Silicon Valley loves its wunderkinds, but the same cannot be said of Washington, D.C., where the central mandate is not to take risks, but to de-risk.
Or that’s how it’s been until recently. The two American power centers have been solidifying a détente, spurred by the war in Ukraine and the great global competition with China. Investor interest in defense startups has grown, with nearly $8 billion of VC dollars flowing to aerospace and defense startups last year – up from just $1.4 billion in 2018, according to the analytics firm PitchBook.
Concurrently, Pentagon leaders have acknowledged that getting startup tech to the warfighter is a national security imperative, which has led to greater willingness to work with companies outside the small suite of aerospace primes.
Few stories embody this incredible shift more than one that emerged in the middle of June: that of Mach Industries, and its nineteen-year-old foun...
