Small Business Innovation Research Program Provides Seed Funding for R&D
Santa Cruz, California, 06/06/2024 – Virtual Reality and healthcare startup Immergo Labs, Inc. has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $1,000,000 to conduct research and development (R&D) work on creating a extended reality platform for full-body physical rehabilitation towards enhancing the affordability, accessibility, and accuracy of care.
The work aims to benefit society by providing remote full-body assessment and exercise tools while increasing patient engagement, especially in underserved communities, through novel immersive virtual reality and artificial intelligence applications. The project leverages fundamental science to iteratively design a user-centered healthcare platform for transforming physical rehabilitation practices, potentially reducing healthcare costs for patients and clinics alike while improving outcomes. It will also explore new standards in embodied telehealth and mixed reality evaluation tools, establishing innovative methods for hybrid physical rehabilitation care.
“We are thrilled and grateful to receive this Phase II SBIR award from the NSF. This funding will enable us to greatly advance our research and development efforts from directly co-designing with clinicians and patients to extending novel AI tools for full-body assessment and beyond,” said Aviv Elor, Co-Founder and Principal Investigator of Immergo Labs
For more details on Immergo’s grant, see the NSF award here: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2304278
Once a small business is awarded a Phase I SBIR/STTR grant (up to $275,000), it becomes eligible to apply for a Phase II (up to $1,000,000). Small businesses with Phase II funding are eligible to receive up to $500,000 in additional matching funds with qualifying third-party investment or sales.
Entrepreneurs who submit a written Project Pitch will know within about a month if they meet the program’s objectives to support innovative technologies that show promise of commercial and/or societal impact and involve an appropriate level of technical risk. Startups and small businesses with innovative science and technology solutions, and commercial potential are encouraged to apply. All proposals submitted to the NSF SBIR/STTR program, also known as America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, undergo a rigorous merit-based review process. To learn more about America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF, visit: https://seedfund.nsf.gov/
About the National Science Foundation's Small Business Programs: America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million to support research and development (R&D), helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $8.5 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.
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