Army xTech is how the U.S. Army finds technology it didn't know existed. It runs a family of prize competitions — open-topic ones like xTechSearch and themed ones like xTechPacific, xTech|Inversion, xTech|Kinetic Reach and xTech|Edge Strike: Ground — and pays cash to the best ideas.
The prize is non-dilutive. You don't give up equity, you don't sign a contract to collect it, and you keep your intellectual property. That's rare in defense funding, and it's why xTech is a natural first step for stealth teams and pre-incorporation founders who aren't ready to take on a government contract yet.
A typical themed round puts around $1M on the table — for example, roughly a dozen finalists at $20K each and a handful of winners at $150K each. The numbers vary by competition, so always read the specific RFI.
The pattern is consistent: you submit a short concept white paper; a shortlist of finalists is invited to a virtual or live pitch in front of Army and Department of War subject-matter experts; and the strongest teams are named winners, sometimes after a live experimentation event where Soldiers actually touch the hardware.
Before you write the white paper, a single clean simulation figure signals engineering rigor — ask us about an Ansys evaluation license to generate one.
See if you qualify for an Ansys eval The MVP playbook →The cash is nice. The lane is better. xTech winners earn an exclusive invitation to submit an Army SBIR Phase I proposal — up to ~$250K — or, if the tech is already mature, a Direct-to-Phase-II proposal worth up to ~$2M. That's the on-ramp from a prize check to a real, funded R&D program with a transition partner. For how that path works step by step, see the xTech-to-SBIR path.
Cash-prize rounds are often open to any U.S. business, which is unusually broad. The SBIR follow-on requires you to be a U.S. small business. If that's you, xTech is one of the lowest-friction ways to get the Army's attention — and get paid for it.
Official sources: xTech competitions · Army SBIR program. Figures change; confirm on the official page before relying on them.
