If anyone thought the defense tech hype train was slowing down, think again.
This morning, Austin-based fund Scout Ventures announced that it’s closed a $125M Fund V to invest in tech companies that are building “artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, space infrastructure, cyber, quantum, and advanced power technologies.” The new fund brings total funding raised by Scout to over $400M.
“The tailwinds couldn’t be any stronger [to raise right now],” Scout Managing Partner Cody Huggins said. “We raised for just about four months or so, and then [were] oversubscribed, which was awesome.”
The fund was backed by LPs including the New Mexico State Investment Council, Vanderbilt University, and a range of RIAs and family offices. Many of Fund V’s backers doubled down from Fund IV, Huggins added.
If you’re an old hand in defense tech land, you will have heard of Scout Ventures.
The fund—founded all the way back in 2012 by Brad Harrison—writes primarily seed and early-stage checks and has backed fan-favorite defense companies like:
- Havoc AI
- Swarmbotics AI
- Beacon
- Usul
- Valarian
Scout most recently raised a $94M fund—Fund IV—back in 2022, Huggins said (though it was announced in 2024).
Two-for-one: While many here in defense tech land might consider dual-use a dirty word, for Scout, it’s the name of the game. “We’re not looking to invest in anything kinetic,” Huggins said. “We try to stay on the software layer where at all possible, but we’re definitely not constrained by that.”
“We’re not looking to invest in a single-use, defense-only technology,” he added. “I would say that is…the hope for the Department of War and our allies anyway—that these technologies and companies aren’t reliant on them to keep them afloat.”
The company also puts heavy emphasis on companies led by veterans and former national security professionals—most of the investing team are graduates of service academies. Huggins and Harrison are both West Point grads.
No hands: In Fund IV, a significant portion of Scout Ventures’ defense investments were in autonomous systems—Huggins said that theme will continue in Fund V, but that they’re also expanding out into the fun supply chain and nuts and bolts side of things, as well.
“We’re still looking at areas in and around [and] that are adjacent to [autonomy],” he said. “[But] we’re looking at areas in critical minerals as well…advanced manufacturing and power generation. Then, [also] the data layer and from…an agentic AI perspective across the board, to include simulation.”
Just because they have a thing for dual-use, though, doesn’t mean they want companies to put defense on the back burner.
“We do kind of take our cues from the customer,” Huggins said. “For us, we’re usually relatively heavy on defense-first companies, even though [they’re] dual use.”
Dole it out: Huggins said the team has already deployed about 7 percent of the fund, including a $6M seed into Worldscape.ai.
For the rest of the cash money, Huggins said initial checks will range from $3-6M, then “they’ll concentrate pretty heavily via the fund [on] a couple of our winners” in later stages.