Venture Capital in Defense: Marlinspike on Talent and Scale
The surge of capital into defense and dual-use technology is transforming the venture landscape. These dual-use companies, which serve both national security and commercial markets, are now attracting serious venture capital interest by offering bigger markets and multiple paths to scale.
On Episode 103 of The Machine Minds Show, host Greg Toroosian, founder of Samson Rose, spoke one-on-one with Nick Snoad, Vice President at Marlinspike. In this essential conversation, Nick details the precise criteria he uses to evaluate early-stage teams, markets, and milestones during this defense venture capital boom.
Nick Snoad's Professional Journey and Background
Nick Snoad brings a unique blend of military operational expertise, business acumen, and private equity discipline to the venture capital world.
Military and Technical Foundation
Nick is an alumnus of West Point and served five years in the U.S. Army as a Signal Corps Officer. This experience, focused on communications, provided him with a crucial, hands-on understanding of the systems and variables that determine success or failure in complex technical environments.
Operational and Financial Acumen
Following his service, Nick transitioned into the consulting world, where he was embedded within a massive private equity fund’s portfolio operations team. There, he gained essential business experience, working on various operational levers across the supply chain and real estate. This exposure provided a foundational understanding of the "nuts and bolts" that make a business function in the day-to-day.
Formalizing Knowledge
Nick sought an MBA from the Darden School of Business to codify his operational and business experience into formal education. This combination of planning, consulting, and academic knowledge prepared him specifically for evaluating companies at Marlinspike, an investment firm focused on technology that supports both national interests and the global economy.
The Dual-Use Imperative: Why Commercial Viability is Non-Negotiable
Marlinspike’s core investment strategy rests on the necessity of the dual-use model, which Nick stresses is essential for achieving venture-scale growth:
Venture Scale Requires Commercial Reach
For Marlinspike, venture capital is fundamentally a bet on massive markets and huge disruption. A large government contract alone, even a billion-dollar program, is "not necessarily enough to drive a venture-scale return." Dual-use provides the larger, diversified market size required for high-velocity returns.
Traction is Sector-Dependent
The preferred market entry point depends heavily on the industry. The Space sector remains largely government-centric. Cybersecurity companies, conversely, are encouraged to start commercial first to overcome tedious government regulatory barriers and prove product market fit before chasing the more complex government market.
Investing in Deep Tech: Milestones that Signal Viability
For early-stage companies focused heavily on research and development or capital-intensive "moonshot" ideas, the investment focus shifts from traditional commercial metrics, like unit economics, to clear, achievable technical milestones:
The 12–24 Month Sprint
For pre-seed and seed-stage investments, Marlinspike focuses on what a founder will accomplish within a short capital runway of 12 to 24 months. This necessitates achieving clear technical signals such as a prototype completion, a demonstration on orbit, or "x number of deployments of this software across an enterprise."
Unlocking Further Capital
Hitting these clear milestones is necessary "to signal to the market that I have reached... tech viability" to unlock subsequent capital rounds, proving that the technical risk has been substantially mitigated.
Navigating Government Funding and Policy Evolution
Nick highlights the strategic relationship between founders and non-dilutive government funding, an area currently undergoing policy transformation:
Strategic Use of Non-Dilutive Capital
Government programs, such as SBIRs, DIU, and OTAs, are critical partners that provide non-dilutive forms of capital to de-risk the venture.
Avoiding the Roadmap Trap
The critical challenge is ensuring that government requirements do not hijack the company’s core mission. Nick stresses that founders need the discipline and "relentless pursuit" to ensure that every government-funded project still advances the company’s commercial product roadmap.
Policy Changes for Faster Scaling
Policy changes are moving toward faster scaling. New vehicles, including OTAs, TACFIs, and STRATFIs, allow companies to get proven product "into those organizations at a much much higher scale, much much faster," which is a significant improvement over previous procurement methods.
Understanding the Government Acronyms
To fully appreciate the strategies for leveraging federal capital, here is a brief explanation of the key acronyms mentioned by Nick Snoad is essential.
SBIR or Small Business Innovation Research
A competitive program that encourages domestic small businesses to engage in federal research and development that has the potential for commercialization.
DIU or Defense Innovation Unit
A U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) organization that accelerates the adoption of commercial technology and methodologies into the U.S. military.
OTA or Other Transaction Authority
A special contracting vehicle used by U.S. government agencies (especially the DoD) to speed up the acquisition of research and development for prototypes and to allow for flexible agreements outside of traditional federal procurement regulations.
TACFI or Transition to Accelerate Commercialization for the Future Initiative
A program often associated with the Air Force, designed to transition technologies developed under the SBIR/STTR programs into larger contracts and production.
STRATFI or Strategic Funding Increase
A program (often associated with the Air Force) that provides a significant funding bridge for dual-use technologies that have completed prototype development and are ready for large-scale transition to military or government users.
Market Disruption: Where Adoption is Slow and Fast
Marlinspike actively seeks areas where technology is not only needed but where adoption is accelerating or due for massive disruption:
Slowest Adoption: The Future of Wargaming
Nick believes the slowest area of tech adoption has been wargaming, which currently remains an "archaic tabletop kind of exercise." The future of war games will involve training autonomous algorithms (new TTPs: Techniques, Tactics, and Procedures) and requires sophisticated "simulation architecture to be able to rapidly refresh."
