Seven small high-tech Wisconsin companies will each receive $75,000 in matching grants from the SBIR Advance Program to help them move their innovations to commercialization by complementing existing federal research funding.

The SBIR Advance program, which is funded by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) and administered by the UW-Extension Center for Technology Commercialization (CTC), announced the winners of the fifth SBIR Advance funding round Monday.

These companies are already working on a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) project, and will receive additional funding to help fill gaps from federal funding designated for technology development research, not commercialization.

The winners focus their work in the fields of biotech, power systems, supercomputing, new engine component materials, smart technology and pharmaceutical safety. The grant recipients include:

  • C-Motive Technologies – Based in Madison, C-Motive produces lightweight, cost- and energy-efficient electric motors and non-contact power transfer devices that are not dependent on rare-earth magnet materials.
  • Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC – The Wauwatosa company develops and commercializes cell-based technologies that target central nervous system conditions and diseases such as brain and spinal cord injury, stroke, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases.
  • ConsortiEX – A Milwaukee-based company, ConsortiEX developed “From Pedigree to Patient,” IT systems and services that manage ordering, distribution and tracking of sterile injectable compounds for hospitals and other affiliated networks.
  • Flex Compute – A Madison-based company specializing in new technologies
  • Intelligent Composites – This Milwaukee company works on manufacturing innovative material platform technology in an effort to improve the energy efficiency of internal combustion engines, while also reducing their weight and oil consumption.
  • Protein Foundry – Milwaukee’s Protein Foundry serves the biomedical research community by providing an array of highly pure recombinant proteins with minimal variation that help ensure experimental studies yield reproducible results.
  • Thalchemy – Based in Madison, Thalchemy works on a variety of applications aimed at optimizing the user experience of smartphones and other wearable devices by using real-time sensor data to create a link between the human experience and digital life.

Receiving funding is extremely competitive, said Dr. Todd Strother, manager of the SBIR Advance program, adding that the companies selected demonstrated readiness to embrace lean startup practices and best showed how the funds would quicken their path to commercialization.

SBIR Advance will begin soliciting candidates for a sixth round of funding on March 28, 2016, with the “intent to apply” deadline at noon on April 28, 2016. Companies in Phase I or II of SBIR/STTR funding are eligible to apply. To learn more, visit the SBIR Advance website.