OUR COMPANY & MISSION
The Story Behind iScout and Third Coast Federal
A mission built to give innovators, researchers, and industry access to succeed in the federal ecosystem.
How do we bridge the gap between evolving defense needs and the Midwest’s industrial capability?
We launched Third Coast Federal with this simple question.
For decades, the DoD has struggled to tap into the Midwest’s unmatched industrial capability—shipbuilding, electronics, autonomous systems, and more. The barrier isn’t talent, cost, or space; the Midwest has low-cost, highly skilled workers and vast test beds ready for innovation.
The challenge is access: DoD often overlooks this region, while Midwest industry struggles to engage with defense opportunities. This is the yin and yang—DoD is missing out on vital industrial power, and the Midwest is missing out on defense engagement.
We knew there was a better way. So we built it.
To directly address these challenges, Third Coast Federal and the University of Notre Dame co-developed iScout under an Air Force STTR award.
The goal was simple: Create an AI-powered platform capable of connecting the DoD’s evolving needs to the Midwest’s industrial innovators—instantly—unlocking a source of capability the defense ecosystem has long missed.
Get Found.
Stay Informed.
Move Faster.
Create a free account to discover opportunities—and make your organization discoverable across the innovation ecosystem.
About iScout
iScout is an innovation-centric market intelligence platform that dramatically reduces the time and effort required to perform tech scouting, market research, and opportunity matching.
Solving the DoD’s scouting challenge, iScout enables:
Instantly evaluate complex problem statements against the capabilities of the broader marketplace
Search by technical concepts, known companies, or natural language
Identify innovators beyond the traditional DoD supply chain
Surface relevant SBIR/STTR awards, contracts, web pages, patents, and academic research
Built on one of the most comprehensive datasets:
1.5M+ businesses
All SBIR/STTR awards
SAM.gov entity data
10 years of USASpending data
Crunchbase + DSBS
10M+ business web pages
Coming soon: Patents, scholarly articles, faculty profiles, and all SAM.gov and Challenge.gov opportunities
Uses advanced AI and large language models to:
Classify millions of documents, awards, and technical descriptions
Map the innovation landscape through a proprietary knowledge graph
Match businesses, technologies, innovations, and faculty to specific DoD challenges
Recommend collaborators, technologies, and proposal pathways
What We Do
Scout Technology & Innovation
Third Coast Federal identifies emerging technologies, companies, and research aligned with DoD and commercial priorities, leveraging iScout’s AI-powered intelligence to speed discovery.
Build High-Performing Teams
Third Coast Federal connects organizations with faculty, industry partners, small businesses, and investors to strengthen proposals and expand innovation capabilities.
Win Federal Program Funding
We guide innovators through SBIR/STTR and other federal programs, helping them shape competitive proposals and secure $600,000 to $4.1M+ in nondilutive funding.
Commercialize Technology
We help innovators move from concept to market, supporting commercialization pathways for both DoD needs and commercial applications.
Innovation is Waiting.
Find it With iScout.
Join the ecosystem and start discovering new opportunities.