After a 6 month lapse, the SBIR program is officially back following Congressional reauthorization.

In this episode of the Mission Matters podcast, we sit down with Chris Benson, the CTO of Istari Digital and an Air Force acquisition pioneer who was one of the architects behind the modernization of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program during his time at AFWERX.

We discuss:

• How SBIR evolved from a slow, lab-driven R&D program into a real commercialization pathway

• Why Open Topic and TACFI/STRATFI changed the game for venture-backed defense startups

• What the new Strategic Breakthrough Awards mean for scaling to production

• Why founders need to think about Phase III and production contracts from day one

• How proposal caps, foreign due diligence, and other new rules could reshape the program going forward

As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security.