The Department of Energy has committed $8.4 million over three years to COMPASS, a Sandia–SLAC initiative engineered to spin out six venture-backed companies from technologies held across nine federal laboratories. The funding flows through the DOE Office of Technology Commercialization and runs through 2028.

What problem does COMPASS solve?

National laboratories generate patent-rich portfolios, but most of that intellectual property stalls in the licensing queue. "Sandia creates technologies. We don't create companies, so there's a gap," said David Kistin, Sandia's manager of technology and economic development.

COMPASS — Commercialization Pathways for Accelerating Scientific Solutions — closes that gap by embedding investors inside the technology-selection process. Program leads identified 30 candidate technologies for initial investor review, drawn from Sandia, SLAC, Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley, Brookhaven, Savannah River, the National Laboratory of the Rockies, and the Kansas City National Security Campus.

How does investor selection work?

Unlike standard lab licensing, COMPASS hands investors a steering role from day one. "Venture capitalists don't invest in technology alone; they invest in companies," Kistin said. "The goal is to get investor participation and feedback from the beginning. They bring experience working with founders and building companies along with the networks needed to help new ventures take shape."

Investors will pick which of the 30 candidates advance, set development roadmaps, and fund the work directly.

Which Sandia technologies made the cut?

Six Sandia projects entered the COMPASS pipeline. Their technology readiness levels and market applications vary widely:

• AIMs — printable security ink for counterfeit-drug detection
• Aleph Semiconductor — memory and switching layer for quantum computers
• Alethia materials — tamper-evidence coatings that signal container breaches without opening
• Strand — reshaped carbon fiber geometry, co-developed with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, aimed at cost-driven applications
• OPM Brain Imaging — quantum-sensor magnetoencephalography for real-time brain activity monitoring
• Ohmic AI — AI-based interference detection

Why pair Sandia with Silicon Valley?

SLAC co-founded COMPASS and brings California investor access. Alex Rousina-Webb, SLAC's manager of technology transfer and COMPASS co-lead, framed the partnership bluntly: "Too many breakthrough technologies developed at national labs fail to reach the market because the bridge from invention to capital has not been built."

Sandia adds state-level capital through the New Mexico State Investment Council. The council's venture arm has committed more than $2 billion to 30 VC firms over the past three years and projects $2.6 billion in 2025 economic impact for the state. Chris Cassidy, the council's director of private equity and venture capital, called the lab network "a prolific history of innovation" the SIC Strategic Venture Capital Program is designed to amplify.

What does the DOE expect to see?

Anthony Pugliese, DOE's chief commercialization officer, positioned the program as a deliberate test bed. "COMPASS is testing a unique commercialization model designed to strengthen the pathway from laboratory innovation to market adoption," he said. "We supported this effort because it has the potential to accelerate the formation of high-impact companies around DOE technologies."

Can startups meet national security requirements?

COMPASS teams must satisfy export-control and classified-work rules that govern Sandia and its sister labs. Mary Monson, Sandia's senior manager of technology partnerships, sees the arrangement as complementary rather than restrictive. "These startups bring innovative thinking. They are agile and move quickly, but they lack the deep national security experience and the large-scale facilities that we have," she said. "It's a good match-up because they bring things that we need and we bring things that they need."

DOE funding runs through 2028, giving the program three years to convert 30 candidates into 6 operating companies. Kistin is direct about the target: "We are looking for home runs, not base hits."