SSTI Digest

As SSTI noted in its recent look at quarterly investment activity, gaining insight into angel investment is difficult because of the challenges of separating angel activity from seed and other early VC transactions. Fortunately, the Angel Capital Association (ACA) recently published a report that provides a deep dive into 2025 angel investment activity and provides more clarity on this important financial partner for regional innovation. The big picture takeaway from the ACA report is that, like VCs, angel groups are making larger investments in fewer companies. 

As those involved with the longstanding, internationally recognized program know, an air of uncertainty has enveloped NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) for the past two years. With the release of the new Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for MEP Centers (see SSTI’s write‑up here), it appears that perhaps many of those troubles may be in the past. Even so, the uncertainty has prompted many manufacturers, small businesses, and MEP centers to explore alternate funding sources, partnerships, and forms of assistance beyond NIST.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a Notice of Funding Opportunity for 14 Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) centers. The funding will establish MEP centers in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Utah and Vermont. 

Selected applicants must secure nonfederal matching funds (or cost-share) of at least 50% and will enter into a cooperative agreement with NIST to operate the centers. The new centers will join the MEP National Network™, which comprises MEP centers across the country and includes nearly 1,400 manufacturing advisers and experts at more than 450 MEP service locations, with oversight provided by the MEP program at the federal level. 

NIST plans to award up to the following amounts to centers in each location:  

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced 278 awards to 342 participating institutions to fund projects with the goal of accelerating a new era of AI-driven scientific breakthroughs in energy, discovery science, and national security.  

SSTI has mapped each of these Genesis Mission project awardees in Figure 1 below to provide a quick look at how these awards totaling up to $5 billion are geographically distributed. 

The White House report from  Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios, Science: A New Golden Age, first announced in a July 22 Wall Street Journal article, iterates federal R&D policies and practices for FY 2028, outlines an almost industrial policy approach to federal investment, and provides a plan to move federal research programs toward a focus on individual scientists rather than university-based programs. It calls for more flexible, multidisciplinary, and multi-organizational, team-oriented research projects rather than centers housed within the nation’s research institutions.

The White House report from  Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios, Science: A New Golden Age, first announced in a July 22 Wall Street Journal article, iterates federal R&D policies and practices for FY 2028, outlines an almost industrial policy approach to federal investment, and provides a plan to move federal research programs toward a focus on individual scientists rather than university-based programs. It calls for more flexible, multidisciplinary, and multi-organizational, team-oriented research projects rather than centers housed within the nation’s research institutions.

As revenues continue to tighten, many states entered fiscal year 2027 (FY 2027)—which began July 1 for most—with cautious or constrained spending priorities. With the exception of South Carolina, all states have now enacted their FY 2027 budgets. Most adopted maintenance‑level or reduced spending plans that limited new recurring expenditures, reduced one‑time appropriations, and reprioritized core services such as Medicaid and education.

The U.S. Department of Commerce recently announced that the Economic Development Administration (EDA) intends to award $169 million across six selected Tech Hubs. The competition for this funding was open to the 19 designated Hubs that had not yet received EDA Tech Hubs Implementation Awards.

The National Science Foundation announced this week the newest NSF Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) to 12 teams across 20 states. Each team will initially receive an award of $15 million over two years, with the potential of receiving up to $160 million each from NSF over the next decade. 

While repeatedly writing about VC investment trends over the past year can feel a little like the movie Groundhog Day, like the film, the story is more nuanced than it would first appear. Sure, the overall message of high-dollar deals driving headlines and boosting investment levels to record heights persists, but there are some emerging trends deeper in the data that bear exploring to see if there are issues or opportunities that impact how TBED investors allocate resources going forward. 

In fiscal year (FY) 2024, the most recent year of available data from the Federal S&E Support Survey, nearly 40% of all federal obligations for science and engineering (S&E) to universities and colleges were concentrated in just five states: California, New York, Maryland, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Institutions in California, the state with the highest concentrations of these obligations, accounted for 12% of the total in FY 2024. At the institutional level, there is a similar level of concentration, with five institutions receiving 13% of the total, the 10 largest recipients accounting for 21%, and the 20 largest accounting for over one-third (35%). 

States and policymakers are seeking a better understanding of the risks and vulnerabilities of extreme heat and its associated weather events; and, in doing so, are beginning to develop strategies for a hotter future, including anticipated fiscal impacts. Arizona, California, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Wisconsin have all developed and begun implementing those heat action plans. Meanwhile, a recent report on the impact of extreme heat found that Mississippi is among the states with the largest heat-related economic losses. The United States loses an average of $100 billion annually from heat-induced declines in labor productivity.