PUNCH CYBER CORP — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH (SBIR) PHASE II PROGRAM, REPLICANTS: SYNTHETIC USER PER
PUNCH CYBER CORP — SBIR Phase II award from Department of Defense.
Phase II SBIR prototype / development signal
- Phase II is where Department of Defense funds deeper R&D after feasibility. Incumbents with Phase II history are serious competitors on adjacent topics.
- Use this award as past-performance context and to map customer organizations for STRATFI/TACFI-style transition planning.
- At $2,792,289, this is a large obligation for typical SBIR Phase sizing — worth reviewing for scope breadth and teaming opportunity.
- Tagged technology areas: Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence/ML, Modeling & Simulation. Follow those hubs for open topics and peer winners in the same cluster.
Summary
Punch Cyber Corp received nearly $2.8 million from DARPA for SBIR Phase II to build Replicants, synthetic user personas that simulate realistic human behavior. The goal is to enable safe, repeatable cybersecurity testing and experimentation without relying on actual users.
- Amount
- $2,792,289
- Agency
- Department of Defense · Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase II
- NAICS
- 541715 · RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHYSICAL, ENGINEERING, AND LIFE SCIENCES (EXCEPT NANOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY)
- Place of performance
- VA
- Period
- 2023-07-20 → 2026-09-10
Technology domains
Cybersecurity Artificial Intelligence/ML Modeling & Simulation
Description
SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH (SBIR) PHASE II PROGRAM, REPLICANTS: SYNTHETIC USER PERSONAS FOR CYBER SECURITY EXPERIMENTATION