20 January 2023

NSIC: 2022 Year-End Update

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NSIC: Accelerating dual-use hardware technologies critical to national security and economic competitiveness

We award Other Transaction (OT) agreements to accelerate your productization efforts

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National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC) is a program within DoD dedicated to addressing the shortfall of trusted private capital for very early-stage hardware startups that are developing cutting-edge, dual-use hardware products. NSIC identifies promising startups developing products critical to economic competitiveness and national security, based on the top technology priorities of the Department of Defense. 

NSIC vets the companies to ensure that they have not received, and will not in the future receive, capital from adversarial sources. NSIC funding enables the companies to achieve their next major milestones, thereby reducing their technical risk and enabling them to raise future capital from private sources. The overall result is more rapid and robust development of hardware products in the U.S., more secure domestic supply chains, and expansion of the national security innovation base.

NSIC is focused on:
  • Accelerating critical and emerging hardware technology

  • Driving commercial & defense applications (dual-use)

  • Stimulating private VC investment through timely funding, which 

    • Accelerates development

    • Reduces technology risk 

    • Signals potential future DoD demand

  • Blocking adversarial investment

SFY22 Strategic Impact

Project spotlight: Lithium-sulfur battery design and manufacturing

NSIC funding: $3M. PoP: 18 months. Status: In-Progress

Credit: Lyten

Prototype:

Development of a manufacturing process for next-generation batteries with significant performance and ecological features for a wide range of applications.

Drivers:

Company invented a process to make 3D Graphene, the key enabling innovation to produce their Lithium-Sulfur (Li-S) batteries.

  • Li-S batteries aim to provide 3x the usable energy of Lithium-ion batteries while being safer and less susceptible to fire/explosion.

  • Li-S enables fully North America-based sourcing and manufacturing.

PriorUSG Funding

  • $1.1M OTA (DIU)

Why NSIC?

  • Opportunity to accelerate initial prototype manufacturing schedule by 12-18 months

  • Guarantee DoD access to 20% of Lyten’s initial production capacity

Contact info@nsic.mil for more information.