Another day, another money move. This week, defense and security-focused Forward Deployed Venture Capital announced that they have raised a $45M Fund II, backed by 150 LPs from companies including Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX.
FDVC General Partner Mark Scianna—who worked at Palantir for 11 years himself—told Tectonic that they’ll use the new pile of cash to write early-stage checks to companies building tech he called “mission-critical.”
“In these mission-critical industries, software and technology just haven’t yet truly transformed them,” he said, “We see a ton of opportunity [there], in energy, defense, supply chain, [and] manufacturing.”
Get in early: Scianna is a software engineer by training, but got into VC as an individual investor. While he was still working at Palantir as a forward-deployed engineer on the defense team—he left in 2019—he began writing smaller checks for friends and former colleagues who were starting companies. He also invested in Palantir itself (lucky guy).
“I was there as an employee. I just saw this tremendous opportunity,” he said, “In 2009 they were raising a round, and I just naively walked in the CFO’s office and said, ‘Hey, I’d like to invest.’ That opened my eyes to this opportunity.”
Forward Deployed was officially founded in San Francisco in 2022 and raised an initial $10M fund. In addition to Palantir, the fund invested early in a few defense tech heavy hitters (many of which we’ve written about before), including:
- Adyton
- Castelion
- Chariot Defense
- Rune Technologies
- Turion Space
In case you didn’t notice, a lot of those companies were founded by Palantir alumni—Scianna said he leans heavily on the “mafia” when writing checks. Over half of the companies he invested in with the first fund were founded by alumni of the data giant, and many of the rest were ex-SpaceX and Anduril.
“[We have] a deep focus on networks, talent, networks. Founders that are coming out of companies where we have relationships,” he said, “It’s a small fund. And so a lot of this is just making bets on the homies.”
With the new fund, Scianna says they’re going to write slightly larger checks—$500K to $1M— and double down on defense and AI. “The world has changed,” he said, “So [we’ll be] sticking with a lot of defense and modernization of critical industries…but also the intersection with AI. Applied AI that’s solving physical problems, solving tangible problems.”
Friends in high places: What Scianna sees as setting FDVC apart is its network of LPs. While a lot of funds focus on getting a small number of high-value investors involved, he said, FDVC wanted to bring in as many people as possible from the defense tech giants.
Many of the investors in the new fund are engineers and people still working at the defense tech giants. “I wanted as many of my smart friends to be a part of this as possible with skin in the game, and they’re enjoying it,” Scianna said, “They’re giving us advice and helping portfolio companies, maybe doing a little bit of advising or telling me when their friends are starting new companies.”
He also brought in three institutional investors this time, including Bain Capital Ventures. Caroline Toch Docal, head of the seed fund program at BCV, told Tectonic that they backed Scianna and because he’s seen what works from his time at Palantir.
“His experience as a forward-deployed engineer gives him a clear understanding of the technical and organizational challenges in the sectors he’s now backing,” she wrote via email, “As a founding member of Palantir’s defense team, Mark brings the kind of edge that earns the trust of discerning founders.”