[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Is there VC appetite for defense related sta...
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Ask HN: Is there VC appetite for defense related startups?
I was wondering if there is VC appetite for defense based tech
companies. We are in advanced talks (hence the throw away) with
M&A teams of various of the top defense contractors for our
startup, but me as CTO can't help but wonder if a VC model for us
going forward wouldn't also be a good fit. Traditionally VC's shied
away from hardware and defense startups but with the funding round
of Anduril perhaps this is changing. Katherine Boyle of A16Z also
had something to say about how VC investment and Defense in the
past didn't make sense, but that things could be changing [1]. The
second problem with VC's is it is notoriously difficult to get in
contact with the correct person, thus the proposal below. Dang let
me know if this is not allowed please. If there are any VC's
perhaps interested you can contact me here throwawaydefence at
gmail dot com and I can send you our prospectus / NDA agreement.
[1] - https://www.defensenews.com/smr/cultural-
clash/2020/01/30/the-math-doesnt-make-sense-why-venture-capital-
firms-are-wary-of-defense-focused-investments/ Edit - To address
some of the comments below, this is a well established team (~50),
with a proven track record, many years in the industry and a well
developed sales pipeline, relationships and technology base. So
not just an idea or proposal thing, startup was maybe the wrong
characterization but since this is HN... The deal is (I believe)
well above the typical SBIR grants threshold.
Author : throwawaydef
Score : 99 points
Date : 2022-02-18 13:34 UTC (9 hours ago)
| allenleein wrote:
| Been following defense tech since 2013. (built one in 2014 but
| failed)
|
| Highly recommend:
|
| - Founders Fund
|
| - Lux Capital
| bmurray7jhu wrote:
| Novak Biddle Venture Partners is based near Washington DC. Their
| portfolio includes several defense and security startups.
| joshjkim wrote:
| 8VC does some meaningful defense investing - they were founded by
| Joe Lonsdale (co-founder of Palantir) and they are invested in
| Anduril, and have some folks on the team who specifically focus
| on defense.
| neaanopri wrote:
| Have you considered SBIR loans?
| michaelrpeskin wrote:
| Most SBIRs are cost-plus, at least anything of meaningful size.
| It's great to keep a small company going. And since the
| government pays you to develop your commercial software that
| you can then sell privately, you can build your margins a bit.
| I'm with a small contractor we're about 70% government, 30%
| commercial, but we can't compete with the big boys. The
| government says what our billing rate needs to be and how much
| profit we can build in. So we keep missing out on hiring,
| talent keeps getting sucked away to the big VC backed places
| because they don't care about burning money until they hit it
| out of the park.
|
| I'd say it's two incompatible business models: VCs are high
| variance and SBIRs (and other government contract vehicles) are
| low variance but will sustain you for a long time (once you get
| in).
| gbacon wrote:
| Do you mean Small Business Administration loans? SBIR and STTR
| are grant programs, not loans.
| johnebgd wrote:
| There is cash for everything right now. Raising private equity
| from family offices is probably a better fit than VC. VC is a
| different business model.
| ganzuul wrote:
| SV started as a defense contract with HP, which was definitely
| not three guys and a garage at that time.
| bannedbybros wrote:
| JPKab wrote:
| Former defense/intel contractor here (currently co-founder of a
| start-up):
|
| Fuck No!
|
| The Federal acquisition process is an absolute nightmare that
| favors incumbents. Innovation in this sector is extremely
| difficult, because contracts are super specific, down to
| requesting/stating the exact technologies to be implemented,
| rather than a higher-level capabilities based RFP.
|
| https://www.acq.osd.mil/DPAP/dars/dfarspgi/current/index.htm...
|
| It's a nightmare, it's a quagmire, and it needs to be fixed.
| Until then, anyone who invests in a start-up in this space is out
| of their minds.
| Jerrrry wrote:
| Second this.
|
| The only room for innovation is ambiguity in some legalese.
