{"id":13447,"date":"2026-07-22T09:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T04:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=13447"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T04:49:11","slug":"a-vc-firm-full-of-former-navy-seals-is-pumping-cash-into-the-high-tech-weapons-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=13447","title":{"rendered":"A VC Firm Full of Former Navy SEALs Is Pumping Cash Into the High-Tech Weapons Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Today, Brown insists, their lives are considerably less cinematic, filled with surfing, working out, and time spent with their kids. \u201cWe don\u2019t do the ridiculous Silicon Valley lifestyle,\u201d he says, \u201cWe\u2019re going to be cool and crush it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">For Harpoon, \u201ccrushing it\u201d means being <em>the<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/topic\/maga\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">MAGA<\/a> VC firm\u2014focusing exclusively on companies \u201cbuilding for America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cAnother way to say that is America first,\u201d says Brown. \u201cEven though it\u2019s not really a political thing, it\u2019s just, are you focused on America or not?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cIt creates this cool kids\u2019 club where you\u2019re only in if you\u2019re building for America,\u201d Brown says. Unlike consumer software, he argues, defense investing is inseparable from Washington.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">As a result of this mantra, Harpoon\u2019s investment portfolio includes companies that are building autonomous submarines, \u201cdrones in a box,\u201d satellite maneuvering systems, postquantum cryptography, and technologies for locating critical minerals using seismic data instead of drilling. Brown says the firm also explored investing in an Israeli start-up developing underground munitions capable of tunneling beneath targets before detonating, but that deal ultimately fell through.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWe find ourselves today with, luckily, really, really amazing technology being deployed to the war fighter in a faster and better way than we would\u2019ve been stuck with had we just let the big primes continue with their modus operandi,\u201d Windle tells me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Even off the battlefield, Brown argues that some of these new technologies\u2014such as a drone defense system that he says is currently in the works\u2014could change American lives. \u201cI don&#8217;t go to concerts or any outdoor events because we are absolutely not prepared for the drone threat,\u201d Brown tells me. \u201cI specifically didn&#8217;t go to [the U.F.C. fight at the White House] even though I was invited because I don\u2019t do outdoor events.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-eRToSp cDiLiO paywall blockquote-embed\" data-testid=\"blockquote-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"BlockquoteEmbedContent-hsbhfe dOsdLu blockquote-embed__content\">\n<div class=\"GenericCalloutWrapper-loJzHJ lmBubM\" data-testid=\"GenericCallout\">\n<aside aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"PullQuoteEmbedWrapper-sc-efqGLV dYCNhz composition body pullquote bordered\" data-testid=\"pullquote-embed\">\n<p><span>&#8220;We want to make guys as safe and as lethal as possible, in that order.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Defense tech has exploded in popularity since Harpoon\u2019s creation, in 2018. According to PitchBook, VCs deployed $19.8 billion into defense tech across 262 deals in the first quarter of 2026, compared to $5.7 billion in the first quarter of 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWe can use the current venture capital incentives to really help push defense tech to the forefront,\u201d says Windle, \u201cBut our goal at Harpoon is because we still have buddies that are in, guys that I brought into the military are still in\u2014we want to make guys as safe and as lethal as possible, in that order.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Harpoon launched its own accelerator in April of 2025, spearheaded by Couillard, called Black Flag; if selected, early-stage defense start-ups receive investments from Harpoon, as well as potentially from Shield Capital and the CIA-backed venture firm In-Q-Tel (IQT), and are connected to a network that extends from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/topic\/peter-thiel\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">Peter Thiel<\/a>\u2019s Palantir and Amodei\u2019s Anthropic to the Pentagon. And there\u2019s real money to be made\u2014these nascent defense start-ups are raising multiples from 17 times to 50 times revenue, according to <em>Fortune.<\/em> These surging valuations have some investors worried it\u2019s a bubble, but Windle argues that every area of VC ultimately becomes a bubble due to herd mentality. After years risking their lives in the armed forces, Windle also argues that SEALs are able to understand and address threats in real time and coach young founders\u2014some of whom didn\u2019t even go to college\u2014through the feeling of danger involved in high-stakes investing that can be similar to what they experienced on the battlefield.<\/p>\n<div class=\"GenericCalloutWrapper-loJzHJ lmBubM\" data-testid=\"GenericCallout\">\n<aside aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"PullQuoteEmbedWrapper-sc-efqGLV dYCNhz composition body pullquote bordered\" data-testid=\"pullquote-embed\">\n<p><span class=\"paywall\">\u201cIt creates this cool kids\u2019 club where you\u2019re only in if you\u2019re building for America,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, Brown insists, their lives are considerably less cinematic, filled with surfing, working out, and time spent with their kids. \u201cWe don\u2019t do the ridiculous Silicon Valley lifestyle,\u201d he says, \u201cWe\u2019re going to be cool and crush it.\u201d For Harpoon, \u201ccrushing it\u201d means being the MAGA VC firm\u2014focusing exclusively on companies \u201cbuilding for America.\u201d \u201cAnother&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a5fe7c2b195562154d58952\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/VF_BTO_July-21_Tout.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-gossip"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}