Silicon Valley Innovation Program

The Department of Homeland Security (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.

SVIP 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

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 Phase 1 awards under this program:

Phase 1 applicants must have fewer than 200 employees or full-time equivalents (FTEs). Calculations for FTEs must account for and include affiliated businesses—such as parent companies and subsidiaries—that are either in or outside of the USA.
Phase 1 applicants must not have been a party to any Federal Acquisition Regulation-based contract and/or federally awarded grant with a combined total of more than $1,000,000 in the past 12 months, whether as a prime contractor or subcontractor.

All applicants must have a Dun & Bradstreet (DUNS) number, which they can register for at www.DNB.com

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-Release 1

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 2
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 2
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 2
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 2
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 2

Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technologies-Release 2

MATTR (Auckland New Zealand): a woman-owned start-up is assisting USCIS to develop a capability to digitally issue and validate essential work and task licenses. (Initial Award September 2020) – Currently in Phase 1
Mavennet (Toronto, Canada): will be supporting CBP by improving the traceability of natural gas. Mavennet proposes to enhance their Neoflow platform to digitally trace natural gas supply chains between Canada and the US. (Initial Award September 2020) – Currently in Phase 1
Mesur IO (Chapel Hill, North Carolina): will be developing a capability to enhance CBP’s visibility of food supply chains. The project aims to improve food safety through the international supply chain by enhancing visibility from farm to point of purchase. (Initial Award September 2020) – Currently in Phase 1
SecureKey (Toronto, Canada): will be developing an alternative identifier to the Social Security Number (SSN) to support PRIV’s SSN Collection and Use Reduction initiative. The project’s goal will be to implement a globally unique, meaningless, and verifiable identifier that will not divulge personally identifiable information or allow for cross tracking. (Initial Award September 2020) – Currently in Phase 1
Spherity (Dortmund, Germany): will be developing a capability to enhance CBP’s supply chain traceability of direct-to-consumer e-commerce shipments.Spherity will adapt their core digital-twin binding technology to provide traceability of packages from internet purchase to consumer. (Initial Award September 2020) – 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. (Initial award August 2018) – 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. (Initial award April 2018) – 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 3
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. (Initial award June 2018) – 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 3
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. (Initial award September 2018) – 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. (Initial award September 2018) – 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 3
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. (Initial award September 2018) – 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. (Initial award September 2018) – Currently in Phase 1
CrowdVision USA Co (London, UK) will combine several commercially-ready measurement, analytics, and modelling technologies from several small innovative businesses, into a single solution to optimize the flow of passengers through airports. (Initial award September 2019) – Currently in Phase 2
KickView Corporation (Greenwood Village, CO) will scale their kvSonata platform to estimate queue times, transactions times, dwell times, wait times, people counts, and flow rates within an airport environment. (Initial award September 2019) – 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. (Initial award July 2018) – Currently in Phase 2

Internet of Things (IoT) Security

Bastille Networks, Inc. (Atlanta, Georgia) will focus on identifying enterprise IoT protocols. (Initial award January 2017) – Currently in Phase 5
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) – Completed Phase 4

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

Language Translator

TranslateLive, LLC (Clearwater, FL) will enhance their Instant Language Assistant product with adaptations such as offline capability and auto language detection in a hand-held, waterproof, and floatable device. (Initial award in September 2020) – Currently in Phase 1
Kynamics (Mountain View, CA) proposes to build a portable, standalone system that automatically detects the spoken language and updates for fixes and feedback when an internet connection is available. (Initial award in September 2020) – Currently in Phase 1

Maritime Object Tracking Technology

Kynamics (Mountain View, CA) proposes to build a portable, standalone language translation tool that automatically detects the spoken language and updates for fixes and feedback when an internet connection is available. (Initial award in September 2020) – Currently in Phase 1

Object Recognition and Adaptive Algorithms in Passenger Property Screening

Analytical AI (Birmingham, AL) will generate deep learning algorithms to develop an object identification engine that can rapidly and accurately detect common stream of commerce items. (Initial award February 2020) – Currently in Phase 1
Cignal, LLC (Ashburn, VA) will enhance its working prototype and existing training workflow product to generate a high-volume and high-fidelity synthetic Computed Tomography data source for labeled Stream of Commerce baggage for seamless, unsupervised, and continuous AI model training. (Initial award May 2020) – Currently in Phase 1
Kraenion Labs, LLC (Los Gatos, CA) proposes to create machine learning algorithms for segmentation and object recognition of common items found in stream-of-commerce passenger baggage and lay the foundations for a commercial product that improves aviation security through enhanced screening. (Initial award December 2019) – Currently in Phase 1
Synthetik Applied Technologies (Austin, TX) will develop and train an artificial intelligence model with the potential to automatically detect multiple objects at the same time during the airport property screening process. (Initial award March 2020) – Currently in Phase 1

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. (Initial award July 2018) – Currently in Phase 2
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. (Initial award September 2018) – 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) – Completed Phase 4
Cryptomove, Inc. (San Mateo, California) completed SVIP Phase 4 and moved to a SBIR Phase 3 contract to expand implementation of its cybersecurity capability and continue testing with CBP’s Office of Information Technology in their enterprise network (Initial award February 2017) – Currently in SBIR Phase 3
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) – Completed 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. – (Initial award March 2018) 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 4