GrammaTech Chosen for Prestigious U.S. Army Program

SAN DIEGO, CA — GrammaTech, Inc., a leading manufacturer of software analysis and rewriting tools, today announced that it has been selected as a participant in the prestigious U.S. Army Commercialization Pilot Program (CPP). The Army CPP accelerates the transition of the most promising innovative technologies to Department of Defense (DoD) applications. This year’s participants are developing a broad range of technologies, from medical imaging to nanotechnology. GrammaTech was selected for its state-of-the-art technology for analyzing and manipulating software executables. The technology supports a range of DoD applications, including software protection.

Participation in the Army CPP program is highly competitive. First, a company must be awarded an Army Phase I SBIR contract. According to the Army SBIR website, only 10% of Phase I applicants are selected. Next, the company must be selected for Phase II. About 40% of Phase I awardees are selected for Phase II. Finally, the company must apply to the CPP program. The selections for this final phase are made by the Army in consultation with MILCOM Venture Partners, a venture-capital firm with expertise in the defense market. This year, approximately 500 Phase II awardees applied, and 25 were selected. Awardees will receive business assistance from MILCOM Venture Partners, and the Army anticipates distributing approximately $15 million among the 25 awardees to accelerate transition efforts.GrammaTech’s general-purpose analysis and rewriting technology for software executables has been developed over the last eight years in collaboration with researchers at the University of Wisconsin. The work has been supported by the Army, as well as other government agencies, including the Air Force, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Navy, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the Missile Defense Agency, and others. The technology has received numerous accolades from the research community and is arguably the most advanced system of its kind. It is also easily retargeted to new processor architectures. Applications that leverage the infrastructure include automated detection of vulnerabilities and protection of software intellectual property through anti-tamper hardening.

“We are proud that we have been selected to participate in the Army’s CPP program. Being selected from such a highly competitive pool illustrates the strength of our research and the strong interest in applications that incorporate the analysis and manipulation of binaries. We are looking forward to working with MILCOM and the Army,” said Tim Teitelbaum, CEO of GrammaTech.

“With so many highly-qualified applicants, selecting the awardees was challenging. GrammaTech’s software-analysis and rewriting technology stood out as having the potential to be rapidly transitioned to DoD programs. We are looking forward to working with GrammaTech,” said Michael Maston of MILCOM Venture Partners.