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Brillient's Two Pandemic Jobs

Brillient Corporation is a Reston, Virginia information-management contractor founded in 2006 by Sukumar Iyer, who started the company in a home office after leaving a consulting career and now serves as its founder, executive chairman, and chief executive.12 In the pandemic years it worked two federal jobs at once: $85.6 million of support work paid for by the Small Business Administration's disaster-loan office, bought through a staffing agreement Brillient already had with the SBA's Office of Capital Access, and paper-scanning and digitization pilots for the Internal Revenue Service.

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The SBA job: disaster loans, bought through a staffing agreement

Brillient's relationship with the SBA predates the pandemic by more than a decade. Iyer said in 2020 that "Brillient has been a partner to the SBA since 2008."3 That relationship was formalized in a blanket purchase agreement Brillient announced on July 27, 2018: a five-year, $10 million BPA to provide "professional and management support services that help enhance loan operations, protect the integrity of SBA loan programs, provide high-quality service to the business community, and improve internal Office of Capital Access (OCA) operations."4

That BPA's own federal award record shows the vehicle's ceiling has grown well past its 2018 starting point. USAspending.gov lists the underlying agreement, titled "Staffing - SBA Office of Capital Access (OCA), Office of Performance and Systems Management," with a period of performance from July 16, 2018 to August 31, 2023, at a current potential value of $150 million.5 One smaller order under that BPA is "Office of Capital Access, Financial Systems Project Manager Support": $622,622 obligated, competed on a full-and-open basis, running from September 2021 to March 2023.6

The largest order under that agreement was paid for by SBA's Office of Disaster Assistance. Order 73351020F0095, "Financial Administrative Support Services," ran from March 27, 2020 to December 31, 2021, with the Office of Capital Access agreement as its vehicle. It obligated $85,564,656.97, and USAspending shows $85.6 million paid out. The largest single addition, $60.7 million, was signed on June 1, 2020.7 The agreement's seven orders total $92.0 million.5

On May 21, 2020, Brillient announced "a new order valued at up to approximately $125 million" for surge support to "loan processing and disbursement functions for SBA's disaster loan program," citing the CARES Act money. It said it would add about 500 loan-processing professionals, working six days a week across every U.S. state and territory.38 CEO Paul Strasser called it an effort "to assist the SBA and the United States small business community to help cope with this national, economic crisis"; Iyer called it answering "the call to arms."3 USAspending lists no separate Brillient order for that work. The only Brillient order funded by the Office of Disaster Assistance is 73351020F0095, and its largest funding came 10 days after the announcement. The announced ceiling was up to $125 million; the order paid $85.6 million.

The IRS job: scanning

Brillient says its IRS work began about 2010, with one of its first government contracts.9 The pandemic-era job began in 2021: helping the IRS convert paper tax documents into electronic records.

The IRS's Enterprise Digitalization and Case Management Office awarded Brillient a pilot Scanning-as-a-Service (SCaaS) contract, announced August 24, 2021 as a contract for the IRS's OCR Solution Challenge and described by Brillient vice president Ed Burrows as a solution to "extract machine-readable data from low resolution, poor quality digital images and make them compliant with IRS systems."10 Federal contract data shows that award, number 2032H8-21-C-00026, carried a $7.5 million ceiling and drew 23 bids under simplified acquisition procedures; $6.7 million was obligated before it closed.11 A follow-on Submission Processing Modernization pilot, announced September 12, 2022, added digitalization of incoming mail and remittances; that award, 2032H8-22-C-00018, carried a second $7.5 million ceiling and drew 15 bids; $2.4 million was obligated.912 Combined, the two scanning pilots carried $15 million in ceilings and $9.1 million in obligations.

