2 Circle, Incorporated

2 Circle, Incorporated (doing business as 2 Circle Inc.), a veteran-owned small business based in Arlington, Virginia, operates as both a prime contractor and subcontractor delivering engineering, program management, test and evaluation, and research and development services to the Department of Defense with primary focus on naval aviation and missile defense programs. The vendor competes predominantly without set-asides on full-and-open procurements; recent prime work includes a $65.694 million cost-plus-fixed-fee RS10 SBIR Phase III contract from Naval Sea Systems Command for data science-driven aircrew performance measurement, awarded March 2026 and running through March 2031.

2 Circle's prime footprint accounts for 26% of recent awards (13 of 50 total), while 74% of its activity flows through subcontracts to larger defense primes. The vendor holds a $151 billion no-ceiling IDIQ under the Missile Defense Agency's Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) program, a multi-domain defense vehicle supporting research, development, prototyping, systems engineering, and test and evaluation across air, missile, space, cyber, and hybrid threat domains through December 2035. A single $500 initial delivery order has been issued against SHIELD as of the source date. 2 Circle also carries a single-award Basic Ordering Agreement with Naval Air Warfare Center through September 2030 with a $0 ceiling value, providing a framework for task orders in research and development services. Earlier prime work includes a $1.999971 million SBIR Phase II contract from Naval Air Warfare Center for expansion research and development, completed July 2026.

Customer concentration is heavily weighted toward the Department of the Navy. Naval Sea Systems Command dominates potential value at $4.03 billion (driven entirely by the SHIELD IDIQ) across five awards, while Naval Air Warfare Center and Naval Air Systems Command combine for 17 awards valued at $4 million potential. The Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of the Air Force Materiel Command, and Air National Guard round out the active set across 15 named agencies. The concentration by potential value is extreme: SHIELD alone represents 99.9% of the vendor's total $4.03 billion combined potential value across all awards; obligated dollars (only $67 million across all work) reflect early-stage contract execution.

As a subcontractor, 2 Circle delivers engineering, program management, technical analysis, and mission assessment support to Georgia TECH Applied Research Corporation (recurring work on aviation electronic warfare analysis, sustainment, and test and training range systems), ManTech Advanced Systems International (mission integration and engineering services for naval rotary aircraft), The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (technical and acquisition expertise for integrated product teams and air warfare systems), KBR Wyle Services (Navy program management and logistics support), Strategic Analysis Inc. (DARPA Defense Sciences Office and Adaptive Capabilities Office technical and administrative support), and Modern Technology Solutions Inc. (Artemis program systems engineering and technical advisory). Subcontract work spans R&D services, systems engineering, advanced electronic warfare analysis, live-virtual-constructive training range systems, and mission concepts of operations support.

Activity has grown sharply from three awards in 2022 and 2023 to 17 in 2024, settling at 12 awards in 2025 and three through April 2026; the trajectory reflects increasing subcontractor engagement alongside the recent high-value SBIR Phase III and SHIELD prime awards. Service Contract Inventory data (SCI-reportable prime and sub contracts above the $150,000 threshold) shows 14 records, all as a named subcontractor, across FY2022–FY2024 with a trajectory from 6.0 FTEs in FY2022 to 14.2 FTEs in FY2024, indicating workforce scaling on federal service delivery. SCI represents a partial view of the vendor's federal services engagement and excludes goods, products, micro-purchases, and classified work; the reported FTE figures are strict subset of federal-delivered labor only and do not represent total company headcount. 2 Circle's award portfolio sits across R&D and engineering services (26 awards under physical and engineering sciences R&D, 16 under engineering services), with NAICS concentration in defense R&D and applied research.