Silicon Valley Innovation Program

The DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) is keeping pace with the innovation community to tackle the hardest problems faced by DHS and the Homeland Security Enterprise. SVIP expands DHS S&T’s reach to find new technologies that strengthen national security with the goal of reshaping how government, entrepreneurs and industry work together to find cutting-edge solutions. Based in California’s Silicon Valley, the program reaches out to innovation communities across the nation and around the world to harness the commercial R&D ecosystem for technologies with government applications and to co-invest in and accelerate technology transition-to-market.

Through a streamlined application and pitch process leveraging the Innovation Other Transaction Solicitation, SVIP seeks solutions to requirements ranging across the entire spectrum of the homeland security mission space, including cybersecurity and technology solutions for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and first responders.

Program Summary

Open to U.S. and internationally based companies
Up to $800K over 24 months
Up to four phases of funding ($50 - $200K) each lasting between three and six months

Phase 1	$50-$200K	3-6 months	Proof-of-Concept Demo
Phase 2	$50-$200K	3-6 months	Demo Pilot-ready Prototype
Phase 3	$50-$200K	3-6 months	Pilot-test Prototype in Operation
Phase 4	$50-$200K	3-6 months	Test in Various Operational Scenarios
Phase 5	As required		Additional Use Cases and Operational Scenarios as DHS Determines

Phase 5: If DHS determines that additional work is required on a solution to meet mission needs, an SVIP performer may be invited to apply for a Phase 5 award. A Phase 5 is only applicable if DHS determines the solution may address additional use cases and operational scenarios. This Phase may result in a limited number of technology prototypes or licenses to test the prototype in multiple use cases and conditions and may be funded beyond the total $800K Phases 1–4 limits.

Benefits

Benefits include: Market Validation, Amplify Your Reach, Mentorship, Equity-Free, Follow-on Funding and Network

Eligibility

While the Department’s “Other Transaction” authority extends to “non-traditional government contractors,” SVIP targets only a subset of those performers.

Only the following applicants are eligible for award under this program:

Applicants with fewer than 200 employees or full-time equivalents and
Applicants that have not been a party to any Federal Acquisition Regulation-based contracts and/or federally awarded grants totaling more than $1,000,000 in the past 12 months, whether as a prime contractor or subcontractor.

Current Funding Opportunities

The S&T SVIP issued its first Innovation Other Transaction Solicitation (OTS) — HSHQDC-16-R-B0005 — in Dec. 2015. The OTS describes the overall program framework and eligibility criteria. Individual calls describing specific technical areas and use cases will be issued under the Innovation OTS in the future.

SVIP U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Topic Calls – FY20

Language Translator. The USCG requires a language translator that can rapidly and effectively communicate in real time with non-English speakers and those who are unable to communicate verbally with the ability to operate in connected and off-line capacities. Please view the Language Translator Solicitation on beta.SAM.gov.

Maritime Object Tracking Technology (MOTT). The USCG needs a better and more reliable system for clearly marking and accurately monitoring objects in the water for recovery. Please view the MOTT Solicitation on beta.SAM.gov.

Continue to check this page for future call opportunities. To be notified of new opportunities, join our mailing list by sending an email to dhs-silicon-valley@hq.dhs.gov.

Current Portfolio Companies

Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technologies

Danube Tech (Vienna, Austria) will work on a Universal Issuer and Verifier project to integrate interoperability support for multiple credential data formats, blockchains, and standardized and open application programming interfaces into their existing decentralized identifier (DID) registrar. (Initial award September 2019) – Currently in Phase 1
Digital Bazaar (Blacksburg, Virginia) proposes to build out its digital credentialing and blockchain application solution to create a viable credentialing product for large organizations with the long-term goal of bringing its customized solution to market. (Initial award November 2019) – Currently in Phase 1
Factom Inc. (Austin, TX) will build a platform that enables organizations to manage certificates and licenses associated with tracking raw material imports via an open system that ensures the provenance of issued credentials. This approach will provide mechanisms to ensure that any relevant business constraints are not violated, allowing for the selective disclosure of process-relevant information and improving auditability, accountability, transparency and efficiency. (Initial award November 2019) – Currently in Phase 1
Learning Machine Technologies (New York, New York) will adapt their current commercial technology using the open-source Blockcerts standard to support emerging global World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) security, privacy and interoperability standards such as DID and verifiable credentials for credential issuance and verification solutions. The proposed approach enables credential user and DID provider independence from vendor-specific accounts to access credentials and promotes holder control and interoperability. (Initial award November 2019) – Currently in Phase 1
Mavennet Systems (Toronto, Canada) will apply the company’s expertise, gleaned from building a platform enabling real-time auditability of the natural gas trading markets in Canada to address CBP needs for cross-border oil import tracking. Mavennet’s solution will build a generic end-to-end platform that can be used for any type of commodity that includes automation and integrating application program interface, physical measurement and legacy system capabilities. (Initial award November 2019) – Currently in Phase 1
SecureKey Technologies (Toronto, Canada) will adapt the concepts and code associated with its Verified.Me commercial strength identity network solution that offers availability, disaster recovery, fraud prevention, monitoring and other essential operational controls to support Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services needs around the issuance and validation of identity documents for travel and employment authorization. (Initial award November 2019) – Currently in Phase 1
SICPA Product Security (Springfield, Virginia) will build a flexible, credential-based identity solution that includes the enrollment, creation, issuance and management of secure digital credentials through interoperable, open standards, which will seamlessly coexist with current processes and systems while enabling offline credentials validation. (Initial award November 2019) – Currently in Phase 1
Transmute Industries (Austin, Texas) will adapt Transmute ID, its core technology product that leverages centralized and decentralized identity infrastructures to secure individual agency identities and verifiable credentials to ensure that CBP has visibility into the provenance, traceability and regulatory compliance of raw material imports. (Initial award November 2019) – Currently in Phase 1

