TopicScout
Built for SBIR/STTR shops

We read SAM.gov so you don’t.

Every open SBIR/STTR topic, scored 1–10 against your capability statement. Weekly digest, ITAR filtered.

Paste a paragraph, get a ranked digest in 45 seconds. No signup, no card.

open federal solicitations scanned today

Prefer not to paste a cap statement? Drop your email and I’ll send you a manually-curated sample within 2 business days. Reply ‘stop’ any time.

The status quo wastes a half-day a week.

Most small R&D shops have one engineer skimming federal solicitations. It’s the worst use of senior time, and the good topics close before they surface.

01

4–8 hours of skimming, weekly

Reading every new SAM.gov, SBIR.gov, and Grants.gov posting hoping to find the two or three that matter.

02

Good topics close before you notice

Open windows are often 30 days. Generic keyword alerts surface them too late and too noisily.

03

ITAR / CUI is a real exposure

One controlled notice forwarded to the wrong subcontractor is a problem. We strip those before the digest leaves our servers.

How it works

Two minutes to set up. Two minutes to read each Friday.

  1. 1

    Send us your capability statement.

    One PDF, one paragraph, or a link to your website — whatever you already have. We turn it into the matching profile.

  2. 2

    We scan the federal feeds every day.

    New topics get hard-filtered for ITAR / CUI / classified, then scored against your profile by a Claude classifier with a written rationale per topic.

  3. 3

    You get one email on Friday morning.

    Ranked, deduped, with deadlines and direct links. Two minutes of reading replaces a half-day of browsing.

A real digest

Run against the public capability statement of a NIH-funded regenerative-biomaterials firm. The classifier scored six solicitations; three are shown.

TopicScout digest · Week of May 16, 2026
3 of 6 shown
PA-26-307 — SBIR Direct-to-Phase II: Injectable Biomaterial Scaffolds for Osteoporotic Vertebral Augmentation
10 / 10
NIH / NIAMS · SBIR Direct-to-Phase II · Closes Jul 22, 2026

Your injectable, percutaneously delivered, biodegradable bone adhesive matches every enumerated requirement: fatigue over PMMA, bioactive regeneration, fluoroscopic-compatible delivery, and large-animal preclinical data. Gap: the topic asks for IND-enabling toxicology; your current biocompatibility package targets IDE — confirm whether existing data clears the NIAMS bar before committing.

W81XWH-26-PRORP-TRA — Image-Guided Bone-Adhesive Stabilization in Combat-Casualty Trauma
10 / 10
DoD USAMRDC / CDMRP / PRORP · Translational Research Award · Closes Aug 4, 2026

PRORP’s call for “bone-adhesive biomaterials with image-guided percutaneous delivery and prior preclinical evidence of regenerative bone-remodeling” maps one-to-one onto your osteoconductive injectable adhesive. Deal-breaker to watch: 510(k) or De Novo plan required at submission — your NIH path is IDE/PMA; the regulatory narrative needs reconciling.

PA-26-145 — STTR Phase I: Bioresorbable Augmentation Materials for Age-Related Vertebral Compression Fracture
9 / 10
NIH / NIA · STTR Phase I · Closes Sep 15, 2026

Your bioresorbable osteoconductive adhesive fits NIA’s call for materials that improve “long-term bone remodeling in age-related VCF.” Gap: STTR requires a formal university subaward — your existing academic collaborators in regenerative biomaterials would be the natural anchor (STTR rules require the subaward go to a research institution, not a CRO).

Simple, monthly pricing

Monthly, no annual contract. Cancel any time from the customer portal.

Solo
$29 / mo
  • 1 capability statement
  • Weekly Friday digest
  • NIH + DoD CDMRP + NSF + Grants.gov
  • ITAR / CUI pre-filter
  • Email support
Subscribe — $29/mo
Most firms pick this
Team
$99 / mo
  • Up to 3 capability statements
  • Per-statement digest routing
  • Everything in Solo
  • Priority email support
  • 30-min onboarding call
Subscribe — $99/mo

Frequently asked

How is this different from SAM.gov’s built-in alerts?

SAM.gov alerts are keyword filters — they send every notice that contains “machine learning” whether the topic fits your shop or not, and they don’t rank or filter ITAR. We read each topic and score it against your specific capability statement.

Do you cover STTR as well as SBIR?

Yes — SBIR and STTR from all twelve participating agencies (DoD, NIH, NASA, DOE, NSF, USDA, DHS, ED, DOT, EPA, NOAA, HHS). STTR-specific topics are tagged in the digest.

How fast can I start receiving digests?

If you sign up today with your capability statement, your first digest goes out the next Friday. There’s no onboarding bottleneck on our end.

Can I try it before I subscribe?

Yes. The live matcher runs the same pipeline against this week’s open solicitations — paste your capability statement and you get a ranked digest in under a minute. No card, no signup. If the matches look right, the subscription gets you the same thing automatically every Friday.

Where do you get your data?

The public SAM.gov Opportunities API, the SBIR.gov topic feed, and the Grants.gov daily XML extract — all refreshed daily. We don’t scrape and we don’t republish full solicitation text. Just titles, deadlines, agencies, and our per-topic rationale.

Who’s behind this?

An independent engineer, not a venture-backed team. The pipeline is one operator and Claude; emails get answered the same day. Reach me at jcavallo@alumni.colgate.edu.

JC
From the founder

Built and run by one engineer.

I’m James — I built TopicScout because I watched friends running 5–25 person R&D shops lose half a day every week reading SAM.gov. There’s no sales team here. Emails come to me. If a digest misses an obvious match for your shop, reply and I’ll fix the classifier the same week.

Reach me directly at jcavallo@alumni.colgate.edu.

See it work on your own capability statement.

The live matcher runs the same pipeline against this week’s open SBIR/STTR + Grants.gov solicitations. No signup, no card — a ranked digest in about a minute.

If the matches look right, $29/mo gets you the same digest every Friday automatically.