About SBIR Portal
A free, open-access search engine for federal SBIR/STTR opportunities. No account, no paywall, no data harvesting.
Our mission is to make the DoD SBIR/STTR solicitation process transparent and accessible to every small business. We aggregate data from the Defense SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal and make it searchable with AI-powered tools — at zero cost to the user.
What Makes Us Different
Not just another search engine. A RAG-powered research assistant built specifically for SBIR/STTR — and completely free.
Hybrid Search
Combines vector cosine similarity with full-text search via Reciprocal Rank Fusion (RRF) for results that are both semantically relevant and keyword-precise.
Deep Document Corpus
Every DoD SBIR/STTR topic pulled from DSIP, plus the solicitation PDFs behind them, broken into searchable passages and embedded at 4096 dimensions. Live counts are on this page.
AI Chat with RAG Context
Every chat response is grounded in real solicitation data. The AI retrieves relevant chunks before answering, reducing hallucination and citing sources.
Zero Cost to Use
No account required and no paywall. Powered by free-tier models via OpenRouter. We run self-hosted, privacy-respecting page analytics and never sell or share your data.
No Account Needed
Search, browse, and chat without signing up. Email is only requested for deadline notifications and is validated with MX record verification.
Full Model Transparency
We disclose every AI model, embedding model, and fallback we use. No hidden models, no secret fine-tuning. See the AI Transparency section below.
Data Sources
Our data comes exclusively from the DoD SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal (DSIP). Every topic, every PDF, fully indexed.
DoD DSIP
LiveDefense SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal — the official source for all DoD SBIR/STTR topics and solicitation opportunities. We index the full topic text plus the solicitation documents attached to it.
official source, continuously syncedSolicitation PDFs
LiveFull-text extraction from the solicitation PDFs attached to DSIP topics. Each one is chunked, embedded, and made searchable through hybrid search and RAG chat.
full text, fully indexedSBIR Portal is an independent, non-government tool. We are not affiliated with the DoD, DSIP, or any federal agency. Always verify opportunity details against the official DSIP portal before submitting proposals.
AI & Model Transparency
Full disclosure of every model powering this service. No hidden models, no secret fine-tuning.
Primary Chat Model
DeepSeek V4 Flash
via OpenRouter
Primary model for AI chat responses and per-topic analysis, with a 1M-token context window.
Fallback Chat Model
MiniMax M2.7
via OpenRouter
Activated automatically when the primary model is unavailable or rate-limited, so chat keeps working.
Embedding Model
Qwen3 Embedding 8B
via OpenRouter
Generates 4,096-dimension vector embeddings for every topic and PDF passage. Powers semantic search and retrieval.
All AI-generated responses should be verified against official government sources. SBIR Portal is an independent tool and is not affiliated with any government agency.
RAG Pipeline
Embed
Documents chunked and embedded with Qwen3 Embedding 8B (4,096 dimensions) into PostgreSQL + pgvector.
Search
Hybrid search combines vector cosine similarity with full-text search, merged via Reciprocal Rank Fusion.
Generate
Top chunks injected as context into DeepSeek V4 Flash (or MiniMax M2.7 fallback), grounding responses in real data.
Tech Stack
Built with modern, open-source tools. Zero vendor lock-in.
Next.js 16
App Router, React 19, server components, standalone output.
PostgreSQL + pgvector
Vector database for semantic search and RAG embeddings storage.
Tailwind CSS 4
Utility-first CSS with the Solar Dusk custom theme by tweakcn.
Docker
Containerized deployment with standalone Next.js build and Caddy reverse proxy.
Drizzle ORM
Typesafe, lightweight ORM for PostgreSQL schema management and queries.
Open Access
- +No account required — search and chat anonymously
- +No paywall, no subscription tiers
- +No data harvesting — we don't sell or share your information
Privacy
- +Email is optional — only for deadline notifications
- +MX record validation on all submitted emails
- +Full privacy policy at /privacy
Built by
Amyn Porbanderwala
Independent Project
Start Searching
Find open SBIR/STTR opportunities or ask our AI about any topic or solicitation. Completely free.