SBIR Government Grants Scraper

SBIR Government Grants Scraper

Scrape SBIR and STTR awards from SBIR.gov by agency, phase, year, state, or keyword, up to a million per run. Each award comes with its company, topic code, research institution, and demographic flags. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

SBIR.gov's public award database holds every SBIR and STTR grant since 1982, but the web interface only shows one page at a time and has no bulk export. This Actor reads the public award feed directly, filters it by agency, phase, year, state, company, topic code, or keyword, and returns each match in one fixed schema. It works for market research, competitor tracking, and federal funding analysis without any API registration.

Who uses it	What they scrape SBIR.gov for
Market researchers	Which small businesses are winning federal R&D contracts in a given technology area
Startup founders	Which agencies and topics have funded companies like theirs, and at what award amounts
Grant consultants	Build a pipeline of past SBIR awardees to target for Phase II or STTR partnerships
Economic development agencies	Track which local companies received SBIR funding to support regional innovation clusters
Academic researchers	Analyze SBIR award trends by agency, state, or demographic category over time

What it does

This Actor collects SBIR and STTR award records from SBIR.gov and returns each one as a flat row with company, agency, phase, year, state, topic code, research institution, and demographic flags.

• 🎯 Agency filter: DOD, NSF, NASA, HHS, DOE, USDA, and 14 more, or all agencies at once.
• 📅 Phase and year: Phase I, Phase II, Phase IIB, and any award year from 1982 to 2025.
• 🔍 Keyword search: Free text across award titles and abstracts, so you can find awards about 'quantum sensors' or 'battery recycling'.
• 🏢 Company and institution: Partial match on company name, plus research institution for STTR awards.
• 📊 Demographic flags: HUBZone, socially and economically disadvantaged, and woman-owned business filters.
• ⏱️ Request delay control: Set the delay between requests to stay polite to the data service.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with SBIR.gov data

📈 Track competitor funding.

A startup founder runs the Actor with a keyword like 'lidar' and year 2024 to see which companies won SBIR awards in that space, then reads their abstracts to understand the technology direction.

🗺️ Map regional innovation.

An economic development agency filters by state and demographic to list all woman-owned SBIR awardees in their region, then uses the data to target outreach for a new incubator program.

🎓 Study federal R&D trends.

A university researcher pulls all NSF Phase I awards from 2015 to 2025 and groups them by topic code to show how funding priorities shifted over a decade.

🤝 Find STTR partners.

A grant consultant searches for STTR awards with a specific research institution to identify small businesses that already collaborate with universities, then reaches out about new joint proposals.

💼 Build a lead list.

A business development manager filters by agency and phase to get every DOD Phase II award from the last two years, then exports the company names and abstracts to qualify leads for a defense contracting service.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	SBIR.gov has no public API, so this Actor reads the award feed directly and returns clean JSON.
Bulk export	Get up to a million awards per run in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, ready for analysis.
Fixed schema	Every award comes back with the same fields, so you can merge runs and build time series.
Filter before you pay	Filters run as each award is read, so you only pay for the rows that match your criteria.

How it compares

This Actor scrapes SBIR.gov directly, while the US Grant Awards Tracker provides a normalized feed of SBIR, NIH, and NSF awards. Both return SBIR data, but this Actor gives you raw SBIR.gov fields and more granular filters.

Feature	ParseForge	US Grant Awards Tracker - SBIR, NIH & NSF Funding API
SBIR.gov award data	Yes	Yes
STTR award data	Yes	Yes
Filter by agency	Yes	Not listed
Filter by phase	Yes	Not listed
Filter by year	Yes	Not listed
Filter by state	Yes	Not listed
Keyword search on titles and abstracts	Yes	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from agency, phase, program, year, state, keywords, company name, topic code, research institution, and demographic filters, alone or together, and filters run as each award is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10,
 "agency": "NSF",
 "phase": "Phase I",
 "year": 2024
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200,
 "agency": "NSF",
 "phase": "Phase I",
 "year": 2024
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01734 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.73
1,000 results	$17.34
10,000 results	$173.40

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the SBIR Government Grants Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to SBIR.gov through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/sbir-government-grants-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your filters. The most common cause is a combination that is too narrow, such as a specific agency, phase, and year with no matching awards. Try removing one filter at a time to see which one eliminates all results.

Why is the run slow?

The Actor respects the requestDelayMs setting. If you set a high delay, the run will take longer. Lower the delay if the data service allows it, but be careful not to trigger rate limiting.

Why do I get a rate-limit error?

Increase the requestDelayMs value. Start with 500 milliseconds and increase until the errors stop. The data service may temporarily block aggressive scraping.

Why are some fields empty in the output?

Not every award has every field populated. For example, STTR awards have a research institution, but SBIR awards may not. Empty fields are normal and reflect the source data.

Can I get more than one million awards?

The maxItems input is capped at 1,000,000 per run. If you need more, split your query by year or agency and run the Actor multiple times, then merge the datasets.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is SBIR.gov?	SBIR.gov is the official database of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, which award federal R&D funding to small businesses. It contains award records from 1982 to the present.
Does this Actor require an API key or login?	No. The Actor reads the public award feed from SBIR.gov directly, so you do not need to register an application or manage OAuth tokens.
Can I filter by multiple agencies at once?	The agency filter accepts one agency per run. To get multiple agencies, run the Actor once per agency and merge the datasets, or leave the agency filter empty to include all agencies.
What is the difference between SBIR and STTR?	SBIR awards go to small businesses for R&D with commercial potential. STTR awards require the small business to collaborate with a nonprofit research institution, such as a university. The Actor can filter by program type.
How far back does the data go?	The award year filter accepts any year from 1982 to 2025. The underlying database contains awards from the program's start in 1982.
Can I search by company name?	Yes. The companyName input supports partial matches, so entering 'quantum' will return awards to companies with 'quantum' anywhere in their name.
What is a topic code?	Each SBIR solicitation has topic codes that identify the technical area. You can filter by a specific topic code to see all awards under that topic.
Does the Actor return award amounts?	The Actor returns the fields available in the public award feed, which include company, agency, phase, year, state, topic code, research institution, and demographic flags. Award amounts are not part of the public feed.
Can I export the results to Excel?	Yes. The Actor supports CSV, JSON, Excel, and XML export formats, so you can open the results directly in Excel or load them into a database.
How do I avoid getting rate-limited?	The requestDelayMs input lets you set the delay between requests. The default is 200 milliseconds. If you see rate-limit errors, increase the delay.
Is this Actor affiliated with the U.S. government?	No. This is an independent tool built by ParseForge. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by SBIR.gov or the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Can I run this Actor on a schedule?	Yes. You can schedule the Actor to run daily, weekly, or monthly from the Apify platform, so your dataset stays current with new award announcements.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by U.S. Small Business Administration. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.