Breakthrough technology, turned into federal contracts
We are the insider team for defense and dual-use companies. We build the pipeline, work the program offices, and write the proposals, because we have sat on the government side of the table and know how the buying decision actually gets made.
Federal growth, run as one continuous job
Most firms in this market sell proposal writing. The proposal is the last four weeks of a twelve-month job. We do the whole job, and business development is where it starts.
Government business development
We find the offices that already feel your problem, learn what their requirement says, and put your technology in front of the people who own it. Market positioning, stakeholder mapping, program office engagement, teaming, and the outreach that runs every week under your name.
Capture management
The work that decides the win, done before the solicitation exists. Competitive assessment, shaping, teaming decisions, price-to-win thinking, and an honest go or no-go call. We will tell you not to bid when the odds are wrong, even when the bid would pay us.
Contracting and proposals
SBIR and STTR, BAAs, CSOs, OTAs, TACFI and STRATFI, and full and open competition. Written to the evaluation criteria by people who have scored proposals from the government side of the table, then submitted, negotiated, and administered.
Post-award and capability building
An award is the start of the relationship, not the end of it. Contract administration, SAM and WAWF mechanics, Phase III and follow-on positioning, and the playbooks that leave your team able to run this without us.
Traction, Momentum, or Scale
Pick the stage that matches your reality. The engagement model follows from that, not from what sounds biggest.
We sell how the decision gets made, never who we know.
By the time an opportunity is public, most of it is already decided
Federal buying is not a sales cycle with longer timelines. It is a separate process with four moving parts, and companies lose because they arrive at the fourth one. Here is the whole sequence.
The requirement
Someone inside a program office feels a capability gap and writes it down. It gets validated, prioritized against everything else that office wants, and shaped into language. That language is what you will eventually be scored against.
The money
Defense funding is programmed years in advance through the PPBE process, and every dollar carries a color that limits what it can legally buy. Research money cannot buy production. Timing and color of money beat persuasion.
The pathway
SBIR or STTR, an OTA, a CSO, a BAA, or a FAR competition. The pathway decides who can sign, how fast an award can move, whether a sole source is possible, and how much of the work has to be competed.
The award
A contracting officer signs, and the relationship restarts. Performance, options, modifications, and the question that decides whether this becomes revenue or a dead end: what funds the next phase, and who owns that money.
A team, not a founder with a rolodex
ellimaC Partners operates as one team of federal growth and contracting professionals. The people who ran your capture are the people who wrote the proposal and the people who will administer the contract, and none of them is a single point of failure.
Our buyers arrive worried about spending six months of runway on introductions that go nowhere. That is a reasonable worry, and the worst actors in this industry sell to it. We do not. We tell you what we know, what we do not, and what the odds look like, and we leave you knowing your next step whether or not you ever hire us.
- Credentials on both sides of the deal.A former USAF Contracting Officer who bought for the government, and operators who ran innovation programs that funded companies like yours.
- Business development, not just proposal writing.Capture and positioning are most of the work, and they are where the win is actually decided.
- A talent engine no competitor has.Our Defense Fellowship and SkillBridge pipeline brings in operators with current-day government experience.
- We tell you when not to bid.A no-go call costs us revenue and saves you a quarter. We make it anyway.
We sit where acquisition decisions are actually made
From program offices to contracting shops, we operate inside the buying chain and carry your capability to the people who fund and award it. You keep building the product.
Records of awarded work
Representative outcomes from the portfolio: which component bought, which instrument carried it, and what the award was worth. Values are rounded to the typical award for the instrument.
Engagement recordEdge AI semiconductor developer
Special operations software firm
Post-quantum cryptography firm
Space systems developer
Defense microelectronics supplier
Advanced sensing company
Further records, including thermal management and Air Force open-topic work, are available on request. Client names and logos publish as each client clears them.
From first meeting to durable revenue
Four moves, run in order, on a cadence you can see. Nothing here depends on a favor.
Assess
We run a Federal Readiness review across four pillars: market intelligence, positioning, relationships, and compliance posture. You get a plain answer about where you stand and what is missing, in writing, in a form you can hand to a board.
Position
We map the buying chain for your technology. Which offices own the requirement, who holds the money and what color it is, which pathway can actually award, and what language the requirement is written in. Then we rewrite how you describe yourself to match it.
Engage
We work the program offices, the contracting shops, the primes, and the events that matter, every week, under your name. You see who we contacted, what they said, and what changed in the pipeline.
Win and hold
We write to the evaluation criteria, support negotiation and award, then position the follow-on money before the current contract runs out. A single award is a milestone. A funded path past it is the point.
Acquisition vehicles, in plain terms
If a firm cannot explain these to you without a brochure, they are learning on your budget.
SBIR / STTR
Non-dilutive research funding, and the most common on-ramp for a dual-use company. Phase I proves the idea, Phase II builds it.
TACFI / STRATFI
AFWERX and SpaceWERX transition funding that extends a Phase II, usually against matching private or program dollars.
OTA
Other Transaction Authority. Agreements for prototypes and follow-on production that sit outside most of the FAR, so they move faster.
CSO
Commercial Solutions Opening. A competitive route to buy innovative commercial items against a broad problem statement rather than a spec.
Phase III
The sole-source authority earned by a prior SBIR or STTR. No dollar ceiling, no further competition required, and the bridge past the valley of death.
IDIQ
Indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity. Being on the vehicle is not the win; being ordered from it is.
PPBE
Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution. The multi-year cycle that decides which requirements get money, long before a solicitation appears.
Intelligence for the federal market
Written by the people who do this work, for the founder doing quiet research at eleven at night.
What AI Cannot Do in Federal Capture
A language model can draft a competent SBIR narrative in an afternoon. It cannot tell you whether the office has money, whether the requirement is already shaped, or whether you should bid at all.
Fiscal Year End: What Actually Happens to Federal Money on September 30
Expiring money, fallout funding, and the difference between being ready for the surge and hearing about it in October.
The 2026 SBIR Reauthorization: What Changed, and What to Do About It
Six months of lapse, then a five-year authorization with a new Strategic Breakthrough Phase II, real foreign-investment screening, and the first federal answer to the SBIR mill problem.