Nirsense, Inc.

Nirsense, Inc., doing business as Nirsense LLC, is a Richmond, Virginia-based small disadvantaged business that develops advanced wearable sensor systems for physiological monitoring and serves as a prime contractor exclusively on federal research and development contracts across defense and civilian health agencies. All eleven awards in the vendor's recent footprint are prime contracts under Total Small Business set-asides, with no subcontract activity and no venture into full-and-open competition.

Nirsense's core capability centers on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), electroencephalography (EEG), and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) sensor systems for measuring cerebral and somatic oxygenation, traumatic brain injury detection, and aircrew cognitive and physiological state assessment. Representative work includes a $2.65 million Phase II SBIR contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (awarded January 2025, completing June 2026) for multimodal aircrew state assessment and augmentation integrating NIRS, EEG, and tDCS; a $1.3 million Phase II SBIR award from the Defense Health Agency (February 2025, completing June 2027) for an ultra-thin helmet-compatible NIRS/EEG-based cerebrovascular monitoring sensor system for future vertical lift operator state monitoring; and a $600 thousand definitive contract from the National Institutes of Health (March 2026, completing March 2027) representing the vendor's expansion into civilian health research. Additional work includes a $1.6 million Phase II SBIR contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (completed January 2024) on multimodal aircrew state assessment, a $733 thousand full-and-open research and development contract from the Army Research Development and Engineering Command (March 2023, completing January 2026), and multiple Phase I SBIR awards from the Defense Health Agency on NIRS-enabled headbands and helmet-integrated sensor prototypes.

Customer concentration spans defense and health agencies without dominant single-customer dependency. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of the Navy Naval Air Systems Command, Air Force Materiel Command Research Laboratory, and Defense Health Agency together account for 92 percent of combined potential value, with DARPA and Naval Air Systems Command anchoring the largest individual awards at $2.7 million and $2.6 million respectively. Activity is modest and episodic — two awards in 2022, one in 2023, two in 2024, two in 2025, one in 2026 — with a combined potential value of $10.2 million across all eleven awards and $1.9 million in combined potential value completing within the next twenty-four months. The vendor's portfolio clusters heavily in research and development NAICS codes (9 of 11 awards under Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences), with performance conducted at the Richmond headquarters. Nirsense operates entirely within the SBIR ecosystem and full-and-open research contracting, with no presence on government-wide acquisition contracts, blanket purchase agreements, or agency-specific IDIQs.