Hoover Institution
04/11/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 04/11/2025 01:32
The Warfighter’s Pipeline
Addressing twenty-first-century threats to US national security requires capabilities and capital beyond those of the traditional defense industrial base. Seeding a new industrial base necessitates understanding the incremental milestones that drive funding for venture-backed startups and aligning them with incremental US government innovation funding programs. This essay strongly encourages legislative and policy reform in federal innovation programs to fully maximize the delivery of new advanced capabilities to confront America's adversaries.
Key Takeaways
- A new generation of venture-backed Silicon Valley leaders has emerged who are focusing on modernizing and expanding military capabilities for US national security.
- Success for this new, nontraditional defense industrial base should be measured by the number of new operational capabilities fielded to war fights, and related innovation programs should be structured to align government funding awards with typical venture capital fundraising timelines.
- Ultimately, innovation funding alone will not result in a resilient and growing new defense industrial base. Program officers must see positive incentives to partner with emerging companies on scalable programs of record.
The Warfighter's Pipeline: A Blueprint for Aligning Venture Capital with Defense Acquisition by Hoover Institution
Cite this essay:
Dan Berkenstock and Jon Chung. "The Warfighter's Pipeline: A Blueprint for Aligning Defense Acquisition with Venture Capital." Technology Policy Accelerator, Hoover Institution, March 2025.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dan Berkenstock is a science fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he studies space entrepreneurship, defense tech, and defense acquisition reform. Berkenstock was the founding CEO of Skybox Imaging, acquired by Google in 2014, and has served on the boards of several venture-backed aerospace startups, including Astranis. He holds a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University.
Jon Chung is an active-duty acquisitions officer and national defense fellow for the US Space Force. A US Air Force Academy graduate, he has led programs across bioeffect weapons, satellite communications, space control, space mobility and logistics, and launch. He is a former chief of advanced programs at the National Reconnaissance Office, defense ventures fellow, and DARPA service chiefs fellow.