One Small Step Grant

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
- Neil Armstrong, Tranquility Base, July 1969

UNVEILING THE PROGRAM

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Receive grants of up to $100k to develop and test your technology before spinning out or licensing. The One Small Step Grant serves as a beacon of hope, offering crucial support for experiments that pave the way for groundbreaking startups or the licensing of breakthrough technologies. The grant's objective is to provide gap funding to faculty engaged in promising projects with commercial potential. We are specifically interested in projects within 12-18 months of forming a spin-out or embarking on a licensing event.

Our program is flexible, accepting pre-screening submissions twice per year: once in April, once in October.

Applications are now open and will close on April 30th at 11:59pm. Submit your application here.

PAST AWARDEES

Cycle Three Awardee
  • Chassis.Bio $100,000 Award - Developed by AJ Walters in Rice assistant professor Caleb Bashor's lab, Chassis.Bio is a therapeutics solution that targets neuroinflammation and supports brain repair through early intervention, starting with ICU trials for severe traumatic brain injury, aiming to reduce death and disability.
Cycle Two Awardees
  • LymphGuide $100,000 Award - Developed by Martha Fowler in Rice professor Omid Veiseh’s lab, LymphGuide is a customizable alginate-based hydrogel platform combined with an engineered cell therapy that aids in lymphatic cell regrowth, initially targeting the treatment and prevention of lymphedema.
  • HEXASpec $100,000 Award - Developed by Tianshu Zhai in Rice professor Jun Lou’s lab,HEXASpec develops inorganic fillers and molding compounds for next-generation chip packaging. These advancements are designed to enhance chip protection and heat dissipation, unlock future computing power, and promote sustainable practices.
Cycle One Awardees
  • PerisBio $100k Award - Developed by Samira Aghlara-Fotovat and Samantha Fleury from Rice Professor Omid Veiseh's Lab, PerisBio focuses on novel, hydrogel-encapsulated engineered "cell factories" for the minimally invasive treatment of endometriosis.
  • Solidec $100k Award - Ryan Duchanois and Yang Xia from Rice Professor Haotian Wang's Lab are founders of Solidec, a room temperature, solid-state direct air capture technology.
  • DirectH2 [FKA HornetX] $80k Award - Led by Rice Professor Aditya Mohite's Lab, HornetX aims to produce highly stable green hydrogen using a perovskite-based photoelectrochemical cell with leading efficiency.
  • Coflux $80k Award - Developed by Jeremy Daum and Alec Ajnsztajn from the labs of Rice Professors Rafael Verduzco and Pulickel Ajayan, Coflux focuses on covalent organic framework-based photocatalysts for instream remediation of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) from water.

FAQ

What sort of projects are you looking for?

Projects must be affiliated with a faculty lab at Rice University, and can be within any school or department. The goal must be to run the final experiment or set of experiments that would create the fundable data, i.e. the data that would convince an independent investor to support a startup, or a company to license the technology. You can not have yet signed a license or raised external funding.

Who can apply?

Applications can be submitted by undergraduate or graduate students, postdocs, faculty or research staff, and must be part of a research lab of a tenured or tenure-track faculty member. Please make sure to list the tenure-track or tenured faculty member with whom you are applying. Applicants can be within any school or department.

How does the application work?

The application runs in four phases:

  1. Full Application: Apply with the Typeform provided on the website and here.

  2. Interview: Select applicants will move forward and be invited to interview with the One Small Step Grant team.

  3. Diligence: We will review your application and notes from the interview and conduct due diligence with your provided references and other market research. This diligence will culminate in a two-page Deal Memo that will be presented to the Grant Selection Committee and provided to applicants at the end of the process.

  4. Grant Selection Committee: Select applicants will be invited to pitch before the Grant Selection Committee. They will review your pitch, conduct a short Q&A, and read the Deal Memos. Based off this review, the Grant Selection Committee will make a decision on which awards to grant and their award size.

What's asked in the application?

Full Application: The goal here is to really validate the commercial outlook of your project, and the intent to bring this research to market. These answers will make up the bulk of the Deal Memo.

  1. What funding and other support have you and your team received on this project to date?
  2. Describe the opportunity and the potential impact of your project
  3. Describe the proposed technology and approach and how it will work
  4. Describe the technical steps needed to make your technology market-ready
  5. Describe your target market(s) Who or what will your innovation be competing with?
  6. Commercialization Pathway - what path(s) do you see to bring this technology to market? When will this happen? Who will you need on the team?
  7. Describe the technical project plan.
  8. How much money do you need and what for? Provide a brief itemized budget.
  9. Milestones & Timeline - list 3-4 major technical milestones and the expected dates by which you expect to complete them within this grant.
Who is on the Grant Selection Committee?

To ensure objectivity and funding of the projects with the highest commercial potential, the Grant Selection Committee is composed of experienced entrepreneurs, investors and corporate executives and one representative from Rice.

Trevor Best, Co-Founder and CEO, Syzygy Plasmonics; Paul Cherukuri, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer, Rice University; Jim Cohen, General Partner, Fitzgate Ventures, Dana Deardorff, PhD, Global Director, J&J Impact Ventures; Emily Reiser, PhD, Strategy and New Ventures, Texas Medical Center; Sarah Hein, Co-Founder and CEO, March Biosciences; Matt Harrigan, CEO, Managing Partner, Company Ventures; Mark Poag, General Partner, Fitzgate Ventures; Paul Sheng, PhD, Managing Partner, Fathom Fund; Phoebe Wang, Investment Partner, Amazon, Climate Pledge Fund.

When will I find out about my application?

Applications are open in April. Interviews and due diligence will be conducted in May and June. Deal Memos will be completed in July and the Grant Selection Committee will meet in mid-July. Decisions on awardees will be communicated by end of July.

Where do I apply?

Deadline to apply: April 30,2025

Apply here: https://9ahsxd7j2fw.typeform.com/1smallstep


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