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U.S. Air Force Awards SixMap Phase II Small Business Innovation Research Contract for Preemptive Exposure Management

via Business Wire

SixMap Platform to Enable Air Force Cyber Defenders to Discover and Mitigate Unknown Assets, Misconfigurations, and Blindspots Before They Become Vulnerabilities

SixMap Inc. announces it has been selected by AFWERX for a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract in the amount of $1.23 million focused on preemptive exposure management to address the most pressing cyber-attack surface challenges facing the Department of the Air Force (DAF).

The Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX have partnered to streamline the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) process by accelerating the small business experience through faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small business and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by continually implementing process improvement changes in contract execution. The DAF began offering the Open Topic SBIR/STTR program in 2018, which expanded the range of innovations the DAF funded, and now as of May 22, 2025, SixMap will continue its journey to create and provide innovative capabilities that strengthen the national defense of the United States of America.

Jason Kaplan, CEO at SixMap Inc.:

“In a world where the U.S. Air Force is aggressively modernizing its digital infrastructure to support the complex missions of tomorrow, it must become more dynamic, agile, and autonomous without creating new network exposures. SixMap is honored to be selected by AFWERX to enable the Air Force to manage these exposures preemptively, not reactively, even as it innovates game-changing new capabilities that reshape its attack surface on a daily basis.”

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

About SixMap Inc.

SixMap provides the most accurate and complete external view of your organization—no input required, just the company name. SixMap’s preemptive exposure management platform interrogates all 65,535 ports as standard operating procedure—across IPv4 and IPv6—continuously hunting unknown assets, misconfigurations, and blindspots other tools miss. Built for security teams tired of tools that assume too much and miss even more, SixMap replaces guesswork with precision. So you can act faster, reduce exposure, and see what attackers see. For more information, please visit: www.sixmap.io.

About AFRL

The Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, is the primary scientific research and development center for the Department of the Air Force. AFRL plays an integral role in leading the discovery, development and integration of affordable warfighting technologies for our air, space and cyberspace forces. With a workforce spanning across nine technology areas and 40 other operations around the globe, AFRL provides a diverse portfolio of science and technology ranging from fundamental to advanced research and technology development. For more information, visit afresearchlab.com.

About AFWERX

As the innovation arm of the DAF and a directorate within the Air Force Research Laboratory, AFWERX brings cutting-edge American ingenuity from small businesses and start-ups to address the most pressing challenges of the DAF. AFWERX employs approximately 320 military, civilian and contractor personnel at four hubs and sites executing an annual $1.4 billion budget. Since 2019, AFWERX has awarded over 10,400 contracts worth more than $7.24 billion to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base and drive faster technology transition to operational capability. For more information, visit: afwerx.com.

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