NSF America’s Seed Fund

Packet identity

Packet ID: opportunities:opp-nsf-seed
Packet SHA-256 identity: 7be016dc75a89794c1fc076658eeff504b04988f212c7dc4b1f9960f9539c898
Corpus SHA-256 identity: 8fa944604ca189f5a9216ca59f640ad2ca20972ad512f2f4970764716782e18d
Release ID: public-alpha-2026-07-26-research-visuals-r14
Source commit: 3eb036fce3d711336c8c605625895e8a2e799ab0
Frozen corpus date: 2026-07-25
Primary records: 1
Reference sources: 1

Questions and exclusions

Required questions

Required question 1 (exact ID: question-1)
Does the official source support the opportunity identity, status, timing, eligibility, and access constraints?
Required question 2 (exact ID: question-2)
Is the proposed fit specific and proportionate without implying availability, invitation, selection, or funding?
Required question 3 (exact ID: question-3)
What deadline, rule, jurisdiction, cost, conflict, or accessibility fact would change the proposed next action?

Explicit exclusions

Review does not submit, register, apply, contact, commit, purchase, or establish eligibility.
Provider prestige and apparent fit cannot replace current official terms.

Requested controlled scopes: ecosystem-due-diligence, opportunity-eligibility-access

Frozen-evidence decision window: 30 days from the packet freeze. Not applicable to this packet family.

Complete primary record set

Every record below has one primary packet owner. Decisions must bind to the exact record and packet fingerprints; a changed lesson body, evidence grade, citation, locator, source snapshot, requirement, policy, release, or commit expires the old packet.

opportunity · opp-nsf-seed

NSF America’s Seed Fund

Record fingerprint
257bb9bf65a3ab3a9bbbeb0b4f20d5226eb777ee909e69766e73f2cdd0be04a7

Minimum approvals
1

Required scope groups
bounded-competence: ecosystem-due-diligence, opportunity-eligibility-access

High-consequence domains
None under the named two-person rule

Review state
pending

Published human decisions
0

Inspect the complete frozen review surface

ID
opp-nsf-seed
Name
NSF America’s Seed Fund
URL
https://seedfund.nsf.gov/ (opens external site in a new tab)
Provider
National Science Foundation
Kind
Non-dilutive R&D
Timing
Recurring. Project Pitches reopened June 2, 2026 and may be submitted at any time; invited full proposals have current deadlines including July 27 and November 4, 2026, with annual deadlines thereafter.
Fit
Deep-tech assurance, water, manufacturing, AI, and resilience
Status
active; recurring
Verified At
2026-07-26
Eligibility
The applicant must be a qualifying U.S. small business with fewer than 500 employees and qualifying U.S. ownership. All R&D must be performed in the United States, and the principal investigator must meet the employment and effort rules. A Project Pitch invitation is required before a Phase I or Fast-Track proposal.
Access Notes
NSF funds high-risk, differentiated deep technology with commercial and societal potential, not ordinary engineering or a broad platform vision. A Project Pitch typically takes one to two months for a response, so the July 27 full-proposal deadline is not realistic for a new, uninvited pitch.
Founder Action
Frame one measurable deep-tech product and its technical risk, market, team, and R&D plan; assess fit and company eligibility before considering a Project Pitch, with separate authorization required for submission.
Evidence Boundary
Official NSF Seed Fund, eligibility, Project Pitch, critical-information, and current solicitation pages reviewed. No GShips entity eligibility, invitation, proposal, or award is implied.
Relationship
indexed only; no formal relationship
Action Status
proposed; not undertaken
Conflicts
Federal security, ownership, foreign-talent, data, commercialization, and parallel-submission rules require specialist review before any application.
What Would Change
New solicitations, revised deadlines, a Project Pitch decision, changes in entity ownership or team employment, or a more concrete product and R&D plan would alter the fit.
Current Until
2026-08-02

Equivalent record table for this packet
Record	Subject	Fingerprint	Approvals	Scope groups
opportunity:opp-nsf-seed	NSF America’s Seed Fund	`257bb9bf65a3ab3a9bbbeb0b4f20d5226eb777ee909e69766e73f2cdd0be04a7`	1	bounded-competence: ecosystem-due-diligence, opportunity-eligibility-access

Frozen source snapshots

Source inclusion does not determine the disposition. Reviewers must inspect the cited locator and relation, note inaccessible material, and identify stronger or conflicting evidence.

Sources, verification dates, scope notes, and exact fingerprints
Source ID	Source	Checked	Scope boundary	Fingerprint
official-opportunity-opp-nsf-seed	NSF America’s Seed Fund (opens external site in a new tab)	2026-07-26	Official NSF Seed Fund, eligibility, Project Pitch, critical-information, and current solicitation pages reviewed. No GShips entity eligibility, invitation, proposal, or award is implied.	`dc72a6d59259e38d0831f4c48f0e0dc75d4c8a62ba836fb9ca4ebb51031ab61a`

Offline packet and worksheet

Downloads contain no reviewer contact details. Downloading does not create an account or store a review response in the GShips application. Ordinary provider request or analytics logs may record the download request. Work locally: the public site has no review account, upload endpoint, or decision-submission API.

Frozen packet · JSON

13.5 KB · packet identity 7be016dc75a89794…

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Blank decision worksheet · JSON

3.0 KB · template identity bbf290575c1970bd…

Download blank JSON

Review-notes worksheet · Markdown

Readable notes companion only—not a decision-bundle equivalent. Use the closed JSON template for structural validation.

Download notes worksheet

Do not paste a completed decision, identity documents, private contact data, confidential conflict evidence, medical information, controlled material, or exploit details into a public form. Until a separately authorized private handoff exists, retain the completed worksheet locally.

Packet schema · JSON · Decision-bundle schema · JSON

Validate offline

Use Node.js 22.13.0 or later. Keep the packet, worksheet, completed decision, and all six kit files together in a local directory.

Download the six kit files below. Complete a copy of the JSON template offline and preserve its templateFingerprint.
Finalize a separate output file.
```
node finalize-review-decision.mjs \
  --input DRAFT.json \
  --output COMPLETED.json
```
This marks the copy complete and calculates an unkeyed canonical bundle fingerprint. A fingerprint detects changes; it is not a reviewer signature.
Validate the packet and completed copy.
```
node check-review-decisions.mjs \
  --packet PACKET.json \
  --decision COMPLETED.json
```
Add another --decision for each independent reviewer.
Interpret the result narrowly. A zero exit proves structural consistency only. Neither command appoints or qualifies a reviewer, establishes independence, accepts a decision, or authorizes publication.

Completion criteria

Every primary record must receive the required number of valid, current-fingerprint approvals; every complementary scope group and required domain must be covered; any unresolved revise, contest, or reject disposition blocks publication.

Named medical, reproductive, nuclear, radiation, cybersecurity, governance, and dual-use conclusions require two distinct qualified independent humans covering complementary domain-method and rights/public-interest scopes.

Reviewer identity, qualification, independence, conflicts, and compensation must be assessed by accountable human governance; local validation can only report structural validity.
Approve, revise, contest, reject, and recuse remain visible. A negative finding cannot be hidden by an aggregate approval percentage.
Revision creates a new record and packet fingerprint. Prior approvals do not carry forward automatically.
AI may assist with clerical comparison but cannot count as an independent reviewer, identity attestor, appeal authority, or second person.