BIRD Foundation US Israel Bilateral R&D Grant: Up to $1.5M Non Dilutive Funding, Executive Summaries Due November 19, 2026

If you are building serious hardware or deep technology and you have a natural partner on the other side of the US–Israel line, the BIRD Foundation is one of the few places where a genuinely non-dilutive seven-figure check is on the table.

The structure sits in a rare spot: up to 50 percent of your joint R&D costs, capped at a maximum conditional grant of 1.5 million USD per project, with no equity and no IP taken. That is real capital to build a product, not a research paper, and it comes with a binational stamp of approval that investors and corporate buyers recognize.

The program is run by the Israel–US Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD Foundation). The next Executive Summary deadline is November 19, 2026, with project approvals expected in March 2027. Full proposals are not submitted on that date — they follow later, by invitation, only after BIRD gives your Executive Summary a positive recommendation.

Where most technology grants lean academic, BIRD is unapologetically commercial. Reviewers expect a real joint R&D project and a credible path to market, not a vague promise of future applications. In exchange, BIRD takes no equity and no ownership of your intellectual property. You repay through royalties on sales only if the project generates revenue. If the product never commercializes, the money stays a grant.

Let’s break down how the current cycle works, who should be applying, and how to build a submission that survives the first cut.

BIRD General Program at a Glance

What Changed, and What This Call Actually Covers

Two corrections are worth stating plainly, because a lot of secondhand summaries still get them wrong.

First, there is no standalone “quantum and optoelectronics grant.” BIRD has promoted quantum and optoelectronics collaborations as a thematic emphasis — through webinars and partner events with groups like the Colorado–Israel Chamber of Commerce and Elevate Quantum — but those projects are funded through the BIRD General Program under the ordinary rules and the ordinary deadlines. Quantum and optoelectronics teams are welcome. So are agrotech, medical device, foodtech, semiconductor, and industrial software teams. The program is deliberately sector-agnostic, and the approved-project announcements each cycle read like a cross-section of the whole economy.

Second, the earlier 2026 dates are gone. BIRD’s own call document set Executive Summaries at May 14, 2026 and full proposals at July 9, 2026, with decisions in September 2026. Both of those dates have passed. The live target is now November 19, 2026 for Executive Summaries, with approvals expected in March 2027. BIRD typically publishes each deadline three to four months ahead on its call page, so treat that page as the authority and re-check it before you plan around any date.

If your technology fits energy, homeland security, or cyber specifically, look at the vertical programs before defaulting to the General Program. BIRD Energy and BIRD Cyber carry the same 1.5 million USD maximum; BIRD HLS caps at 1 million USD. Each runs its own call on its own schedule, and applying to the right one matters more than applying early.

What the Money Actually Looks Like

The headline number is the least interesting part of the structure.

The funding is non-dilutive. BIRD is not coming for your cap table, your IP, or a board seat. It participates through conditional grants: up to half your approved R&D costs, repaid as royalties on sales of products developed with BIRD support. If the project never reaches the sales stage, there is no repayment. The foundation is explicitly sharing the risk.

The repayment terms reward speed. Full repayment is defined as 90 percent of the indexed grant if completed within three years of project completion, rising to 120 percent of the indexed grant thereafter. That is a meaningful discount for teams who commercialize quickly, and it is worth modeling into your financial plan rather than treating repayment as a distant abstraction.

BIRD funds industrial R&D, not exploration. You can budget for engineering salaries, prototyping, custom hardware, testing at customer sites, and standards compliance — the work that turns a joint prototype into something a paying customer can deploy.

The binational element is a service, not paperwork. BIRD actively helps match US and Israeli companies. If you have the technology but not the partner, that is a conversation to start with BIRD staff, not a reason to skip the cycle.

There is signaling value. Selection by a binational, government-backed fund tells investors that your technology passed real technical due diligence, that your commercialization plan was credible, and that two companies in two countries were willing to sign a formal R&D and revenue-sharing agreement.