A Privacy Impact Assessment for "Scanning as-a-Service Front-End Brillient V2," approved October 21, 2022, describes a process in which the IRS ships paper returns to the contractor, the contractor scans them and transmits the electronic files back through IRS e-File or Secure Data Transfer channels, and the paper originals are returned to the IRS in real time.13 The PIA says all contractors would initially scan Form 709 gift-tax returns, and that the scope would expand to Form 940, Form 941, Form 1040, Form 906, Form 8288-B, and Trust Fund Recovery Penalty case files.13 Form 941, the quarterly employment tax return that employee-retention-credit claims are filed against via an amended Form 941-X, is listed among the forms the PIA contemplates bringing into scope. We found no public record that identifies a prime contractor for the specific 941-X amended-return workflow tied to ERC claims; the PIA describes original-return scanning capacity being built out, not a named ERC-claims processing assignment.13

On March 31, 2022, Brillient announced that the IRS had awarded it a separate blanket purchase agreement with a $70 million cap over one base year and four option years for robotic-process-automation and AI/machine-learning services. It was a distinct initiative from the SCaaS and SPM scanning pilots, aimed at automating IRS workflows rather than digitizing paper.14

Where Brillient appears on someone else's award

Brillient also appears on Tuknik's SBA award. Tuknik Government Services LLC, an Alaska Native Corporation-owned 8(a) firm affiliated with Koniag, won a sole-source COVID-19 EIDL loan-processing support order from the SBA worth $24,519,856, fully obligated, running from January 6 to May 5, 2022.15 HigherGov, a contract-data service, lists Brillient as having worked on the contract "based on invoice data"; no subcontract has been formally disclosed, USAspending lists none, and the dollar and labor split is unknown.15 We found no adverse workshare finding on the contract.

Notes

  1. Brillient Corporation, "The Brillient Story", original. ↩
  2. Brillient Corporation, Sukumar Iyer leadership bio, original. ↩
  3. PR Newswire, "Brillient Called on by SBA With Contract for Loan Processing Surge", May 21, 2020, original. ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
  4. Brillient Corporation, "Brillient Awarded $10M Professional and Management Services Contract at the Small Business Administration (SBA)", July 27, 2018 award date as stated in release, original. ↩
  5. USAspending.gov, Award ID 73351018A0010 (BPA, "Staffing - SBA Office of Capital Access (OCA), Office of Performance and Systems Management"), recipient Brillient Corporation, awarding agency SBA, accessed 2026-07-12, https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_73351018A0010_7300. ↩1 ↩2
  6. USAspending.gov, Award ID 73351021F0163 ("Office of Capital Access, Financial Systems Project Manager Support"), parent award 73351018A0010, recipient Brillient Corporation, accessed 2026-07-12, https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_73351021F0163_7300_73351018A0010_7300. ↩
  7. USAspending.gov, Award ID 73351020F0095 ("Financial Administrative Support Services"), parent award 73351018A0010, recipient Brillient Corporation, funding office SBA Office of Disaster Assistance, accessed 2026-09-28, https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_73351020F0095_7300_73351018A0010_7300. ↩
  8. ExecutiveBiz, "Brillient Gets $125M SBA Loan Processing Support Order; Paul Strasser, Sukumar Iyer Quoted", May 2020, original. ↩
  9. Brillient Corporation, "IRS Awards Brillient a Pilot Contract to Modernize Submission Processing", Sept. 12, 2022, original. ↩1 ↩2
  10. ExecutiveGov, "Brillient to Deliver Digitalization Solutions for IRS EDCMO; Ed Burrows, Richard Jacik Quoted", Aug. 24, 2021, original. ↩
  11. HigherGov, Contract 2032H821C00026 (Brillient Corporation / IRS, Dept. of Treasury), accessed 2026-07-12, original. ↩
  12. HigherGov, Contract 2032H822C00018 (Brillient Corporation / IRS, Dept. of Treasury), accessed 2026-07-12, original. ↩
  13. Internal Revenue Service, "Scanning as-a-Service (SCaaS) Front-End Brillient V2", Privacy Impact Assessment, PIA ID 7307, approved Oct. 21, 2022, original. ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
  14. GlobeNewswire, "IRS Awards Brillient $70M RPA BPA", March 31, 2022, original. ↩
  15. HigherGov, Contract 73351022C0006 (Tuknik Government Services LLC, prime; SBA, awarding agency), accessed 2026-07-12, original. ↩1 ↩2

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