Vitro3D Inc., a startup that spun out of research at the University of Colorado Boulder, leveraged federal grants to create a new manufacturing technology that could revolutionize orthodontics and the treatment of arthritis.

But will such grants continue under the Trump administration?

“I think we’re in a time of real uncertainty right now,” said Brynmor Rees, associate vice chancellor for innovation and partnerships and director of Venture Partners at CU Boulder, the university’s technology-transfer arm. “There’s so much swirling around with no hard information to know what’s serious and what’s not.

“Those grants play a critical role in bridging companies to be more commercially successful downstream,” he said. “It’s been such a crucial program to make sure federally funded research has that next stop to transform from research to commercial application.”

Buoyed by the grants, Rees said. Vitro3D is developing “totally breakthrough advanced-materials technology that’s much faster than traditional 3D printing.” It’s creating dental aligners that are an alternative to braces and hopes to develop cartilage regeneration.

Vitro3D was founded in 2020 by Camila Uzcategui and Johnny Hergert, Ph.D. students in CU Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, to bring to market the volumetric 3D printing technology they developed there. Besides getting help from various venture challenges, the company joined Fort Collins-based Innosphere Ventures’ Colorado Life Sciences Incubator cohort with backing from the Buff Venture Fund. But a key piece was last year’s grant through the Small Business Innovation Research program, designed by the U.S. Small Business Administration to help small businesses conduct research and development.

“They’ve raised several million through multiple private venture rounds and leveraged SBIR grant funding,” Rees said. “That’s such a critical step for innovative companies as they transition to private investment.”

Boulder Chamber president and CEO John Tayer noted that “SBIR grants and other federally funded research programs are a critical cornerstone for advancing innovation and entrepreneurship.

“The success that we’ve seen these types of grants generate over many years has been critical not only for Boulder’s economy, but our national economy,” he said. “It would be very unfortunate to cut back on that kind of thoughtful investment that has such great return.”

Eleven federal agencies — including the National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and NASA — offer SBIR grants, and five of those also participate in STTR, the Small Business Technology Transfer program.

Both awards go directly to a company, but under STTR, a company must subcontract to a research university. Under SBIR, the principal investigator has to be at least 51% employed at the company.The grants are broken into three “phases.” Phase 1 is meant to establish the technical merit, feasibility and commercial potential of the proposed R&D efforts and to determine the quality of performance of the small business receiving the grant. Phase 2 pays to continue the research started under Phase 1, and Phase 3 helps awardees pursue commercialization.

After a grant is received, an auditing process makes sure the recipients are using the funds for the project that’s being funded.

SBIR and STTR grants involving drug innovations have totaled more than $1.4 billion since 2020, according to analytics company GlobalData’s Pharma Intelligence Center Grants Database.

Dozens of Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado businesses, especially startups in industry clusters such as life sciences and aerospace, rely on SBIR and STTR grants for their operations. Earlier this month, for instance, Lafayette-based Xairos Systems Inc. received a $1.9 million SBIR contract from SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force, for work on quantum clock and optical synchronization technologies.

But will such grants continue?

Within a week after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo directing federal agencies to temporarily pause “all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance” except for programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

On Jan. 28, Defense News, which reports on the U.S. military and defense industries, reported that it was told SBIR and STTR funding had “not yet” been affected by the OMB memo, at least in terms of defense-related work. It said it was told by a Pentagon spokesperson that “SBIR/STTR programs are funded through contracts. They are not considered grants or financial assistance. As such, we have not been applying the OMB memo to the SBIR/STTR program.”

The administration issued a series of directives aimed at the National Institutes of Health that signaled headwinds in securing grant funding for biopharmaceutical research and development. Those directives included abrupt cancellation of grant review panels, which could postpone NIH-funded clinical trials and force some biotech companies to scale back drug development. On Feb. 8, NIH announced a $4 billion cut to overhead funding for biomedical research, but three days later, a federal district judge in Massachusetts placed a temporary restraining order on the action in response to a lawsuit filed by associations representing the nation’s medical, pharmacy and public-health schools as well as hospitals in the Boston- and New York areas. Meanwhile, Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser and his counterparts from 22 other states sued the Trump administration over its proposal to suspend federal grant programs.

Amid the flurry of directives from the White House as well as Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” however, uncertainty reigns — especially since some of the edicts have been either reversed or delayed by court rulings.

“We’re still monitoring the situation regarding SBIR and STTR grants under the new administration,” Hannah W. Krieger, state director of the Colorado Small Business Development Center Network, told BizWest in an email. “We haven’t received definitive information about any specific changes to the programs.

“We understand these grants are crucial for many entrepreneurs, and our TechSource program supports those pursuing them,” she wrote. “We’ll continue to track any developments and share updates as they become available.”

Added Keri Ungemah, chief marketing officer at the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, “we have not received information about the SBIR and STTR grants.”

Elyse Blazevich, president and CEO of the Colorado BioScience Association, told BizWest that Colorado companies and academic and research institutions received close to $500 million in federal grants from the NIH and NSF in 2024 alone, supporting life sciences research and development, and that many of these dollars are deployed through the SBIR and STTR programs.

“More than 40 life sciences companies and organizations, including all five of Colorado’s R-1 designated research universities and the country’s leading respiratory hospital received federal funding in 2024,” she said. “Suspended or reduced federal funding is a major blow to our state’s leadership in health innovation. Colorado BioScience Association is concerned about the long-term impacts of delayed or frozen federal funds for our member companies, academic and research institutions, our state’s economy, and ultimately, the patients we serve. When treatments and cures are at risk, so are patients and the health of our community.”

Richard Magid, Colorado State University’s vice president for technology transfer, said advisers at the school’s tech-transfar arm, CSU STRATA, are urging spinoff startups to diversify funding and grant applications and not to “put all their eggs in one basket.”

At CU Boulder, Rees said, until events settle a bit, “we’re saying still go for it. We still see people applying, and we still help our small businesses apply, especially when they’re collaborating with the university.”

BizWest managing editor Lucas High contributed to this report.