Energy Harvesting Fabrics

Protect the Force (Boston, Massachusetts) is developing a photovoltaic fiber that can be woven into a fabric matrix for integration into first responder gear. – Currently in Phase 2

Enhancing CBP Airport Passenger Processing

iProov (London, England) will develop a capability to allow travelers to quickly transit remote border ports of entry by optionally utilizing their personal devices to report their entry and exit to CBP with a secure, privacy focused mobile application. – Currently in Phase 3
Kiana Analytics, Inc. (Sunnyvale, California) will develop a smartphone-based interview capability that includes the remote identity verification of travelers using a combination of biometric information and behavior/trend analysis from sensors available in remote ports of entry used by travelers. (Initial award February 2017) – Currently in Phase 3

Enhancements to the Global Travel Assessment System

DataRobot Inc. (Boston, Massachusetts) will provide statistical and machine-learning models and a predictive/scoring engine that performs batch and real-time assessments in a fraction of the time it currently takes. (Initial award September 2017) – Currently in Phase 2
Omniscience Corporation (Palo Alto, California) will build a fully functional model manager that will allow DHS and partner organizations to build models that can take in a high number of dimensions and significantly large data sets. (Initial award April 2017) – Currently in Phase 1
Tamr (Cambridge, Massachusetts) will use their core human-guided, machine learning software to achieve schema mapping and entity resolution. (Initial award December 2016) – Currently in Phase 5

Financial Services Cyber Security Active Defense

Cyber 20/20 (Newark, Delaware) will build TURACO, a next-generation sandbox, which uses machine learning to significantly extend Cuckoo, an open-source sandbox environment, and defend against anti-anti-sandbox malware. – Currently in Phase 1
Def-Logix Inc. (San Antonio, Texas) will enhance its Entrap capability that provides malware detection, characterization and enhancement capabilities to enable the exchange of cyber threat indicators between the Federal Government and the private sector at machine speed. (Initial award December 2017) – Currently in Phase 1
Heilig Defense, LLC (Arlington, Virginia) will develop the Memory Sentry solution, which provides runtime application protection against specific memory-safety vulnerabilities. Memory Sentry is a “pre-exploitation” protection tool that can disrupt an attacker’s ability to successfully exploit software vulnerabilities. (Initial award October 2017) – Currently in Phase 2
Intafel (Cambridge, MA) will enhance their product Solitare, a slimmed-down virtual machine capability, to create a Moving Target Defense system that uses randomized isolation to increase the cost and complexity of attacking financial institutions. – Currently in Phase 1
Morphisec (Beer-Sheva, Israel) will develop a Moving Target Defense-based cybersecurity solution for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environments to prevent cyber attacks to financial institutions without reducing the overall performance of an enterprise-level VDI environment. – Currently in Phase 1
NexiTech, Inc. (Woodland Park, Colorado) will develop an innovative Moving Target Defense approach to providing critical protection for storage devices and networks. It aims to protect storage management and data interfaces by creating multiple abstractions of devices—similar to frequency-hopping previously used in radio communication—to confuse potential cyber attackers. (Initial award October 2017) – Currently in Phase 1
StackRox, Inc. (Mountain View, California) proposes a software solution that runs as a collection of integrated, container-based micro services within a computing environment that identifies cyber attacks and uses container-native software to automatically stop malicious activity on affected applications. (Initial award May 2017) – Currently in Phase 2
Veramine (Bothell, Washington) seeks to harden financial institutions' cyber defense by adding cyber intrusion deception, moving target defense and isolation and containment capabilities to its current Endpoint Detection & Response platform with the aim to significantly increase the economic costs for potential attackers. (Initial award June 2017) – Currently in Phase 1

