Defense tech is red hot right now, with a proposed 40% increase to the federal defense budget, Anduril doubling its valuation to $61 billion, and a wave of startups chasing government contracts. But according to Ross Fubini, the venture investor who wrote Anduril's first check, most of them won't make it. The valley of death between a prototype contract and a real production deal is about to claim a lot of companies.
On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan asks Fubini — the founder and managing partner of XYZ Venture Capital, built on the Palantir alumni network and now approaching $2B AUM — what separates the survivors from the rest.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
- Why Ukraine and Iran have become live testing grounds for US defense startups, and which companies are getting in the field
- How other countries are building their own defense tech ecosystems, and what that means for where startups build and sell
- The sustainment problem nobody wants to talk about, and why autonomous logistics is the real moat
- Where Fubini is writing checks next, from AI-driven US manufacturing to government software for health and human services
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