Most government solicitations tell you exactly what to build. AFWERX Open Topic flips that: you bring a dual-use technology you think the Air Force could use, and you make the case. It's the widest front door in defense innovation, and it's how a lot of hardware startups get their first government dollar.
Nothing happens until your company exists in the government's eyes. Register in SAM.gov (this takes longer than founders expect — start early) and create an account in the DoD SBIR/STTR portal, DSIP. You must be a US small business under 500 employees and majority US-owned.
Solicitations open in periodic windows, not year-round. Watch afwerx.com and DSIP. Note the post-reauthorization context: SBIR authority lapsed in late 2025 and was reauthorized in April 2026 through 2031, so 2026 cadence is still settling.
The big 2026 shift: AFWERX is steering toward 'focused open topics' tied to specific mission gaps, and directed topics now outweigh pure open ones. Translation — a generic 'our tech is cool and dual-use' pitch is weaker than a tight answer to a named problem. Read the topic language and mirror it.
AFWERX proposals are short by federal standards, and that's a trap: brevity rewards clarity, not fluff. Lead with the problem and the specific defense use case, name the technology plainly, and make the feasibility argument concrete. If you can point to test data, a working prototype, or a credible simulation of the key physics, do it early — reviewers are triaging a large stack and looking for reasons to believe. Avoid buzzwords; a program manager can smell a company that's chasing money versus one that's chasing a mission.
A single credible simulation — a CFD run or an antenna pattern on your real geometry — is often the cheapest evidence of feasibility you can put in a Phase I pitch.
See if you qualify for an Ansys eval The MVP playbook →The strongest proposals arrive with an Air or Space Force end user already interested. If you have a prototype and a signed Customer Memorandum, you may be able to skip Phase I entirely via Direct-to-Phase-II. Either way, the government is buying a path to a real capability, not a science project. Once you've landed Phase II, your next move is the transition ladder — see STRATFI vs TACFI explained.
Amounts are approximate and change by cycle; confirm on the AFWERX Get Funded page.
Official sources: AFWERX SBIR/STTR · AFWERX Get Funded · DoD SBIR/STTR (DSIP). Figures change; confirm on the official page before relying on them.
