Kona Fish Farm Gets State Grant

Kampachi Farms LLC, a marine fish aquaculture firm located at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority in Kona, is one of four Hawaii firms funded recently with grants from the Hawaii Small Business Innovation Research matching-grant program.

The grants are awarded by INNOVATE Hawaii, a program of the High Technology Development Corporation.

Kampachi Farms received $99,970 in matching state grant funds from HTDC after receiving two federal SBIR phase-one grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture totaling $199,940, a Hawaii SBIR release said Monday.

“The federal SBIR program has become a crucial source of funding for many of Hawaii’s small businesses, including some of our most successful technology companies,” said HTDC Executive Director and CEO Robbie Melton. “So far, nearly 100 companies have received more than $98 million in federal SBIR funds.”

“We want to see more Hawaii companies take advantage of this funding source,” Melton said. “HTDC’s federal program, INNOVATE Hawaii, has resources that can help companies with grant writing and getting their products to market.”

Hawaii companies that receive federal phase one SBIR awards are eligible to apply for HTDC’s matching-grant program, which provides up to 50 percent of the federal awards to assist in winning more lucrative phase-two awards and reaching commercialization.

Kampachi Farms was among four awardees statewide receiving a total of $248,310 in the most recent matching grants. The others were:

• Pacific Rim Defense, a Honolulu-based company and first-time SBIR award-winner, which was awarded $79,602 from the Naval Sea Systems Command to develop software that integrates total power usage information for ships. The company received an additional $25,000 from HTDC.
• Oceanit, a Honolulu research and development firm, which was awarded $50,000 in matching grants for two Air Force phase-one awards. The projects are an ice-repellent coating technology for aircraft and a software platform for retina evaluation.
• TeraSys Technologies, a wireless interference analysis and custom mitigation company, received $150,000 from the U.S. Army for wireless communications product development and was awarded an additional $73,340 in Hawaii SBIR grant funds.

The program was created in 1989 by Hawaii legislators to encourage local companies to participate in the federal SBIR program, which has become an important funding source for Hawaii technology companies to bring their innovations to market, said a program release.

For more information on the HISBIR matching grant program, visit http://www.htdc.org/sbir.