High Fidelity Counting and Measuring of CBP Queues and Service Times at Ports of Entry

Kiana Analytics, Inc. (Sunnyvale, California) will develop a cloud-based solution that uses non-invasive Bluetooth and Wi-Fi sensors in conjunction with legacy sensors, such as cameras, to provide real-time measurements of crowd behavior and movement. – Currently in Phase 1
Quanergy (Sunnyvale, California) will develop a Light Detection- and Ranging-based capability that can detect and anonymously analyze the flow of queues through airport security and customs processing. – Currently in Phase 1

Identity and Anti-Spoofing of Non-Person Entities

Plurilock (Victoria, BC) will design an Identity Management solution for non-person entities using behavioral and contextual data for multi-channel authentication. – Currently in Phase 1

Internet of Things (IoT) Security

Bastille Networks, Inc. (Atlanta, Georgia) will focus on identifying enterprise IoT protocols. (Initial award January 2017) – Currently in Phase 4
Factom Inc (Austin, Texas) will create an identity log that captures the identification of a device, who manufactured it, lists of available updates, known security issues and granted authorities while adding the dimension of time for added security. (Initial award June 2016) – Currently in Phase 4
Ionic Security (Atlanta, Georgia) will apply a novel distributed data protection model to solve the authentication, detection and confidentiality challenges that face distributed IoT devices, specifically, to improve the integrity of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems and industrial control infrastructure as well as critical components deployed in the DHS network. (Initial award July 2016) – Currently in Phase 4
Machine-to-Machine Intelligence Corporation (Moffett Field, California) will make the SPECK cryptographic protocol available to IoT devices. (Initial award April 2016)
QED Secure Solutions LLC (Coppell, Texas) will develop a robust, vendor-agnostic solution for verifying and validating third-party firmware updates for IoT devices. (Initial award January 2017) – Currently in Phase 4
Whitescope LLC (Half Moon Bay, California) will build a secure 802.11 wireless communications gateway that will provide a centralized capability for identifying, characterizing and securing access to IoT devices. (Initial award May 2016) – Completed Phase 2

K9 Wearable Technologies

HaloLights LLC (Orlando, Florida) in conjunction with DHS S&T, will develop a canine wearable health monitoring device that leverages existing technology. The device will monitor and analyze vital signs and other health indicators of the CBP’s canine workforce. (Initial award September 2017) – Currently in Phase 2

Real-Time Intelligent Traveler Wayfinding

Arup USA (New York City, New York) proposed to develop a Bluetooth-enabled wayfinding technology to increase the efficiency of processing international travelers through customs. – Currently in Phase 1
LocusLabs (Oakland, California) will further develop LocusMaps, an opt-in, interactive navigation tool that provides bi-directional communication between travelers and CBP to aid in traveler navigation within airports and the customs process. – Currently in Phase 2

Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) Capabilities

Asymmetric Technologies (Columbus, Ohio) proposes to develop a platform-agnostic Secure UAS Flight Controller that improves the cybersecurity of commercial sUAS systems. This will reduce the risk of cyber attacks on the Department’s sUAS platforms by ensuring secure communication and control mechanisms with operators, secure surveillance telemetry streams and on-board hardware security to prevent unauthorized access of data. (Initial award March 2017) – Currently in Phase 2
Cryptomove, Inc. (San Mateo, California) proposes a dynamic defense data protection system that uses a data fragmentation approach for sUAS platforms to ensure data confidentiality, integrity and availability. (Initial award February 2017) – Currently in Phase 2
Echodyne (Bellevue, Washington) will leverage their new generation of ultra-low Cost, Size, Weight, and Power radar products based on its new Metamaterials Electronically Scanning Array architecture to support Border Patrol operations. (Initial award December 2016) – Currently in Phase 4
Intelleuron (Boise, Idaho) will design a ruggedized, sUAS that incorporates machine learning, voice recognition and artificial intelligence to detect obstacles and protect CBP agents. – Currently in Phase 2
Planck Aerosystems (San Diego, California) aims to build a fully autonomous, truck-based, search, surveillance and data delivery platform for DHS applications operated from a dash-mounted user interface, which delivers real-time video and object detection to drivers and passengers without the need for a dedicated pilot or extensive operator training. (Initial award March 2017) – Currently in Phase 2
Shield AI (San Diego, California) will develop autonomous sUASs that function where traditional platforms cannot, including GPS degraded areas. (Initial award December 2016) – Currently in Phase 3