|
| proactivity is either immediately repudiated or heralded as the
| new status quo.
| jcadam wrote:
| Private equity firms are involved in the space, mostly to
| profit from the acquisition of smaller (but still somewhat
| established) defense firms by larger ones :/
|
| In any case, I recently left the defense industry after a
| 20-year career and am working in the private sector (financial-
| sector stuff using Clojure) now. It's a completely different
| world. Tech that was just being introduced in the govt space is
| old hat out here in the real world -- and my last defense job
| was working in the R&D space on ML/AI projects where we were
| allowed to experiment with "cutting edge" (i.e., only 5 years
| behind state of the art, rather than the usual 10-20) tech.
|
| I had a brief stint as a SETA contractor several years ago,
| during which I learned what a clownshow the acquisition process
| is. I was supposed to be providing technical expertise and
| evaluating proposals - but really I was there to justify
| decisions that had already been made, and to be the "technical
| guy" that decision makers brought along to meetings to support
| them :)
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Doesnt the US Government basically serve as a VC for any defense
| start up? I'm simplifying it but... Fill out contracts until you
| land one and then hire and build like crazy.
| nextos wrote:
| NATO is said to be planning a VC-like fund for some of the
| reasons you have stated: https://sifted.eu/articles/nato-war-
| startups/
|
| However, I also think some defense tech might have lots of
| civilian applications, like the Internet.
|
| I know they are looking after e.g. autonomous submarine drones. I
| can imagine the same tech would be able to power non-manned
| surface vessels.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Very interesting idea
|
| I agree on the civilian applications - probably the best way to
| get a traditional VC's support would be to have some kind of
| dual use technology for defense/civ
| cushychicken wrote:
| Wouldn't an acquisition by a prime defense contractor be seen as
| a profitable exit to your VC backers?
|
| Raytheon, Lockheed, Boeing et al all have deep pockets and will
| pay for smart people and mission relevant tech.
| bmitc wrote:
| There's this: https://www.anduril.com/
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Have you looked into IN-Q-Tel and DARPA?
| onion2k wrote:
| For those who aren't aware, In-Q-Tel is the investment arm of
| the CIA.
|
| They have a fascinating list of investments -
| https://www.iqt.org/portfolio
| eatonphil wrote:
| I don't know why I was thinking In-Q-Tel was Israeli...
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| A bit of googling says that Israel and In-Q-tel have had
| joint ventures maybe you just assumed that In-Q-Tel was
| based in Israel.
| paganel wrote:
| It's also because of entities like In-Q-Tel that we have
| Google Maps. I said it before, I don't understand how come
| Russia has allowed the Streetview cars to do their thing on
| the streets of Russia more than once.
| busterarm wrote:
| Seriously. If your product is valuable they will kick you a lot
| of money.
|
| Example: Red Balloon Security.
| robk wrote:
| Absolutely we look at it often. There are government led defense
| incubators here in the UK at least that help spawn companies too.
| motohagiography wrote:
| The experience I had with this was related to a seed round, where
| the multiple they were taking a bet on in a seed investment would
| be akin to that of the expectation of a venture round (10x-30x+)
| over 5-7 years.
|
| I'd be interested in the later stage VC case for investing in a
| defense startup whose main out is to be acquired by a behemoth
| that has all the regulatory, support, cleared staff, and
| certification facilities to get on the necessary procurement
| vehicles to realize revenue.
|
| Speculatively, without defense contract revenue, the acquisition
| math seems like acquihire numbers and some IP, which is in the
| low mid eight figures range, so it implies a ceiling on the best
| case for a $5m-$10m VC investment unless you have the most
| valuable patents on the planet. That said, a "breadth first" fund
| (my word) that puts small amounts in at early stages may want the
| exposure and participation for other strategic reasons, such as
| the ventures arm of some defense contractors having a mandate to
| bring startups in with them on their large bids, or a fund with
| other portfolio companies who would also benefit from the defense
| oriented tech and access to your channel.
