Technical and Business Assistance

The Department of Energy (DOE) is dedicated to the successful commercialization of SBIR/STTR-funded technologies and provides comprehensive commercialization services to its awardees. The DOE is able to fund discretionary TABA to all DOE SBIR and STTR Phase I and Phase II awardees. Please review the following information for recently implemented differences between TABA for Phase I and Phase II.

Phase I

Award recipients have two options for receiving TABA: (1) utilize services provided by the DOE selected TABA Vendor or (2) identify their own TABA provider.

If you elect to receive TABA services from the DOE Vendor, you do not need to include this in your budget.  If you are awarded a Phase I grant, you will receive notification from DOE and follow-up contact from the DOE TABA Vendor on what services are available to you and how to obtain these services at no cost to your small business.  Larta Inc. is the current DOE TABA Vendor and all the awardees who have elected to utilize the DOE TABA Vendor for services will be contacted by Larta in a timely manner to begin the implementation of services.  Information about the services Larta provides through the DOE TABA Program can be found on their website:  https://larta.org/programs/doe-taba-phase-i.

If you wish to utilize your own TABA provider, you are required to include this as a subcontract or consultant in your budget and to provide a detailed budget justification. You may include up to $6,500 for assistance in Phase I. Please note that this TABA does not count toward the maximum award size. For example, a Phase I applicant seeking TABA from an external provider could result in an increase of $6,500 over the maximum award limit. That is, for a topic with a maximum award limit of $200,000, the actual award would increase to $206,500. Reimbursement is limited to services received that comply with 15 U.S.C. § 638(q).

Please see the Funding Opportunity Announcement for more information.

Phase II

Phase II recipients now have a single option for receiving TABA services, which is to identify their own TABA provider(s).

To utilize your own TABA provider(s), you are required to include this as one or more subcontracts or consultants in your budget and to provide a detailed budget justification. You may include up to $50,000 in Phase II. Please note that TABA funds do not count toward the maximum award size. For example, a Phase II applicant seeking TABA funds from an appropriate third party provider could result in an increase of $50,000 over the maximum award limit. That is, for a topic with a maximum award limit of $1,100,000, the actual award would increase to $1,150,000. Reimbursement is limited to services received that comply with 15 U.S.C. § 638(q).

Please see the Funding Opportunity Announcement for more information.