Defense technology has moved from a category most venture firms avoided entirely to one of the fastest-growing areas of institutional interest, driven by geopolitical shifts and a new generation of dual-use startups building for both commercial and government customers.
Palo Alto, CA
Founded 2012
$20.78B (RAUM, Form ADV 2026)
Assets Managed
Nubank's 2021 NYSE IPO - Ribbit was an early backer of the Brazilian neobank, which reached a market capitalization of roughly $67.4 billion by July 2026
FintechCryptoConsumer InternetAI
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San Francisco, CA
Founded 2005
SpaceX's June 2026 IPO - an estimated ~80x return on Founders Fund's original stake
AerospaceDefense TechHard Tech
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Palo Alto, CA
Founded 2015
$10B+ (following $1.3B Fund VI + Early Growth Fund III close, April 2026)
Assets Managed
No single dollar-verified signature exit - Eclipse instead builds a defense-heavy 'connected industrial economy' of companies that share infrastructure and talent, including True Anomaly (autonomous spacecraft), Blue Wat…
RoboticsAI InfrastructureManufacturingDefense
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New York, NY
Founded 2000
Auris Health's 2019 acquisition by Johnson & Johnson for up to $6.1 billion - Lux first invested in the surgical robotics company in 2012, seven years before the deal
Deep TechAIHealthcareDefense Tech
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Wish's NASDAQ IPO in December 2020 at a $14.1 billion valuation - Joe Lonsdale was an early institutional investor in the e-commerce company
Enterprise SoftwareDefense TechHealthcareAI
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Palo Alto, CA
Founded 2011
Blue River Technology's 2017 acquisition by John Deere for $305 million - an agricultural robotics bet that landed years before machine vision became standard in farming equipment
Deep TechClimateHealthcareDefense Tech
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Zurich, Switzerland
Founded 2012
€2B+ ($2B+)
Assets Managed
Spotify's 2018 New York Stock Exchange direct listing - one of Klaus Hommels' early European conviction bets, made years before the streaming company reached mainstream household status
FintechDeep TechDefense & Dual-UseConsumer Internet
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Arlington, VA
Founded 1999
Not publicly disclosed (Fortune's independent estimate: at least $1.8B deployed since 1999, based on 26 years of tax filings)
Assets Managed
Palantir's 2020 NYSE direct listing under ticker PLTR - In-Q-Tel invested roughly $2 million in 2003, when it and the CIA were essentially the company's only backers and only customers, years before Palantir's valuation …
AICybersecurityDeep TechDefense Tech
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Herzliya, Israel
Founded 2000
$1.5B (under management, stated on the fund's own page)
Assets Managed
ironSource (acquired by Unity, 2022)
FintechCybersecurityAI InfrastructureApplied AI
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San Francisco, California
Founded 2018
$1.5B (aggregate capital commitments, ACME press release, February 2022)
Assets Managed
IonQ (IPO via SPAC merger, 2021)
Deep TechAIDefense TechHealthcare
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Sydney, Australia
Founded 2004
$1.5B (firm homepage, 2026; Debt $815M and Venture $660M - the site prints no currency code, so the currency is unresolved and no conversion has been applied)
Assets Managed
Food & AgricultureHealthcareClimateDefense Tech
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US$1.5B+ (approx.; the firm's own homepage states approximately RMB 10 billion across its RMB funds plus a US$100 million fund, undated, read 2026 - no USD total is published by the firm)
Assets Managed
Clean EnergySemiconductorsDefense TechTechnology
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Berlin, Germany
Founded 2012
No confirmed public exit yet - Project A's model is operational company-building rather than harvesting, and its clearest current proof point is Trade Republic, now managing €100 billion in customer assets while still pr…
FintechDefense TechEnterprise SoftwareAI
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Menlo Park, CA
Founded 2006
$900M (Fund X, 2025)
Assets Managed
Shopify's 2015 NYSE IPO - Felicis participated in the company's $15 million Series A and rode it to a market capitalization of roughly $148.3 billion by July 2026
AICybersecurityDefense TechHealthcare
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Seraphim Space Investment Trust's own IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 - an unusually direct exit for a venture firm, since the growth-stage fund itself went public, alongside nine unicorns and six IPOs across th…
