1ST Edge LLC

1ST Edge LLC, a small-business partnership based in Huntsville, Alabama, develops missile defense and space systems engineering technologies for the Department of the Army and the Missile Defense Agency, operating primarily as a subcontractor (81% of recent awards) with emerging prime capability on the newly established SHIELD multiple-award indefinite delivery contract awarded by the Missile Defense Agency on December 29, 2025.

1ST Edge LLC's customer concentration is heavily skewed toward Army missile defense programs. The top four customers by award count and potential value account for 100% of recent awards, with the Department of the Army Acquisition Support Center PEO Missiles and Space anchoring 20 awards, the DOD Missile Defense Agency issuing 5 awards worth $1.6 million combined potential value, and the Department of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command funding a $9.7 million SBIR Phase III definitive contract completed in September 2025. Across the portfolio, work is concentrated in research and development in the physical and engineering sciences (21 of 27 awards) under national defense R&D services PSCs. The vendor operates without set-aside designations across its full footprint.

1ST Edge holds a position on the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) contract, a $151 billion multiple-award indefinite delivery vehicle with a ten-year performance period through December 28, 2035. The initial task order to 1ST Edge under SHIELD, awarded December 29, 2025, carries a ceiling value of $500 and establishes the vendor's priming capability on a full-and-open competition vehicle. The contract vehicle encompasses research and development, prototyping, disruptive technologies, systems engineering, weapon design, production, test and evaluation, and cybersecurity modernization for multi-domain defense capabilities addressing air, missile, space, cyber, and hybrid threats. The vendor also places 20 task orders against the General Services Administration's One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services — Small Business (OASIS SB) contract vehicle under Research and Development work for the Army Aviation and Missile Center.

On the subcontractor side, 1ST Edge delivers the bulk of its revenue as a named sub to Torch Technologies Inc. across 16 recent sub awards, all issued under the GSA OASIS SB Pool 5B vehicle to support hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) systems engineering, test and performance analysis, and distributed digital simulation for the Army's S3I Directorate (Systems, Simulation, and Interoperability). These sub orders, dating from March 2024 through November 2025, address missile defense system performance assessment based on test, simulation, and warfighter events. 1ST Edge also subs to Integration Innovation Inc. on a Missile Defense Data Center to Agency Information Management and Software Services (AIMSS) contract transition task awarded in August 2025.

The vendor's prior substantive work includes a $9.7 million SBIR Phase III definitive contract from the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (awarded September 29, 2021, completed September 28, 2025) for continued development of technologies originally researched under the SBIR program, with dual-use applications for national security space systems and missile warning and defense missions. 1ST Edge previously provided engineering and software services to support missile defense system analysis as a subcontractor.

Activity accelerated significantly in 2024 and 2025 — one award each in 2020 and 2021, two in 2023, eleven in 2024, and ten through December 2025 — reflecting growing integration into Army and MDA supply chains. Service Contract Inventory data captures minimal activity (two sub records across FY2022–FY2024, roughly 0.9 to 2.9 FTEs), indicating that 1ST Edge's federal work is concentrated on research and development contracts and subcontracts above or outside the SCI reporting threshold. Combined potential value across all 27 awards stands at $11.3 million against $14.3 million obligated, with the SHIELD vehicle and SBIR Phase III contract constituting the largest individual values.