Built For
Small businesses without a BD department
You can't spend three hours a day scrolling notices. Sentinel opens to a scored, ranked list of what fits your company, with match reasons on every card, so a one-person shop covers the market like a capture team.
Capture managers running a pipeline
Found, Interested, and Qualified are visible side by side, org-wide. Bulk-save, assign, and track pursuits through submitted, awarded, or lost, with notes and AI insights attached to the opportunity instead of scattered across inboxes.
Consultants covering a portfolio of clients
Each client organization gets its own profile and its own scoring lens. The same daily sweep reads differently for a machining shop than for a cyber SDVOSB, because the algorithm is tuned to each profile, not a generic keyword list.
Scoring that knows your company
Sentinel's patent-pending multi-criteria algorithm scores every opportunity against your organization profile: NAICS and keywords weighted highest, then target agencies, PSC codes, and set-asides. Every score is explained with match-reason tags, and the weights are yours to tune, so 'fit' means what you say it means.
- Multi-criteria scoring across NAICS, keywords, agency, PSC, and set-aside, with transparent match reasons on every card
- Fuzzy keyword matching that understands military designations (F-35 = F35 = F-35A) and expands abbreviations like AI and CMMC
- User-configurable scoring weights and score tiers from Perfect Match down to minimum threshold
Three federal sources, one hub, swept daily
Federal contracts from SAM.gov, grants from Grants.gov, and SBIR/STTR topics and awards all land in one search hub. Grants refresh on a nightly sweep, SAM.gov results pull thousands of live notices per search, and the SBIR dataset includes over 187,000 historical awards for real precedent research.
- Full SAM.gov integration: score search, direct search, natural-language search, and past-award analysis
- Grants.gov with scoring, AI Insight, and a save/pursue workflow; cached opportunities are refreshed nightly
- SBIR/STTR topic and solicitation feeds plus a 187,000+ historical award dataset
From found to pursued: a real pipeline
Discovery without follow-through is just reading. Sentinel gives every opportunity a lifecycle: save it, qualify it, and pursue it, individually or in bulk, with the whole organization seeing the same board. Already-saved and rejected notices are excluded from future sweeps so the same distraction never surfaces twice.
- Save, qualify, and pursue from cards or bulk selection, org-wide, so your team works one shared pipeline
- Status tracking on pursuits from pursuing through proposal draft, submitted, awarded, or lost
- AI Insight summaries and notes attach to the opportunity and travel with it, plus Excel export for reporting
Research that carries forward
A pursuit in Sentinel isn't a bookmark; it's a package. Past-award analysis flags incumbents and expiring contracts ripe for recompete, opportunities geocode onto Atlas Forge maps, and when you decide to bid, one click converts the opportunity into a VULCAN proposal with its research and scoring rationale intact.
- Award analysis for incumbent detection and recompete timing, built on federal spending data
- One-click conversion of an opportunity into a proposal, with no re-keying of agency, scope, or files
- Opportunities geocoded and pinned to Atlas Forge for place-of-performance intelligence
“As a consultant and small business owner, I rely on Blacksmith AI to strengthen relationships with clients and deliver accurate forecasting. The platform's AI suite has been invaluable in streamlining operations, identifying inefficiencies, and enabling tailored solutions across a diverse portfolio of customers.”
Brendan Clark, Principal Consultant, The Foundry
One Platform
Everything feeds everything else
VULCAN Scribe™
When a pursuit becomes a bid, it converts straight into Scribe, with research, files, and rationale included.
Atlas Forge™
See scored opportunities on the map: place of performance, agency footprints, and contested territory.
Org Profile & CRM
Scoring reads your living profile (NAICS, set-asides, capabilities, past performance), so results improve as it does.
Common questions
How does the scoring actually work? Is it a black box?
No. It's a patent-pending multi-criteria algorithm: NAICS and keyword matches carry the highest weight, followed by target agencies, PSC codes, and set-asides. Every scored card shows the specific match reasons behind its number, a minimum threshold filters out noise, and you can adjust the weights yourself if your priorities differ.
Which sources are live today, and what's on the roadmap?
Live today: SAM.gov federal contracts (with award analysis), Grants.gov, and SBIR/STTR, including topic feeds and a 187,000+ historical award dataset. DIBBS, state/local/education (SLED), and international sources are on the roadmap, not shipped; the hub shows exactly which is which.
How fresh is the data?
Sentinel works on daily rhythm: grants are swept and refreshed nightly, and federal contract searches pull live SAM.gov data with a 24-hour cache and a force-refresh option when you need the absolute latest. Amendments to solicitations you're tracking are matched and surfaced for review.
What happens when we decide to bid on something?
One click converts the opportunity into a VULCAN proposal. The agency details, attached files, your notes, and the AI scoring rationale carry forward into the rest of the platform, so capture research becomes proposal input instead of a spreadsheet nobody reopens.
Let the right opportunities find you
7-day free trial. No upfront charge. Every feature included.