Jane Edwards
A group of 12 defense technology companies and venture capital firms provided the Department of Defense with four recommendations to reform acquisition, make revisions to specific planning, programming, budgeting and execution structures and address challenges to innovation.
In a Friday letter to Defense Secretary and 2023 Wash100 awardee Lloyd Austin, the companies said they endorse the Atlantic Council Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption’s recommendations as outlined in its interim report.
The recommendations are modernizing DOD to align with the 21st century industrial base, strenghtening the alignment of capital markets to DOD outcomes, incentivizing tech companies to do business with the Pentagon and establishing a bridge fund for demonstrated technologies.
Specific actions include making the Defense Innovation Unit a direct report to the DOD secretary and enhancing the Small Business Innovation Research grants program.
“Together, we believe that these recommendations will address the DOD’s critical technology gaps and construct agile funding structures that will dramatically improve the DOD’s ability to integrate the world’s best technologies,” Qasar Younis, co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition and one of the letter’s signatories, said in a statement published Monday.
The letter was also signed by executives from Lux Capital, General Catalyst, Floodgate, Kleiner Perkins, Haystack, Shield Capital, Snowpoint Ventures, Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies, Hermeus, Primer Technologies and Founders Fund.