High-Velocity Adoption
Nick is seeing rapid integration in Autonomy and Factory OS (data-enabled end-to-end manufacturing).
New Sectors on the Radar
Nick is highly interested in deep technology that addresses critical infrastructure, including energy (nuclear and geothermal) and data-enabled manufacturing.
Talent, Team, and Operational Excellence: The Investor's Focus
As a specialized talent search partner, Samson Rose is particularly interested in how venture capitals evaluate founding teams and their ability to execute. Nick Snoad and Marlinspike, operating as a multi-stage fund with a "private equity approach," place a heavy emphasis on a team’s operational capability and self-awareness.
1. Assessing Technical Teams in a Collegial Ecosystem
For highly technical plays, Marlinspike uses the collaborative nature of the venture capital ecosystem to perform due diligence:
Understanding the Execution Plan
Nick asserts that investors do not need to be the "one that figures out how to split the atom." Instead, their job is to understand how the founders plan to execute their technology and build a successful plan. This focus shifts the assessment from pure technical novelty to the quality of the commercialization strategy.
Leveraging the Network
Nick uses the collegial atmosphere of venture capital, collaborating with experts from corporate venture partners, such as Lockheed and Raytheon, and end-users within the government to gain external feedback and crucial data points regarding technical viability and adoption potential.
2. The Focus on Operational Levers
Marlinspike seeks well-balanced teams, focusing intently on their ability to transition technical vision into a scalable reality:
Balance is Key: While a serial founder with a multi-exit track record is the "holy grail," Nick looks for teams that balance technical brilliance with operational experience. He warns against teams that have "brilliant technical founders" but lack individuals who have actually "run a business before."
The Operational Deep Dive: Nick enjoys working with technical founders but focuses his due diligence on the operational levers. His focus is on the macro-strategy’s foundation: "What are all the different key variables that go into it?" This includes tactical decisions such as defining the exact talent profile for the first three engineers to be hired. This operational focus is critical for translating a technical vision into a scalable business.
3. Testing Founder Maturity and Self-Awareness
Marlinspike employs specific tests to gauge a founder’s maturity and commitment to partnership:
The Value-Add Test
During initial calls, Nick asks what the founder needs them to deliver. If the answer is "just capital," they lack the maturity Marlinspike seeks. They want hungry founders who understand that investors are resources to be leveraged for a 10-year partnership, seeking strategic guidance beyond merely funds.
Knowing When to Bring in a Scaler
The most mature founders recognize their own "strengths and limitations." Nick notes that technical execution is paramount from Seed through Series A, but from Series B through D, the company requires different skills, such as scaling up sales and operations. Founders who have the maturity to recognize they may not be the optimal CEO for that scaling phase, and are willing to step aside to bring in a specialized scaler, demonstrate the self-awareness that venture capitals trust.
Advice to Veterans Breaking into Tech and Venture Capital
Nick Snoad offers candid advice for military veterans and founders looking to enter the dual-use technology space:
Go Work Before School
For veterans, Nick found it "incredibly beneficial to go to work" in the private sector to learn the fundamentals of business, such as a P&L statement, before going straight to business school.
Get Operational Experience
At this "inflection point" for national security technology, veterans should go join a startup in space. They must learn the process of working at an early-stage company, particularly how to sell into the government, and leverage their military experience to add immediate value.
The Best Path to Venture Capital
The ultimate advice for those who wish to become a venture capitalist is to "build a company and successfully exit it."
Blog Notes
Dual-Use is Mandatory
Defense tech needs a commercial market to achieve venture-scale growth.
Early Stage Focus
Prioritize hitting specific, technical milestones (prototype, deployment count) over immediate revenue generation.
Talent Focus
Venture capitals prioritize founders who demonstrate self-awareness and a detailed operational plan for hiring and execution.
New Frontiers
Watch for rapid adoption in autonomy, simulation, and high-tech energy solutions.
Explore the Innovation Driving the Dual-Use Revolution
Listen to the full conversation on YouTube here: Ep. 103 | | Inside The Defense VC Boom | Nick Snoad.
Learn more about Marlinspike's strategy and investments via the Marlinspike website and the Marlinspike Substack. Connect with Nick Snoad on LinkedIn.
Take Action Now: Secure Your Role in the Hard Tech Revolution
Marlinspike’s insights confirm that the key to unlocking venture-scale growth is securing operationally mature leaders who can execute a dual-use vision.
Samson Rose specializes in identifying this rare combination of technical depth and operational urgency. We partner with venture capitals and founders to connect exceptional leaders, from Directors to C-suite executives, with visionary companies pioneering the future of dual-use systems.
Stop searching, start building.
For Top Talent: Ready to lead and scale a pioneering dual-use company? Explore Exclusive Opportunities
For Innovative Companies: Do you need to secure a specialized scaler that your Series B or D requires? Partner with Samson Rose for Talent Acquisition