Project Grant ED19HDQ0200067

The Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration awarded a $6.1 million Project Grant to Aglaunch Initiative under the BUILD TO SCALE federal grant program (CFDA 11.024). The funding supports Aglaunch's AGRIX3 project to expand its accelerator platform across additional agricultural regions and leverage additional investment. Key products and services include scaling Aglaunch's Data Commons framework for collecting and housing farm-level and trial-specific data; scaling its Open...

The Emerging Prairie Agriculture Technology Venture Capital Fund, awarded $449,405 by the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration under the BUILD TO SCALE federal grant program (CFDA 11.024), aims to support North Dakota's agriculture technology industry through venture capital investment. The Fund will invest an initial $5M in seed-stage North Dakota agtech startups over the three-year period from October 2021 through September 2024. This will provide much-needed access to...

Accelerated AG Technologies LLC received a $100,000 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The award was provided under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program / Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program (CFDA 10.212) to support the development of collection and preservation technology to enable on-demand pollination in commercial hybrid wheat systems. The SBIR/STTR programs are intended to...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) provides $274,525 to Leaficient Inc., a for-profit organization, to develop and evaluate a novel light production system for controlled environment agriculture (CEA) that dynamically shapes light to optimize power efficiency and biomass growth. The project aims to improve the energy efficiency of indoor agriculture by using advanced optics, machine...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award, funded under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084), provides $4,985,809 to develop a comprehensive entrepreneurship training program. The goal is to equip academic researchers with the knowledge and skills needed to successfully launch startups to commercialize their university-developed technologies, particularly in regions lacking these resources. The program will build on the NSF I-Corps customer...

This $20.6 million project grant from the Department of Commerce Economic Adjustment Assistance (CFDA 11.307) program supports driving agricultural innovation in California's Central Valley. Awarded on October 1, 2022 to the University of California Office of the President with completion by September 30, 2026, the grant establishes iCreate, an ag-tech hub to accelerate technology transfer between researchers and farmers. It also provides community colleges access to new technology and...

Advanced Growing Resources Inc. was awarded a $255,786 National Science Foundation Project Grant under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program to develop a novel handheld spectroscopy device for early detection of crop afflictions. The one-year award will support the design of an affordable imaging spectrometer integrated with precision optics to bridge gaps in existing technologies. The device will be deployed to collect spectral data from grapes, a high-value crop...

Global Neighbor, Inc. was awarded a $174,999 project grant from the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program to develop Directed Energy Seed Priming technology. The grant, effective July 1, 2023 through February 29, 2024, will fund the design, validation, and commercialization of a seed priming technique that uses directed energy to increase...

The Center for Advancing Innovation, Inc. was awarded a $2.49 million project grant from the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration under the BUILD TO SCALE federal grant program (CFDA 11.024) to launch the Global Health Innovation Challenge. Over three years, the Center will source and launch over 60 high-growth startups in the Washington D.C. metro area to address global health threats using technology. The startups will focus on preventing, diagnosing, treating and...

This EAGER (Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research) federal Project Grant award of $300,000 is provided by the National Science Foundation through its Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) program (CFDA 47.079). The goal of this 2-year project is to develop and deploy artificial intelligence (AI)-driven tools to enhance agricultural productivity and sustainability worldwide. The key products and services to be delivered include: (1) Developing hybrid machine learning...