---
title: 'Caravel Bio awarded $1.2M NSF SBIR Phase II grant'
date: '2026-10-28T08:28:08-07:00'
type: post
word_count: 447
char_count: 3296
tokens: 582
categories:
  - Portland
---

# Caravel Bio awarded $1.2M NSF SBIR Phase II grant

[Caravel Bio](https://www.caravel.bio/) has been having a pretty good fall. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because the startup [won $150K at the Bend Venture Conference](https://siliconflorist.com/2026/10/20/bend-venture-conference-shares-2026-winners/), this month. But it turns out the feds had already placed a bet, as well. Caravel landed an [NSF SBIR Phase II award](https://www.sbir.gov/awards/220766) for $1,246,984 following a $275,000 Phase I award in 2024.

> The proposed project aims to develop a synthetic biology platform that leverages a process called spore-display immobilization, in which bacteria make and assemble enzymes on the surface of spores, a self-assembling and genetically encoded microparticle. While enzyme catalysis is used in a wide range of industries, the ability to create enzymes with thermal and chemical stability that are also recyclable remains a challenge. By applying directed evolution and high-throughput screening technologies to spore-displayed enzymes, the platform enables rapid prototyping of spore-enzyme variants to improve important variables like enzyme activity, stability, and loading density. Phase I used lipases to create a spore-displayed lipase variant with an optimal operating temperature 20 °C higher than the soluble parent enzyme.

Phase II has three objectives:

1. Make those enzymes last longer through genetic code expansion.
2. Get the spore trick working on bacteria other than Bacillus subtilis.
3. Find a low cost way to separate the spores from reaction products.

The pitch is customizable enzyme solutions for industrial uses. An alternative to conventional chemical catalysts that skips the toxic stuff.

[According the the Portland Business Journal:](https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2026/10/28/caravel-bio-nsf-phase-ii-sbir.html)

> It’s a strategy that means “we move a little slower, but candidly, what we were proposing at the beginning was high-risk and high-reward tech development,” Nicks told the Business Journal. “It would take 12 to 24 months of building in the lab before delivering a product to someone. The NSF has mechanisms to support that.”

For all the details, check out [the award on SBIR.gov](https://www.sbir.gov/awards/220766). For more on the company, visit — or point your agent at — [Caravel Bio](https://www.caravel.bio/).


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