Few businesses owned by venture capital firms have been awarded Small Business Innovation Research awards since this program was opened to them two years ago.
Through the SBIR program, 11 federal agencies spend at least 2.8 percent of their outside research budgets with small businesses. Only two of these agencies — the National Institutes of Health and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy — have allowed VC-owned businesses to compete for SBIR awards, according to a new Government Accountability Office study.