For years, defense investing was considered off limits for most venture capital firms.<br><br>Today, billions of dollars are flowing into defense startups as AI, drones, autonomy, advanced manufacturing, and national security become some of the biggest investment themes of the decade.<br><br>David sits down with Jake Chapman, Managing Director at Marque Ventures, to discuss why defense became mainstream, how government procurement is changing, why Anduril and SpaceX transformed venture investing, where the biggest opportunities still exist, and why the next generation of iconic venture-backed companies may be built around national security rather than consumer software.

E415: Why Every VC Is Suddenly Investing in Defense

How I Invest with David Weisburd

[SPEAKER_02] Why Is Everyone in Silicon Valley Suddenly Investing into DefenseTech?

[SPEAKER_00] David Weisburd, If you zoom out, Venture is a trend-driven business. Before DefenseTech it was maybe crypto and before crypto it was Creator Economy and before that it was Solomo or something, right? So defense just happens to be the trend today, but I think the meat of your question is why is defense the thing of the day? and I think there's a lot of reasons for it. One is just the people can look at the world today and

[SPEAKER_00] just see there's conflict sort of everywhere brewing. You've got this big macro competition between the U.S. and China. You've got the war in Ukraine. Northern Africa is sort of a mess. Obviously, we're fighting over the Strait of Hormuz with Iran. And so there's big macro trends driving interest in defense. And then I think you also saw in the last few years just a change in the attitude around whether or not defense could be a successful investment sector,

[SPEAKER_00] largely driven by three companies. I think, you know, Palantir, SpaceX and Anduril really proved that there was some meat on that bone. And that brought a lot of interest to the space.

[SPEAKER_02] When I think about this, I think about it as self-reinforcing. A lot of these spaces, they become hot because there's one or two, or in this case, three winners. And now capital gets returned. Now founders pursue that space. And now suddenly there's a market. How much of that is what's driving defense?

E415: Why Every VC Is Suddenly Investing in Defense

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

E415: Why Every VC Is Suddenly Investing in Defense

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.