🇺🇸 The Veteran Fund Update: May 2026
In honor of Memorial Day, we express our deepest gratitude to the men and women who sacrificed their lives in service to our country, and to the future generations of Americans who will carry the torch of liberty forward through their courage and conviction.
As America approaches her 250th anniversary, the world around us is becoming more contested and dependent on technologies that define economic strength, national security, and global leadership. Against this backdrop, and a renewed national focus on technological sovereignty, The Veteran Fund’s mission has never been more urgent or relevant.
Fund I continues to outperform, with portfolio companies now surpassing $500 million in aggregate financings alongside rapidly expanding government and commercial traction. Simultaneously, Fund II is already validating the platform, with our first four investments completed and world-class business and military leaders joining as LPs.
Driven by the exceptional leadership of our portfolio companies, our thesis of backing exceptional veteran-led companies building critical technologies has been validated by a historic convergence of public and private capital. This includes JPMorgan’s $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative, the Department of War’s renewed focus on technology, and landmark federal priorities like the CHIPS and Science Act.
Inspired by those who came before us and those who continue to serve, we are honored to share the following update as our veteran-led companies continue to build critical technologies to help America and her allies compete, deter, and lead.
📈 Portfolio Highlights
Havoc AI (Fund I) Raised a $100M Series A, with Veteran Fund SPV Participation, to scale its all-domain collaborative autonomy platform, bringing its total capital raised to approximately $200 million since 2024.
The Veteran Fund LPs received a direct investment opportunity through an SPV that was quickly oversubscribed.
The round included major strategic and financial investors and will support continued product development, manufacturing scale, and deployment across maritime and aerial missions.
Havoc is the category leader in all-domain autonomy for defense systems at a time when the U.S. and allied militaries are rapidly shifting toward lower-cost, attritable, software-defined platforms capable of operating across domains.
Firestorm (Fund I) raised an $82 million Series B led by Washington Harbour Partners, with participation from NEA, Ondas, In-Q-Tel, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Ventures, Geodesic, Motley Fool Ventures, and others.
The round brings Firestorm’s total funding to approximately $153 million.
Firestorm is scaling xCell, its containerized “factory-in-a-box” manufacturing platform that enables rapid drone and component production at the point of need.
In contested environments where long logistics tails are vulnerable, Firestorm is building the decentralized manufacturing layer required for modern defense operations.
Hedgehog AI (Fund I) closed a Seed+ round following major customer deployments and strong commercial momentum ahead of its upcoming Series A.
Hedgehog provides high-performance, cloud-native AI networking infrastructure for enterprise and national security environments at less than half the cost of traditional legacy providers. Their platform supports AI inference at the data edge while integrating seamlessly with public and private cloud environments for model training and fine-tuning.
Hedgehog is already serving customers across financial services, healthcare, biotech, telecommunications, energy, and manufacturing, helping organizations operate faster, more efficiently, and at significantly lower cost in mission-critical environments.
Natilus (Fund I) closed a $28 million Series A led by Veteran Fund LP, Tim Draper, to commercialize its family of hyper-efficient blended-wing-body aircraft.
The financing will support the first full-scale flight of KONA, its next-generation regional freighter designed for commercial and defense logistics.
Natilus is building a fundamentally new aircraft architecture designed to improve aerodynamics, reduce fuel usage, lower operating costs, and expand cargo capacity.
In a world where logistics capacity, fuel efficiency, and resilient transportation networks are increasingly strategic, Natilus continues to represent a compelling dual-use aerospace platform with major commercial and national security relevance.
🚀 New Investments
Foundation Robotics (Fund I & II) is an autonomous humanoid robotics company developing industrial-grade machines designed to operate across manufacturing, defense, logistics, and austere environments.
Its flagship humanoid platform, Phantom, and proprietary AI foundation model, Cortex, position the company at the convergence of AI, robotics, and autonomy; three technologies increasingly central to the strategic priorities of the United States and its allies.
Foundation is led by serial entrepreneur and Marine Corps veteran Mike LeBlanc, whose background combines operational military leadership, deep robotics expertise, and proven founder resilience. Foundation is pursuing one of the most consequential industrial and national security markets of the coming decade.
Autonomous Cyber (Fund II) is building the American cyber neo-prime through its AI platform for offensive cybersecurity, giving commercial and government cyber operators the ability to discover vulnerabilities, build bespoke tooling, adapt to AI-enabled defenses, and operate more effectively in complex network environments.
The company is led by founders with direct mission experience across the National Security Agency and the U.S. Army representing exactly the type of dual-use, mission-driven company Fund II was built to support.
Autonomous Cyber has successfully closed $12M to date, from leading firms like Shield Capital, Bloomberg BETA, Fulcrum Ventures, Multiball, and others.
Refacture (Fund II) is expanding the domestic production of critical materials, which is one of the most strategically important supply-chain challenges facing the United States.
The company’s proprietary high-temperature plasma technology converts industrial byproducts into high-value materials used across semiconductors, batteries, defense systems, advanced electronics, and industrial automation.
Refacture targets the production of critical inputs including silicon carbide, rare earth elements, synthetic graphite, nickel, cobalt, and tungsten carbide; materials essential to modern manufacturing and national security.
Positioned at the intersection of reshoring, supply-chain resilience, critical minerals independence, and the rebuilding of America’s semiconductor base, Refacture is helping solve the upstream materials bottlenecks that will determine whether the next generation of U.S. industrial capacity is secure, scalable, and sovereign.
DarkSaber Labs (Fund II) is building state-of-the-art electronic warfare systems rooted in Agentic AI and edge computing for contested environments.