And there is an underrated benefit: discipline. Winning and managing BIRD funding requires a clear workplan, milestones, and a commercialization agreement. That forces both partners to align on IP ownership, markets, roles, and risks early — which saves painful arguments later, when the technology actually starts working.

Who Should Apply

On paper the eligibility rule is short. In practice there is a clear ideal-applicant profile.

At minimum you need:

1. Two unrelated companies — one registered in the United States, one registered in Israel. “Unrelated” is doing real work in that sentence. A US company and its own Israeli subsidiary is not a binational partnership under these rules. Reviewers expect two independent businesses with a genuine commercial reason to work together, and a signed agreement covering who does which R&D tasks, who owns what IP, and how revenues are handled in both markets.

2. A genuinely shared R&D effort and commercialization plan. Both companies must carry meaningful technical work. This is not one partner subcontracting all the engineering to the other. The commercialization plan should show what each side contributes — perhaps one partner owns a chip-level or process innovation while the other handles system integration and customer access in its home market.

3. Significant innovation with commercial potential. Reviewers look for real technical risk and real novelty. The threshold is whether success would change what is possible in your segment, or merely produce an incremental improvement.

Universities and research institutes cannot be the applicant of record in the General Program — the applicants must be companies that can commercialize the results — but they can and regularly do participate as subcontractors or research providers to the corporate partners.

You do not need to be a large company. BIRD funds startups through well-established firms. What matters far more than size:

• Do you have a credible technical team for your share of the work?
• Do you have preliminary evidence the technology is viable — an early prototype, simulation results, feasibility data?
• Can you show actual market pull: letters from potential customers, pilots, offtake interest, or a clear regulatory path?

If you are at the whiteboard-idea stage, you are early. If you are selling a mature product and just need marketing budget, you are late. The sweet spot is pre-commercial with a believable route to paying users within a few years.

How the Two Stages Actually Work

BIRD’s process is sequential, and misunderstanding it is the most common way teams waste a cycle.

Stage one is the Executive Summary. This is a concise document on which BIRD bases a go / no-go recommendation. It is due November 19, 2026. BIRD strongly recommends — and in practice expects — that you speak with a member of BIRD staff before you submit it. That preliminary conversation lets you sanity-check the project, the proposed partnership, and which program you should be applying to. Teams that skip it frequently discover after the fact that they were aiming at the wrong call.

Stage two is the full proposal, by invitation only. After your Executive Summary receives a positive recommendation, the two companies jointly prepare the full project proposal following BIRD’s detailed preparation guidelines. A draft may be reviewed by your assigned Primary BIRD Contact to confirm it adheres to those guidelines before formal submission. Approvals for this cycle are expected in March 2027.

All documents are submitted exclusively by uploading them to BIRD’s upload site at upload.birdf.com. There is no email submission path.

A Practical Timeline Working Backward from November 19, 2026

August 2026 — Decide and align. Confirm both companies want to submit to this specific call. Assign a proposal lead in each company. Contact BIRD staff for the preliminary conversation. Sketch objectives, rough budget, and the commercialization angle.

Late August to September — Design the project skeleton. Nail down work packages and ownership, the initial IP and commercialization framework, and preliminary budget ranges for each side. In parallel, identify pilot customers and request letters of support, which always take longer to collect than anyone expects.

October — Write the Executive Summary. Draft the technical approach, the partnership rationale, milestones, and the commercialization plan. Circulate between partners until both sides genuinely agree on scope and claims. Disagreements surfaced here are cheap; the same disagreements surfaced during full-proposal drafting are expensive.

Early November — Review and pressure-test. Run a red-team read: hand the package to someone who was not involved in writing it and ask them to attack it. Fix gaps, inconsistencies, and unclear sections.

By November 17 — Submit. Aim to upload at least 48 hours before the deadline. Upload portals, VPNs, and PDF generators reliably misbehave at the worst possible moment.

December 2026 through early 2027 — Full proposal, if invited. Budget serious calendar time here. This is where the binational R&D and commercialization agreement, the detailed line-item budgets, and the legal redlines all have to converge. Decisions land in March 2027.

