Crucible · Seed-to-Harvest Index v2026.2
Seed-to-Harvest Index
Federal SBIR programs seed small-business R&D, but the follow-on contract dollars those firms later win do not always come back to the agency that paid for the seed. The Seed-to-Harvest Index measures, for each of seven SBIR programs, the share of matched follow-on prime-contract dollars that the sponsoring agency retains. It is computed from SBIR.gov award data joined to USAspending prime contracts; see the methodology for how the join works and what it cannot see.
Retention ranking
| Program | Retention share | SBIR seed $ | Follow-on $ back | Follow-on $ elsewhere | Firms retained | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DARPA† | 81.3% | $2.5B | $52.5B | $12.1B | 1,101 | explore |
| DoD | 76.2% | $35.3B | $158.3B | $49.6B | 6,249 | explore |
| HHS | 15.3% | $21.1B | $17.1B | $94.7B | 1,161 | explore |
| NASA | 10.2% | $4.7B | $7.7B | $68.0B | 1,538 | explore |
| DHS | 6.2% | $357M | $1.1B | $16.0B | 241 | explore |
| DOE | 1.0% | $5.5B | $320M | $32.6B | 71 | explore |
| NSF | 0.0% | $3.4B | $18M | $36.7B | 7 | explore |
† DARPA is a subset of the DoD-wide program and is shown for comparison, not counted separately. Retention is computed from each firm's full matched prime-contract totals — every matched dollar is in the denominator.
Where the follow-on dollars go
Each row is a seed program; each column is the department that awarded the follow-on prime contracts won by that program's SBIR firms. Sand-highlighted cells are dollars retained by the sponsor.
| Seed program | DoD | HHS | NASA | DHS | DOE | NSF | Other | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DARPA† | $23.5B | $368M | $3.6B | $445M | $13M | $9M | $3.1B | 48.0% |
| DoD | $81.6B | $5.5B | $6.7B | $3.0B | $566M | $21M | $14.0B | 53.2% |
| HHS | $22.2B | $11.7B | $11.0B | $491M | $188M | $3M | $4.8B | 45.1% |
| NASA | $23.7B | $866M | $4.2B | $942M | $77M | $12M | $4.8B | 45.8% |
| DHS | $6.8B | $66M | $94M | $464M | $19M | — | $953M | 49.3% |
| DOE | $12.6B | $293M | $914M | $413M | $231M | $7M | $1.6B | 48.6% |
| NSF | $15.3B | $762M | $957M | $553M | $213M | $16M | $1.7B | 53.0% |
Disclosure: this matrix is approximated from each firm's largest follow-on contracts (top six per firm; firms average roughly 23). The coverage column reports the share of each program's total matched follow-on dollars those top contracts capture — roughly 45–54% — so cells understate absolute dollars but preserve the direction of flow. The retention ranking above is not affected: it uses each firm's full matched totals, not this top-six approximation.
Open the interactive Crucible pipeline → · Methodology
Version 2026.2, generated 2026-08-27. SBIR.gov source vintage 2026-08-01.