Software development company Object Computing Inc. landed a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Navy.
It’s the Creve Coeur-based company’s second Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award and its first of the more lucrative Phase 2 awards.
Object Computing will be developing mission simulation software for a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft, the E2 Hawkeye, according to the award announced last month. The Hawkeye is usually stationed on aircraft carriers and provides early warning and other control functions for carrier strike groups that accompany the carriers.
“These grants inject new thinking for the military,” which usually contracts with much larger firms, said Malcolm Spence, OCI’s director of business development.
The company, headed by CEO Ebrahim Moshiri, has a staff of 100 and posted revenue in excess of $10 million last year.
Moshiri said the latest award is an acknowledgement by the Navy of OCI’s open architecture software products that build on technology that his company developed with Washington University more than a decade ago.
The contract award came as Congress debated whether to extend the SBIR program to allow small businesses controlled by venture firms to be eligible for the funds. Last month Congress extended the SBIR program through Sept. 30 without resolving that issue. Under the SBIR program, 11 federal agencies set aside at least 2.5 percent of their outside research budgets for small businesses. That currently represents more than $2 billion a year.
Missouri businesses collect about $10 million a year from the SBIR program through about 30 Phase 1 grants and 10 Phase 2 grants each year, according to the Missouri Federal and State Technology (MoFAST) program.
Originally published at: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2009/08/17/story14.html
-Rick Desloge
