Precision Federal is pursuing opportunities at DIU
Precision Federal is pursuing opportunities at the Defense Innovation Unit — the Department of Defense's fastest and most commercially oriented acquisition path. DIU was stood up in 2015 to solve a specific problem: the services were losing access to modern commercial technology because FAR-based acquisition moved too slowly for high-velocity commercial firms. DIU's answer was the Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) executed as an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement, with a target of 60–90 days from proposal receipt to award and a defined path from prototype OT to production OT.
For a SAM-registered small AI business with production federal past performance, DIU is the single highest-leverage non-SBIR pathway into DoD AI work. Precision Delivery Federal LLC (UEI Y2JVCZXT9HP5, CAGE 1AYQ0, NAICS 541512) — led by a Kaggle Top 200 data scientist with SAMHSA production ML past performance — is structured specifically for the CSO process.
How the CSO actually works
The Commercial Solutions Opening is unlike standard DoD solicitation. The mechanics:
- Step 1 — Solution Brief. DIU publishes a problem statement with a specific DoD sponsoring customer (a combatant command, service component, or defense agency). Vendors submit a short solution brief — typically 5–10 pages — describing a commercially available or dual-use solution and the minimum viable prototype they would deliver.
- Step 2 — Pitch and down-select. Shortlisted vendors pitch live to a DIU and customer team. Multiple vendors may be carried forward into parallel prototype OTs or a single winner selected.
- Prototype OT. Award is negotiated as an OT under 10 U.S.C. § 4022. Typical durations: 6–24 months. Prototype deliverables are specific and operationally evaluable.
- Production OT. On successful prototype completion, DIU or the sponsoring customer can award a production OT — often without further competition — under 10 U.S.C. § 4022(f). This is the single most consequential contracting feature in the DoD ecosystem for fast-moving vendors.
The DIU AI Portfolio
Generative AI for DoD operators
LLM-powered decision support, report synthesis, COA drafting, document retrieval against classified and unclassified corpora. DIU's generative AI CSOs have included document intelligence, meeting intelligence, and operator-facing chat interfaces. Our Agentic AI practice maps directly.
ML infrastructure and MLOps
Model lifecycle platforms, feature stores, inference services, model governance. The infrastructure layer that DoD components need once models move off laptops and into operations.
Data engineering and integration
Connecting DoD data sources into analytic and AI-ready forms. Lakehouse architectures, streaming ingestion, provenance, governance. See Data Engineering.
Autonomy-adjacent perception and ML
Computer vision on aerial, ground, and undersea platforms; multi-modal sensor fusion; anomaly detection. We subcontract on perception scope to autonomy primes.
Cyber and anomaly detection
ML-assisted SIEM augmentation, threat intel synthesis, automated triage. Relevant to several DIU Cyber Portfolio CSOs that touch AI.
Why DIU is structurally good for specialized small AI firms
Three features of DIU's construct favor the kind of firm we are:
- Commercial-first. DIU explicitly wants commercially available technology — ideally with dual-use customers outside DoD. That favors firms with shipped, production software rather than bespoke federal-only product lines.
- Speed. 60–90 days is incompatible with multi-month proposal cycles. It rewards firms that can write crisply, demo quickly, and close quickly. Small teams with clear capability narratives win.
- OT prototype-to-production. A successful prototype converts to production without re-competition. That converts early traction into durable revenue in a way SBIR Phase II → Phase III does not guarantee.
How we position for DIU CSOs
Our positioning is specific:
- Monitor DIU's published solicitations continuously across AI, Cyber, and Human Systems portfolios.
- Prioritize CSOs with tight capability fit — agentic LLM tooling, ML infrastructure, data engineering, anomaly detection — where we can show a credible commercial or dual-use footprint.
- Lead with federal deployment discipline. Most commercial AI firms pitching to DIU cannot articulate ATO, NIST 800-53, or IL4/IL5 cloud architecture. We can. That is a material differentiator in pitch.
- Team with larger integrators and cloud providers on CSOs that exceed small-business carry capacity. Our role in those teams: specialty AI/ML subcontractor who shows the panel that the model will actually survive operational deployment.
Capability map for DIU scope
- Agentic AI and LLM systems — multi-agent orchestration, RAG over DoD document corpora, tool-calling with human-in-the-loop gates, prompt-injection hardening. Direct match for generative AI CSOs.
- Machine learning and data science — time-series forecasting, anomaly detection, CV for perception, classification on operator-relevant data. Kaggle Top 200-level modeling.
- Cloud architecture, IL4/IL5 — Azure Government, AWS GovCloud, hybrid. ATO-minded from day one.
- Data engineering — lakehouses, streaming ingestion, governance, multi-classification handling.
- Full-stack development — operator-facing tools that make the AI accessible without ML training. Essential to DIU evaluations, which are operator-driven.
- DevSecOps — STIG compliance, NIST 800-53 control mapping, prompt-injection hardening. Essential for the prototype-to-production handoff.
Past performance and honest positioning
Precision Federal has not yet delivered a DIU contract — we are pursuing. Our confirmed past performance:
- SAMHSA (HHS) — production ML on federal health data. Full ATO.
- Federal health IT data platform — lakehouse architecture, governance-first.
- Multi-agency cloud migration — delivered through prior consulting employers.
For DIU specifically, the past-performance burden is different than for FAR-based acquisition. DIU values commercial traction, dual-use evidence, and shipped product. Our federal ATO record plus a Kaggle Top 200 data scientist plus dual-use tooling forms the narrative we carry into CSOs.
Vehicles, NAICS, and engagement
- Primary NAICS 541512 — Computer Systems Design Services. SBA small business.
- Adjacent — 541511, 541519, 541690, 518210.
- DIU vehicles we're positioned for — Commercial Solutions Openings across AI, Cyber, Human Systems portfolios. Both prime (for small-scope CSOs) and subcontractor (for larger integrator-led teams).
If you are a DIU program manager, a DoD sponsoring customer, or a commercial integrator looking for an AI/ML specialty small business subcontractor with SAM registration and founder federal delivery experience, email [email protected]. See also SBIR/OTA partnering and Teaming.