|
| My experience is (n=1) limited and speculative, but I've also
| worked for security and cryptography companies where the
| procurement vehicle thing was an issue, and have to think this
| through a while ago, and that's what I can add. Please don't let
| me mislead you, etc.
| trjordan wrote:
| The article you linked basically answers your question. The
| standard model for defense companies isn't VC-friendly -- you're
| either building hardware with a limited ceiling, or you're
| building a consulting business that bills by the hour. Those can
| be fine businesses, but they're not amenable to wiring $10m and
| getting back $100m 3 years later.
|
| Defense buyers aren't inherently irrelevant, though. I'm working
| on a defense-related project at a VC-backed company, and plenty
| of our peers are. We're selling a standard SaaS model, and that
| continues to support our business model.
|
| The real challenge is that most tech companies scale up before
| going after defense, so they can absorb the costs. If you're
| small, you're going to have to figure out how to scale quickly in
| the defense world. If you can crack that, I'm sure you'd find a
| VC or two.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| I'm not an economics expert, but I spent some time in that
| industry and it's like I was on another planet. I think the VC-
| unfriendliness of defense isn't just an industry norm, it's a
| direct byproduct of the really weird structure of that market.
| I can't think of another industry where...
|
| 1. There are almost as many sellers as there are buyers (if not
| more sellers than buyers).
|
| 2. Virtually all revenue comes from contract-based programs.
|
| 3. The IT+personel security needs are so high that you can only
| outsource substantial work to other players in the same
| industry, or firms that specialize in working with the
| industry, so cutting costs by outsourcing doesn't work as well
| as it does elsewhere.
|
| That very small pool of buyers can kick the can down the road
| whenever they want, so a huge chunk of money has to go into
| simply predicting when your company's next payday will happen.
| When your forecasts are wrong, you have to spend a bunch of
| time laying off employees who no longer have anything to do. Or
| it goes the other way, and you have to frantically recruit the
| best engineers you can find, and shuffle them all through a
| rigorous (read: expensive) background check process. Oh, and on
| the topic of background checks- don't forget that you have
| insane security needs, even by tech industry standards.
|
| All of this makes for an environment that just isn't VC-
| friendly. Overhead is high, revenue is unpredictable, and the
| industry is designed that way. No amount of genius
| management/engineering can change that.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Agree. Defence suppliers, like the ICE in Neuromancer, need
| to look more and more like their customers, from hiring ex-
| military staff to being partly physically colocated, before
| their customers will accept them and give them hints about
| which ways deals are likely to go, and which are soon to come
| out for tender.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| This is consistent wit my experience. The defense world is
| very different from the normal market. Defense contractors
| tend to be very big (Lockmart, Boeing, L3) or very very small
| and specialized. For example there is a cottage industry
| around Ft. Campbell that supplies custom gear to Army Special
| Forces on essentially a walk-in basis. Getting in to either
| side of the industry isn't exactly easy.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. I have a friend who works for an organization which is
| a subcontractor for a critical aerospace system. They're
| basically sustained by one or two contracts and just had
| cutbacks because the two contractors they were allied with
| weren't selected for a new project.
| snapetom wrote:
| Agree. There's a reason that the GEM acronym (government,
| education, medicine) is a thing. Most sales people try to avoid
| them because they're going to be long sales cycles.
|
| However, that's not to say _all_ sales people avoid them. There
| are specialists just like VCs that do know their way around
| GEM. It 's just going to be a smaller, more niche community.
| mijail wrote:
| The measure of VC is growth and if you are a component to larger
| systems or programs you will inevitably be throttled. If you are
| a platform and can own the end to end then you should take VC
| capital and invest heavily in well connected BD's that are known
| by the PM's and have a nuanced ability to navigate the orgs.
|
| Palantir (who is end to end) has opened up VC appetites for
| defense and you see a certain signaling pattern to the VC backed
| defense start ups vs the traditional small defense business
| upstart.
