Proposals
Writing a winning SBIR Phase II proposal
Phase II is where the money is and where the bar rises. What agencies expect from the technical plan, the commercialization plan and the budget, and how Phase I sets you up to win it.
Phase II is judged on evidence
Phase I asked whether an idea was feasible. Phase II asks what you learned and what you will build with roughly ten times the budget. Reviewers expect data generated during Phase I, presented against the milestones you promised, including the results that changed your approach.
Success rates reflect that shift: across agencies, Phase II awards typically go to 35 to 55 percent of applicants, because the pool is already filtered to companies that delivered. The proposal's job is to show that your Phase I outcome earns the next round.
Build the technical plan around remaining risk
Name what is still uncertain and organize the work plan around retiring it. A strong plan states the current technology readiness level, the level you will reach, and the specific experiments, prototypes and tests that carry you between them.
Give every task a deliverable, a decision point and a named owner. Reviewers reward plans where a disappointing result leads to a described alternative path rather than to a stalled project.
The commercialization plan does real work
At Phase II the commercialization plan is scored seriously. Agencies want the size of the addressable market, the route to first revenue, the partners or customers engaged so far, the regulatory path where one applies, and the capital you will need beyond the award.
Letters of intent, pilot agreements, and matching funds from an investor or a strategic partner are the strongest forms of evidence. Several programs, including NSF Phase IIB and DoD matching mechanisms, will amplify private capital you bring.
Budgets that survive negotiation
Tie every cost to a task. Personnel effort should map to the work plan in person-months, equipment should be justified by a named experiment, and subawards should carry their own scope and budget justification. Agencies negotiate faster when the arithmetic is transparent.
Confirm your indirect cost treatment early, because a provisional rate agreed with a cognizant agency changes the amount of science you can fund inside the same ceiling.
Start Phase II during Phase I
The companies that win Phase II write it while Phase I is running: they collect the data in a form that will become figures, they keep the customer conversations warm, and they draft the transition story as the technical picture becomes clear.
GrantUp writers work with clients across both phases so the Phase II narrative grows out of real results. Book a free consultation to plan your Phase II submission.
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