The company’s flagship platform, Yankee, is an AI-powered sensor fusion system designed to autonomously ingest electronic signals and communications, providing warfighters with edge-based autonomous threat detection and signal geolocation across broad mission areas, completely eliminating cloud dependencies and niche legacy tools.
DarkSaber’s mission is built around the reality that modern warfare is increasingly defined by information advantage, electronic warfare, cyber effects, sensor fusion, and decision speed. The team blends elite tactical experience with AI leadership, including former Naval Special Warfare, Intelligence Community professionals, and a Stanford professor who helped pioneer agentic AI. The company is backed by our friends at Eniac, Context Ventures, and AIN Ventures.
🇺🇸 Featured Limited Partners
Jack Selby is the Managing Director of Thiel Capital and a Managing Partner at Copper Sky Capital, Arizona’s largest venture capital firm investing in leading technology companies from the American interior.
An accomplished venture investor, Jack embodies the strategic alignment and conviction that define The Veteran Fund’s LP base. An early PayPal team member and co-founder of Clarium Capital alongside Peter Thiel, he has spent decades backing transformative technologies across AI, space, security, and frontier sectors.
Jack’s support underscores the alignment between our LPs and our thesis: that disciplined, strategic capital deployed alongside operators with a national security edge delivers both long-term impact and superior returns.
Tim Draper is one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic venture capitalists and an early backer of transformational companies including Tesla, SpaceX, Robinhood, and Twitch through Draper Associates, DFJ, and the broader Draper venture ecosystem.
Known for identifying visionary founders before markets recognize the opportunity, Tim has consistently invested at the frontier of innovation across space, AI, biotech, fintech, and deep technology.
Through Draper University and his TV show, Meet the Drapers, Tim has helped inspire and accelerate thousands of entrepreneurs globally. Tim’s involvement with The Veteran Fund reflects a shared conviction around backing bold founders building technologies that will define the future, strengthen American innovation leadership, and create enduring impact at global scale.
📣 Announcements and Events
The Veteran Fund is proud to announce the launch of The Veteran Fund Syndicate, an accredited investor network that provides direct investment opportunities in The Veteran Fund’s top performing portfolio companies.
To learn more about The Veteran Fund Syndicate, please visit www.veteran.fund/syndicate
GP Mike was honored to be invited by Jamie Dimon to participate in JPMorgan’s inaugural Defense Action Forum, bringing together leaders from government, defense, technology, and investment to discuss strengthening America’s industrial and national security capabilities.
The event focused on accelerating defense innovation, modernizing procurement, and increasing collaboration between the private sector and the U.S. government.
Discussions emphasized JPMorgan’s $1.5 trillion SRI initiative, an urgent need to move faster, scale advanced manufacturing, and support next-generation defense technology companies.
GP Mike attended a private leadership retreat at Necker Island hosted by friend of The Veteran Fund, Alexander McCobin from Liberty Ventures, alongside Sir Richard Branson.
The experience brought together mission-aligned leaders for conversations around entrepreneurship, freedom, innovation, AI, and the future of human flourishing, alongside daily business summits and adventure activities.
We are excited to be returning to Necker Island next year with members of The Veteran Fund community for another unforgettable experience focused on innovation, liberty, and building enduring companies that advance America and humanity.
If you’re interested in joining us for a 2027 Necker Island leadership retreat, request more information at www.veteran.fund/necker.
GP Justin Nahama attended an awards presentation, hosted by Rising Tide Partners, where two portfolio companies were recognized, Firestorm and Natilus, for their continued impact on global innovation and the San Diego startup community.
GP Ryan attended the US Army’s Demand Signal event at Stanford University where Paul Lwin, CEO of Havoc shared his insights on the future of maritime autonomous systems. There, Ryan met with the Deputy Under Secretary of the Army and the CTO of the Army, to share our work at The Veteran Fund.
GPs Mike and Lisa attended and spoke at eMerge Americas, Miami’s largest technology conference, joining leaders across venture capital, defense, AI, and emerging technology to discuss the future of innovation, national security, and entrepreneurship.
During the eMerge conference, portfolio companies TERN AI, Glīd Technologies, and SplashOne Robotics captured the top three honors at the eMerge Americas National Security Veteran Pitch Competition, a showcase for veteran-led startups building mission-ready dual-use technologies.
GP Ryan Micheletti spoke at the Aerospace and Defense Expo of Plug and Play’s Silicon Valley Summit alongside Katie Gray from In-Q-Tel, and Shohei Yamada from SBI Holdings. The event brought together leaders from the international Aerospace and Defense community to discuss the future of critical technologies.
GP Mike hosted a panel at TechCon SoCal in San Diego alongside Larsen Jensen (Harpoon Ventures), Dan Magy (Firestorm), and Steve Kiser (Veteran Ventures), bringing together leaders across venture capital, defense technology, and entrepreneurship to discuss the future of national security innovation.
In closing, Memorial Day serves as a sacred reminder that American sovereignty is not a permanent status quo, but an ongoing mission inherited by a new generation of builders who possess the operational grit and technological fortitude to advance our republic from the front lines of innovation.
The freedoms we enjoy were secured by those willing to serve something greater than themselves. That spirit remains central to The Veteran Fund. We are backing the next generation of veteran-led companies building the critical technologies that will define America’s future: AI, autonomy, robotics, space infrastructure, cyber, advanced manufacturing, energy, logistics, and defense.
Together, we are not simply investing in companies. We are helping build the industrial, technological, and leadership foundation required for America and her allies to remain free, secure, and prosperous. Thank you for your continued partnership, conviction, and belief in this mission.
-Mike, Justin, Lisa, and Ryan