Deep TechAIDefense Tech
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Berlin, Germany
Founded 2016
$500M (across three funds)
Assets Managed
No public exit - BlueYard's crypto-native thesis means outcomes come as token appreciation rather than IPOs; the firm's clearest proof points are co-founders O'Leary and Whitmire's pre-BlueYard bets on Wunderlist (acquir…
CryptoDeep TechDefense Tech
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Sydney, Australia
Founded 2016
$500M+ (the homepage stat block reads "$500m+ / Assets / We manage over $500 million in assets"; the currency is not stated anywhere on the page - negative controls for "A$500 million" and "AUD" both returned not present - and the figure is undated. The firm is Australian but the currency is not asserted here)
Assets Managed
Instaclustr (acquired by NetApp, NASDAQ: NTAP, for more than $500 million, April 2022)
B2B SoftwareSaaSFintechMarketplaces
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Menlo Park, CA
Founded 2015
$465M (across funds)
Assets Managed
IonQ's 2021 SPAC merger with dMY Technology Group III, becoming the world's first publicly traded pure-play quantum computing hardware and software company (NYSE: IONQ) - Airbus Ventures was directly named a key IonQ inv…
Deep TechAIDefense TechClimate
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San Francisco, CA
Founded 2013
DoorDash's 2020 IPO - Semil Shah invested in DoorDash's $2.5 million seed round in 2013, one of Haystack's very first bets, made within six months of founding the firm
ConsumerCloud/SaaSAIAutonomy
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San Francisco, CA
Founded 2008
$400M target, Fund V, announced January 2025 ($160M secured at announcement)
Assets Managed
Affirm and Opendoor, both of which the firm's own team page states Raymond Tonsing backed from seed through to IPO.
Enterprise ApplicationsFintechDeep TechAI
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Washington, DC
Founded 2020
$300M (Fund III, 2025)
Assets Managed
ManufacturingLogisticsDefenseEnergy
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San Francisco, CA
Founded 2021
$186M (Fund I, closed 2022)
Assets Managed
No confirmed exit yet - Shield's clearest proof point is its oversubscribed $186 million debut fund, closed 55% above target, and its strategic partnership with L3Harris Technologies to pursue dual-use defense and commer…
AICybersecurityDefense TechDeep Tech
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San Francisco, CA
Founded 2012
$175M+ (Fund III)
Assets Managed
SGNL's acquisition by CrowdStrike in January 2026 - Costanoa backed the identity security startup years before the deal, alongside its earlier VictorOps exit to Splunk in 2018
Applied AIAI & Data InfrastructureCybersecurityNational Security
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$160M+ (Fund V)
Assets Managed
Performix's acquisition by Honeywell in 2021 - one of several strategic exits in Mercury's two-decade Midcontinent-focused portfolio, alongside PactSafe's acquisition by Ironclad
AIBlockchainFrontier TechnologiesDefense & Security
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San Francisco, CA
Founded 2016
$70M (Fund IV, 2026)
Assets Managed
Deep TechDefense TechClimateBiotech
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Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Founded 2024
€70M (Fund I first close, 2025)
Assets Managed
Deep TechDefense TechSpaceHealthcare
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Not publicly disclosed (no AUM figure is published; the largest first-party fund figure is Texas Fund II, LP, a $50M offering with $7.2M sold per its Form D of 24 February 2026 - an offering size, not AUM)
Assets Managed
Firefly Aerospace (Nasdaq IPO, 2025)
SpaceEnergyDefenseHealthcare
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New York, NY
Founded 2016
Not publicly disclosed
Assets Managed
Artificial IntelligenceFintechBiotechDefense Tech
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Los Angeles, CA
Founded -
Portfolio company Toast, the restaurant software platform, went public on the NYSE as TOST in September 2021 in a debut that valued the company at about $20 billion.
Hard TechDefense TechRoboticsSpace
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New York, NY
Founded 2018
Portfolio company Standard Nuclear, the Oak Ridge TRISO nuclear fuel maker, completed its initial public offering on the NYSE as STDN in July 2026.
Defense TechNational SecurityEnergyAerospace
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San Francisco, CA
Founded 2015
Portfolio company Roadster, a digital car-buying platform, was acquired by CDK Global for $360 million in 2021.
TransportationMobilityAutonomyLogistics
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