Defense and venture capital used to rarely overlap, but that’s no longer the case. Defense tech VC dealmaking set a record in Q1 2026, and new VC firms have emerged around the world to invest solely in defense startups. One of these is two-year-old Protego Ventures, which presents itself as the first and largest dedicated
Hi, it’s Preston Fore, in for Allie. Earlier this month, defense tech firm Mach Industries raised $600 million in a Series C extension at a $3.7 billion valuation. That’s more than double the $1.8 billion valuation Mach reached just three months earlier when it raised its initial $300 million Series C led by Ribbit Capital,
In September 2015, the Founders Fund hosted a retreat at an eco-resort in British Columbia. Most of the attendees were VCs and people from the companies the firm was backing, but they also invited a few outsiders, including computer pioneer Alan Kay, writer Neal Stephenson, and me. One morning at breakfast I was sitting across
Rising fears of an AI apocalypse have rattled markets and forced investors to reckon with a potentially existential risk. A future where robots take over and terminate humans remains a radical vision, fueled by recent warnings from AI researchers who consider doomsday a possible, but very unlikely, scenario. Yet it’s worth asking how people can
Fusion power is getting back to its roots. As fusion startups keep chasing their ultimate goal — putting electrons on the grid — many are also now embracing, or returning to, the defense applications that laid the foundation for the industry. The sector emerged decades ago when physicists looked for more constructive uses of the
This week brought another warning from tech leaders about the growing threat of AI cyber attacks — and I am once again asking what I, a regular person, am supposed to do about it. OpenAI published an open letter on Thursday, joined by over 100 organizations, warning that the window to shore up cyber defenses
