***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1. Final Technology Readiness Level (TRL) as reported by NASA, estimated using linear regressions of the 2009–2016 NASA SBIR/STTR award data. The treatment group is microfirms (1-10 employees) and untreated observations are weighted with the entropy balancing algorithm using the firm history and the number of patents as covariates. Standard errors are clustered by firm. Initial TRL is reported by the PI in the proposal