Defense & Dual-Use (DoD SBIR/STTR, DARPA, DIU), plus the reauthorization provisions that matter most, including Strategic Breakthrough Awards of up to $30M, proposal caps, expanded Direct-to-Phase II, and the new foreign risk and security requirements.

Write to Win + AI in Use. What separates funded applications from the rest. Grant Engine’s analysis of NIH SBIR proposals shows the Approach section is the strongest predictor of funding, and DoD ranks technical approach above every other criterion. We draw a clear line on AI: where it accelerates the work, where only people can do it, and why paid AI tools are not always private for unpublished data and IP.

Long-Term Funding Strategies. Moving from the next award to the next several years: diversifying across federal, state, non-profit, and global sources, and the plays leading companies use to build durable funding.

What you’ll leave with

• Where the money is right now: status, budgets, deadlines, and best fit for NIH SBIR/STTR, ARPA-H, BARDA, DoD SBIR/STTR, DARPA, and DIU
• What just changed: reauthorization provisions, annual proposal caps, Strategic Breakthrough Awards, and foreign risk requirements, and what each means for your filing strategy
• Why applications win or lose, and why the hardest sections to write well are the ones that decide the outcome
• How to win more often: a self-evident story, logical flow, clarity, shoring up the weakest criteria, and independent external review
• The AI boundary: where AI accelerates the work, and where the grant thesis, differentiation, and Specific Aims stay human
• How to protect your IP, since consumer AI terms may permit reuse of your content
• A long-term strategy that compounds each win into the next

Stay for a one-on-one

After the Q&A, the Grant Engine team stays on site for 30-minute in-person consultations