Private Capital Investor Cohort

Submissions Closed 27 September 2024 11:59 PM ET
U.S. Citizens Only

Purpose
SOFWERX, in collaboration with USSOCOM, will host an Assessment Event to identify investors that can identify, support, and develop accelerator solutions for fielding Special Operations Forces (SOF) capability.

Background/Synopsis
USSOCOM requires an investor cohort to accelerate capability development across all USSOCOM Program Executive Offices. Focused on SOF contract awardees, participants selected for this investor cohort must understand markets and technologies aligned with SOF interests and have expertise in academic and accelerator services. Understanding that awardee maturity can happen through commercial revenue, Prime partnerships, Phase III contracts, private investment, and other government opportunities, a participant must have expertise on all means to actualize the capability.

Objective
The objective is to provide a purpose-driven community around accelerating SOF capability development. This Private Capital Investor Cohort (PCIC) will host in-person and virtual events focused on best practices to deliver new capabilities at speed and scale to SOF.

Why You Should Participate
USSOCOM seeks to enter into non-FAR or FAR-based agreements with Investment Community partners whose proposals are favorably evaluated by USSOCOM Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). As such, the follow-on Assessment Event (AE) is considered competitive, and proposals will be evaluated independently of one another primarily for technical merit. This serves dually as notification of the intent to research the feasibility of an agreement under 10 U.S. Code, Section 4022 and/or Section 4022(f), and as notice of pre-solicitation activities IAW FAR 5.204.

Event Timeline
Completed Phase 1 - 28 August 2024 to 27 September 2024 Submissions to the Assessment Event (AE) Open: Interested respondents who could potentially provide proposals that meet the needs of USSOCOM are encouraged to submit their plan of action for USSOCOM review. To submit your proposal for potential Phase 3 attendance, please review the assessment criteria and follow the submission instructions that are near the bottom of this webpage.

Completed Phase 1a - 05 September 2024 Q&A Telecon: Interested offerors may participate in a virtual Q&A session to better understand the PM's specific program objectives. The telecon will take place on 05 September from 11:00 AM ET - 12:00 PM ET.

Phase 2 - 30 September 2024 to 11 October 2024 Downselect: USSOCOM will downselect those respondents/submissions they feel have the highest potential to satisfy their program needs. Favorably evaluated submissions will receive an invitation to attend the AE on/around 15 October.

Phase 3 - 22 October 2024 to 24 October 2024 Assessment Event (AE): During the AE, selected participants will be allotted a one-on-one session with the USSOCOM evaluation panel to pitch, demonstrate, and/or discuss their plans of action. The forum will include a Q&A portion and discussions may continue outside of the event. Proposal brief presentation guidelines will be outlined in the event invitation and proposals will be assessed according to the criteria in the link provided below. If the USSOCOM evaluation panel favorably evaluates a proposal, negotiations for Phase 4 may immediately begin.

This event will be held virtually, with the option to attend in person at SOFWERX. 

Phase 4 - Path Forward: Successfully negotiated awards may fall under any combination of these categories:

• Business to business research and development agreement as a sub-award through the SOFWERX Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) (15 U.S. Code Section 3715)
• OTA for research or prototype projects (10 U.S. Code Sections 4021, 4022)
  • An award under 10 U. S. Code, Section 4022 may result in the further award of a follow-on production agreement without additional competition based on successful prototype completion. The Government may make this follow-on production award based upon successful prototype criteria, which will be determined for each prototype project.
• Procurement for experimental purposes (10 U.S. Code Section 4023)
• Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (15 U.S. Code Section 3710a)
• Prizes for advanced technology achievements (10 U. S. Code Section 4025) and/or prize competitions (15 U.S. Code 3719)
• FAR-based procurement contract 

NOTE: Awardees may need to be compliant with NIST SP 800-171, Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in Non-Federal Systems and Organizations