Time to read: 1 min
We thought this was pretty interesting. It turns out there are pretty significant and consistent differences between the sizes of the companies getting funded by different R&D teams. And here’s what we think is driving the differences:
-
The DOD, Dept of Energy, and NASA are interested in physical products that may require more capital equipment, and thus tend to go to bigger companies
-
The DOD and NASA need products that operate in specialized environments (underwater, space, etc) and small companies likely do not have the infrastructure to build solutions for such specialized environments
-
A lot of companies that pursue federal R&D funding start as services companies which tend to employ a lot of people, so in a 100 person company only 5 of them might be focussed on product development
That being said if you’re a small business I’d have a preference for R&D teams that tend to fund small businesses. They’ll understand your resources restrictions and economics a little more.
