# NSF Awards Portland Biotech $1.25M SBIR

The National Science Foundation awarded Portland-based Caravel Bio a $1,246,984 SBIR Phase II grant to scale its AI-enabled protein engineering platform, expand it to additional enzyme classes, and advance selected products toward pilot deployment. The award supports development of tools and data for protein engineering; it is an award, not an open solicitation, so contractors and research organizations should treat it as a signal of federal investment rather than a bidding opportunity.

- The funded work may create adjacent opportunities for research organizations and contractors supporting protein engineering, biotechnology data generation, industrial biotechnology, and scalable manufacturing.
- Companies can use the award’s focus on expanding enzyme classes and progressing products toward pilot deployment to assess potential capabilities or research collaborations with Caravel Bio.
- The related signal also identifies a separate $7.8 million NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships award announced in October 2025; organizations tracking Caravel Bio’s federal funding should distinguish it from this Phase II grant.
- Further award details were not provided in one report. Companies seeking additional information can follow Caravel Bio and relevant federal SBIR announcements, as noted in the source signals.

**Jurisdictions:** federal
**Industries:** Healthcare, Information Technology
**Topics:** Grants & Funding, Artificial Intelligence
**Published:** October 28, 2026

### Government Entities
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
- NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP)

### Vendors
- Caravel Bio (awardee)

### Key Quotes
> When an experiment costs a fraction of a cent instead of tens of dollars, you stop asking which handful of ideas might work and instead start testing all of them.
> — Emily Bowman, Chief Scientific Officer of Caravel Bio

> I’ve seen firsthand how much AI in biology is still held back by a lack of the right data, not a lack of ambition.
> — Michał Jastrzębski, Chief Technology Officer of Caravel Bio

### Sources
- [Portland biotech Caravel Bio awarded SBIR Phase II - Portland Business Journal](https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2026/10/28/caravel-bio-nsf-phase-ii-sbir.html) - The Business Journals
- [Caravel Bio Secures $1.25M NSF Grant, Appoints Michał Jastrzębski CTO | citybiz](https://www.citybiz.co/article/926049/caravel-bio-secures-1-25m-nsf-grant-appoints-michal-jastrzebski-cto) - citybiz