Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Editor of teknovation.biz is the outgoing Vice Chair of LaunchTN, a public-private partnership focused on supporting the creation and development of high-growth companies in the State of Tennessee.)

Ahead of the rollout of his organization’s full commercialization strategy, Brad Smith, Interim Chief Executive Officer of LaunchTN, has announced a new opportunity to benefit some of the most innovative small businesses in the State of Tennessee

Specifically, LaunchTN has engaged Grow Emerging Companies, LLC (Grow) led by Mark Henry, a national expert in securing Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants, to assist Tennessee firms.  Henry has a record of achieving win rates that are at least double the national averages for SBIR/STTR Phase I and II applications. Grow’s support will include:

• Proposal planning and strategy
• Market research assistance to assess competitive commercial opportunities
• Application editing and rewriting assistance
• Use of Grow’s proprietary templates, tools and models
• Access to sample proposals
• Budgeting support
• Identification of outside reviewers
• Electronic registration and submission support

These services will include minimal upfront cost to the company and a nominal success fee if SBIR/STTR dollars are awarded.  For the near term, LaunchTN is looking for 15 to 20 Tennessee companies that are in the process of or considering preparing a Phase I or Phase II SBIR/STTR proposal for the December 2012 deadlines as well as submissions to the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation and NASA that have a November 29 deadline.

In 2013, LaunchTN expects to support highly competitive SBIR/STTR applicants to all departments and agencies.  More detailed information and an entry application for companies interested in participating in the program is available at https://www.formstack.com/forms/?1304766-NiNIcr9PqO .

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