What Goes Into a Strong Submission

Exact formats change by call, so always check the current guidelines on BIRD’s call page. Expect to prepare:

• Project narrative. The problem, current limitations, your proposed solution, the technical workplan, risk management, and anticipated results. Clear prose with enough technical depth to establish credibility.
• Joint budget and financial forms. Line-item budgets for both partners, aligned to the same work packages. Distinguish BIRD-funded costs, partner contributions, and third-party subcontracting.
• Partnership and commercialization agreement, or at minimum a detailed term sheet. This is where proposals stall most often. Start it early. Cover foreground and background IP, revenue sharing, manufacturing responsibility, and territory rights.
• Company profiles and key personnel CVs. Short and focused on relevant experience: prior deep-tech projects, commercialization wins, regulatory expertise.
• Letters of support. From potential customers or strategic partners in both countries. Specific letters beat generic ones — what problem the customer has, why your joint solution matters, what engagement they would consider.
• Regulatory notes where applicable. For medical, telecom, defense, energy, or critical-infrastructure applications, show you understand the approval path in both jurisdictions.

Common Mistakes

Treating the partnership as a formality. If your Gantt chart can be cut cleanly into “their tasks” and “our tasks” with no interdependence, you have two parallel projects stapled together, and reviewers will see it immediately. Explain why these two specific companies are stronger together.

Related-party partnerships. A parent and its subsidiary, or two entities under common control, do not satisfy the two-unrelated-companies rule. Check this before you invest weeks in a proposal.

Hand-wavy commercialization. “Licensing to global partners” is a wish, not a strategy. Name the first markets, three target customer types, the regulatory path, and a rough pricing model.

Underplaying risk. Reviewers know deep tech is hard. Presenting a perfectly linear plan reads as inexperience. Name your go / no-go milestones and your fallback if a key approach fails.

Blindly asking for the cap. You can request up to 1.5 million USD, but build the budget bottom-up from work packages and milestones. Show how costs split across the two partners and how matching funds cover the rest. Both companies visibly having skin in the game matters.

Skipping the pre-submission conversation. BIRD explicitly asks applicants to consult staff before filing. Teams that do this arrive at the deadline with a better-aimed proposal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a separate quantum or optoelectronics call? No. Those projects are funded through the BIRD General Program on the standard schedule. The thematic promotion around quantum and optoelectronics reflects sector interest, not a separate application track or deadline.

Do we have to be in a particular US state? No. Promotional events have highlighted regional networks such as Colorado’s, but the program is national on the US side and national in Israel.

Can a university participate? Not as the applicant in the General Program — applicants must be companies that can commercialize the results. Universities and research institutes regularly participate as subcontractors to the corporate partners.

What happens if the project works but revenue takes years? Repayment is tied to revenue from the funded project and governed by your grant agreement. Repaying within three years of project completion is set at 90 percent of the indexed grant; after that, 120 percent.

When is the deadline after this one? BIRD publishes each deadline three to four months in advance on its call page. If November 19, 2026 is too soon for your partnership to be ready, watch that page rather than assuming a fixed annual rhythm.

Next Steps

1. Read the official call page. Deadlines, forms, and program-specific rules live at https://www.birdf.com/bird-call-proposals/. Treat it as your single source of truth and re-check it before you finalize any plan.
2. Contact BIRD staff before you write. The preliminary conversation is expected, and it is the cheapest way to confirm you are aiming at the right program.
3. Confirm your partner and the unrelated-companies rule. If you do not have a counterpart yet, ask BIRD about matchmaking and work industry networks and accelerators in parallel.
4. Build a shared outline with owners and internal deadlines running from now to mid-November.
5. Draft the Executive Summary early enough to red-team it, then upload through upload.birdf.com with days to spare.

Get the partnership right, aim at the correct program, and give the Executive Summary the weeks it deserves. The November 19, 2026 deadline is far enough out to do this properly and close enough that starting in October is starting late.