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The U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP) introduces the NSF Tech Accelerators initiative to enhance the process of transforming research outputs emanating from basic research into scalable, market-ready technologies that strengthen the U.S. economy and enhance American national security. NSF Tech Accelerators are new or existing organizations comprising a range of stakeholders (e.g., researchers, innovators, founders and entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other investors, leading industry experts, government funders and beyond). They in turn invest in teams to advance their deep-technology ("deep-tech") ideas from the lab to the market. NSF Tech Accelerators focus on deep-tech areas currently under-invested at the pre-seed, seed and Series A stages and they demonstrate viability for these areas by, in part, "crowding in" investment from venture and other funders over time (note that a requirement of successful NSF Tech Accelerators will be significant cost-sharing on the part of the proposing teams especially in the later stages of technology development and commercialization). NSF TIP envisions the new partnerships necessary for each NSF Tech Accelerator to comprise: (i) strong technical domain expertise in a deep-tech area, facilitated by high-value collaborations with experts in that area; (ii) understanding of the existing investment landscape, commercially-viable research directions and barriers hindering technological advancement along with pathways to address these challenges; and (iii) operational capability and agility to support teams aiming to accelerate their ideas from the lab to the market, including by creating opportunities for new thinkers from science and business to take risks and approach problems differently. The novel organizational structures that can bring together a wide range of stakeholders in new partnerships, patiently invest in early-stage deep-tech teams and accomplish the lab-to-market outcomes described above are key foci for the NSF Tech Accelerator initiative. Consequently, this RFI seeks input from potential NSF Tech Accelerator applicants as well as the teams that would benefit from the NSF Tech Accelerators on the following topics: The NSF Tech Accelerator program model – the needs in the deep-tech lab-to-market ecosystem not currently being met and how to overcome these with an eye toward impact and speed; Organizational structures – the key stakeholders necessary to engage in this effort, along with the novel partnership modalities to foster that engagement; and Suitable deep-tech areas – the key technologies where investment by NSF will be uniquely catalytic, complement existing efforts from deep-tech venture capital, other private sector and philanthropic investment and unlock matching commitments particularly for scaling. Note that NSF has identified four initial topics through prior stakeholder engagement, namely agricultural technology…
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