|
| I work at a "start up" that develops a component so we took a
| strategic investment from a defense contractor and that has
| enabled us to develop core technology and grow commercially while
| being patient with the arduous cycles of programs.
| rkangel wrote:
| The consumer products industry is largely vendor driven -
| companies decide what products to offer and then make and sell
| them. The big money in the defence industry is customer driven -
| the DoD (etc.) decides what they need then goes out and gets
| several companies to compete to drive it.
|
| I think this has implications for the particular question being
| asked here in terms of growth opportunities, but I also think
| it's a big reason why the defence industry is stagnant and has to
| copy innovation from the consumer sector. If companies were
| coming up with products (all the way up to warplanes), and then
| selling them to customers I think there would be much greater
| advancement, and probably much better product focus on what the
| product is trying to achieve!
|
| There are obviously business model challenges to this - you're
| talking about a product with potentially 1-2 customers in some
| cases, and therefore a lot of risk. But it's interesting that the
| Israeli defence sector has moved a little more in that direction.
| brk wrote:
| Yes, but it's more niche and nuanced than mainstream stuff (I've
| dealt with it).
|
| Have you reached out to anyone at In-Q-Tel (https://www.iqt.org/)
| yet? Looked at AFWORX and SOFWORX? SBIR grants and projects
| (https://www.sbir.gov/).
|
| I see a wide variety of things coming across AFWORX and SOFWORX
| indicating interesting in AI-style things, and also what I would
| consider more mainstream stuff like battlefield coms and
| situational awareness gear.
|
| Feel free to contact me if you want to chat about anything in
| more detail.
| mhb_eng wrote:
| Double down on the IQT comment(have co-invested with them in
| the past). Their specific charter is to invest in startups like
| this. Though they don't typically lead rounds, they have a
| network of firms that they have co-invested with and will help
| connect you to the right folks.
| starwind wrote:
| I came here to also say In-Q-Tel. Great people
| ramoz wrote:
| Yea, a lot of private equity in DC...
| mbg721 wrote:
| Delaware is a doable commute.
| 3327 wrote:
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| One could probably get funding for a startup that sells sharks
| with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| I assume many VCs are civilian and also assume to make it in
| defence tech you need to be glowie approved.
|
| Of course, some successful VCs like Michael Janke are ex-
| military, and naturally he is in defence.
| tobylane wrote:
| Not just civilian VCs, but mixed country of origin? Somewhere
| along the line it will matter if you have a British board
| member, or maybe angel investor.
| titanomachy wrote:
| I had to look it up: the term "glowie" apparently comes from a
| quote by Terry Davis, the TempleOS guy (of all places!). Far-
| right groups (and possibly others) use the term to refer to
| government agents, who apparently act so conspicuously that
| they "glow in the dark".
|
| I don't personally know any US federal agents (that I'm aware
| of), so can't comment on the accuracy of that.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Take a look at:
|
| https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/anduril-industries
|
| I think they have a record of acquiring smaller companies too.
| searchableguy wrote:
| I've definitely seen VCs funding defense startups in recent years
| such as Anduril.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/17/anduril-funding-series-d-v...
|
| 450 million at a valuation of close to 5 billion.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| Find other defense startups on Crunchbase (e.g.
| https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/palantir-technologie...)
| and see who invested in them.
|
| Also, maybe it'd be more common in this industry, but asking for
| an NDA at the idea stage is a big red flag in VC (i.e. "ideas are
| worthless"). This might not apply to you, just a heads up.
| bmcphail wrote:
| There absolutely is. Forget people's opinions and look at the
| last few years of investments in the sector. Look at Anduril,
| Epirus, Saildrone, Varda, HAdrian, etc. Josh Wolfe of Lux Cap is,
| and has been, leading the VC charge into defense.
| [deleted]
| vippy wrote:
| tehlike wrote:
| There are a few VCs that work with defense startups.
|
| Reach out to Josh Wolfe from lux capital, or Delian from Founders
| fund.
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