Startups

National Science Foundation
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency established by Congress under the National Science Foundation Act of1950, PublicLaw81-507. It promotes science, national health, prosperity and welfare, and national defense primarily through research and education grants, institutional partnerships and scientific infrastructure. The exact nsf.gov institution is retained independently of NIH, other federal agencies, private foundations, similarly named international research councils and individual public officials. It is a public grantmaking institution, not a commercial venture manager, investment bank or LP fund. NSF supports fundamental science and engineering, including AI, computing, biological and cognitive science, advanced engineering, quantum research, research infrastructure and technology translation. Its general basic-research mandate excludes medical sciences, while technology-focused awards can address health-related applications such as SleepSpace’s wearable-and-sensory sleep research. Directorates and administrative offices are internal NSF units and are not duplicate institutional cash buyers. General agency appropriations, programme budgets, planned allocations, grant award obligations and actual recipient bank disbursements are distinct. No agency budget is recorded as a raised venture fund. The current primary public leadership directory names44 individuals across46 scoped leadership roles. It explicitly lists the NSF Director and DeputyDirector posts as vacant. BrianStone is Chief ofStaff performing the duties of the NSFDirector; RebeccaKeiser is ActingChief ofStaff. Acting designations and each office/directorate scope are preserved. The current NationalScienceBoard member page says new appointments are pending, so no older chair/member roster is asserted as current. The leadership directory is the complete named public leadership scope captured here, rather than a claimed census of the agency’s wider staff, programme officers or external advisers. Eight genuine adjacent primary publisher portraits are included;36 individually named portraits remain unverified and are explicitly documented rather than represented by placeholders. Earlier biography/photo captions do not override current official leadership titles. The institutional funding graph can represent source-proven research awards without implying equity ownership. NSF award1622766 names MobileSleepTechnologiesLLC, principal investigator DanielGartenberg, STTRPhaseI sleep-wearables/sensory research, June24,2016 award notice and July1 project start. Its USD224,996 obligated amount and matching estimated award total identify the same award, not two financings; bank disbursement is unproved. SleepSpace’s issuer owner maintains its sole exact award relationship. Individual leadership, research-supervision and principal-investigator roles do not establish personal investments. No private LP funds or corporate financing rounds are invented for the federal agency.
Founded 1950









