Army Picks 10 Firms for ‘xTechSearch’ Accelerator Effort

The U.S. Army has selected 10 companies that will compete for $250K in prizes for the Expeditionary Technology Search 4.0 competition focused on providing avenues for small businesses to work with the service branch.

Zeke Topolosky, engineer at Army Research Laboratory, and Matthew Willis, director of laboratory management at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, announced the semifinalists in a video posted Thursday.

Willis said the selected firms will also become members of a startup accelerator sponsored by Army xTechSearch and take part in networking, mentorship and other collaborative activities over the next phases of the competition.

He noted that the accelerator’s goal is to integrate small businesses into the science and technology ecosystem, support customer discovery efforts and “develop feasible transition paths” for resulting technologies.

According to an Inside Defense report published Thursday, the firms will each receive $120K as part of the competition.

The selected firms’ technologies encompass areas such as autonomous vehicles, medical systems, 360-degree thermal imaging, data analytics and satellite communications.

Awardees are as follows:

• Bounce Imaging 

• GeneCapture 

• Inductive Ventures

• IoT/AI 

• Kericure

• Lynq Technologies 

• MEI Micro

• Multiscale Systems 

• Novaa 

• Vita Inclinata Technologies

The Army is also seeking white papers for xTechSearch’s fifth iteration through March 31.