Proposal Example – NSF SBIR Phase 1

This is a 100% real 15-page proposal that successfully won an NSF SBIR Phase 1 award. I know because I was the Principal Investigator (PI). You can look it up here.

It can be hard to know exactly how to structure a proposal, especially if you haven’t submitted one before. Understand what a successful proposal looks like and save yourself hours of research and writing.

This proposal secured over $150,000 in funding from the NSF! You won’t find full proposals like this available anywhere else.

This approach is guaranteed to save you hours of research and gives you a head start to securing real money for your business. This is how I increased my funding hit rate from 15-20% (the average) to over 80%.

Believe me, this is money well spent and a resource I would have gladly paid for when I was seeking my first NSF SBIR Phase 1 funding.

This proposal contains a full 15-page Project Description plus the required Project Summary and References Cited sections:

• Project Summary (1 page)
• Project Description (15 pages)
  • Elevator Pitch
  • Commercial Opportunity
  • The Technical Solution
  • The Company/Team
  • Intellectual Merits
  • Broader Impacts
• References cited (4 pages)

Other than some minor redactions for confidential information like names and identifying information this proposal is 100% the original submitted to the NSF SBIR Review Panel. Note that the formatting has been updated to reflect the most updated NSF guidelines.