due to initial low quality in part driven by inexperience in grant proposal writing) and a high of 26% (10 of 39 applicants in the November 2006 batch).

To mid-2011, SBIRI has deployed $36 million, of which $5 million in grants and $31 million in soft loans, with a debt-to-grant ratio of roughly 6 to 1. Public SBIRI funding has leveraged an additional $33 million in private investment by recipient enterprises as their core contribution, for a total investment of $69 million across approved projects. The average public investment of about $420,000 per venture is roughly equivalent to the average of the US SBIR program.<sup>17</sup> This is due to the nature of projects supported by SBIRI not being restricted to pre-seed stage funding but also helping support follow-on project development seed funding requirements.

**Table 1: SBIRI applications and approvals (as of June 30, 2011)**

|CALLS|**1**|**2**|**3**|**4**|**5**|**6**|**7**|**8**|**9**|**10**|**11**|**12**|**13**|**14**|**15**|**Total**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Closing date <br>|**Oct05 **|**June06 **|**Nov06 **|**Mar07 **|**July07 **|**Nov07 **|**Feb08 **|**June08 **|**Oct08 **|**Mar09 **|**June09 **|**Dec09 **|**May10 **|**Oct10 **|**Feb11**||
|**Healthcare**|**38**|**49**|**17**|**25**|**22**|**22**|**21**|**29**|**13**|**35**|**26**|**24**|**16**|**26**|**23**|**386**|
|**Agriculture**|**15**|**19**|**4**|**12**|**9**|**15**|**8**|**12**|**4**|**10**|**9**|**18**|**11**|**10**|**8**|**164**|
|**Industrial**<br>**Processes**|**5**|**19**|**12**|**6**|**6**|**8**|**3**|**6**|**12**|**11**|**9**|**7**|**7**|**3**|**7**|**121**|
|**Instrumen.**<br>**& Devices**|**6**|**9**|**5**|**4**|**1**|**7**|**1**|**0**|**0**|**2**|**1**|**3**|**0**|**4**|**3**|**46**|
|**Environm.**|**1**|**1**|**1**|**2**|**2**|**5**|**2**|**4**|**1**|**1**|**1**|**0**|**1**|**4**|**2**|**28**|
|**Bioinfor-**<br>**matics+**||||||||**1**|**0**|**4**|**5**|**3**|**0**|**2**|**2**|**17**|
|**Food**<br>**Bio-**<br>**techn.+**||||||||**2**|**1**|**0**|**3**|**2**|**0**|**2**|**1**|**11**|
|**Others**|**6**|**1**|**0**|**4**|**0**|**3**|**2**|**2**||||||||**18**|
|**Total**|**71**|**98**|**39**|**53**|**39**|**60**|**37**|**56**|**31**|**63**|**54**|**57**|**35**|**51**|**47**|**791**|
|Approved<br>projects|8|18|10|7|6|7|7|7|4|10|2|0|0|0|0|86|
|RATIO|11.3%|18.4%|25.6%|13.2%|15.4%|11.7%|18.9%|12.5%|12.9%|15.9%|3.7%|0%|0%|0%|0%|10.9%|

# Source: DBT SBIRI database.

Note: Bioinformatics and Food biotechnology areas are tracked separately from the 8<sup>th</sup> batch onwards (prior to that, they were combined under ̳Others‘). Proposals received under batches 11 onwards are still under consideration, with 2 additional proposals under batch 11 and 4 proposals under batch 12 going through the final process of approvals, bringing the approved total to 92 as of September 30, 2011.

There has been an increase in the number of applications in the areas of bio-informatics and food biotechnology over time, leading to these areas being separately monitored as of June 2008. There is typically a time lag in granting final approval for some of the proposals due to the applicants not possessing recognition by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) for their research facility, which is a mandatory requirement for SBIRI

> 17 Since 1992, funding under the US SBIR phase I has typically been up to $100,000 while phase II awards have ranged up to $750,000, though it is not uncommon for awards to exceed these thresholds. US SBIR awards in fiscal year 2005 totaled $1.85 billion, with almost $1 billion being awarded by the Department of Defense. The average award size was roughly $315,000, with phase I awards averaging $110,000 and phase II awards averaging $760,000; see Table 1 in Link and Scott (2010).

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