The object in orbit is not a metaphor. It is a capsule, built by Inversion to bring cargo back from space cheaply and often. A few rows down AIN Ventures' portfolio sits Orbit Fab, which wants to refuel satellites where they fly. Then come continuous medical sensors, gene therapies, high-density ultracapacitors, secure geolocation and software that adapts large language models to a company's own domain. The list reads like somebody shuffled NASA, a hospital lab, an electric grid and an AI conference into the same deck.
AIN's organizing idea is simpler than the technology. Each company should be able to solve a problem for a commercial customer and for a government customer. That is what the firm means by dual use. A medical device may serve a health system and the Department of Veterans Affairs. A climate-risk platform may help a food company plan crops and an agency protect supply chains. A spacecraft can carry commercial cargo while answering a national-security need. The technology does not need to begin in defense, and the government buyer does not need to wear a uniform.
That distinction matters because “defense tech” has become a fashionable label in venture capital. AIN Ventures, founded in 2020 by Emily McMahan and Sherman Williams II, is interested in the less fashionable work after the pitch: finding the office with the problem, understanding the budget, surviving procurement and using grants or contracts without letting them turn the startup into a bespoke consultancy.
Two founders, two buying systems
McMahan graduated from West Point, served in the military and later built Capitol Post, an incubator for veterans and military spouses. Before that, she worked as a partner and finance chief at a technology company serving the federal government. Williams graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, began his career as a Naval Intelligence Officer and spent six years in healthcare technology mergers and acquisitions before moving into early-stage investing. Their resumes meet at a useful junction: one side understands how government behaves as a customer; the other knows how investors price growth and technical risk.
The pair first organized the Academy Investor Network, a syndicate for graduates of the five publicly funded U.S. service academies. It has since grown beyond a source of checks. AIN says more than 600 graduates can contribute deal referrals, technical diligence, mission knowledge, recruiting leads and introductions. In a conventional fund, a partner might call a friendly executive to inspect a software product. In AIN's version, the right call might reach an aerospace engineer, a former acquisition officer or somebody who has used an early version of the problem in the field.
“Capital, connections, and clearance to scale.”AIN Ventures, describing its operating advantage
The word “clearance” does double duty. It suggests access, but the more important value is translation. Government procurement has its own acronyms, calendars and constraints. Commercial founders can mistake a promising meeting for a customer commitment. Technical teams spun out of federal programs can make the reverse mistake, building around a single contract without proving that a wider market exists. AIN's job is to push each toward the other side before one buyer becomes a trap.
The product is not only the check
AIN Ventures invests at pre-seed and seed, when a founder's fit with the problem can matter more than a long revenue history. Williams has summarized the screen in three parts: team, market size and technological differentiation. McMahan has added a practical corollary for government sales: founders need education and customer research. They must learn who actually buys, how that person buys and why the agency cannot ignore the problem.
The firm makes money like an early-stage venture manager - by managing pooled capital and sharing in gains - while the related syndicate lets academy graduates invest alongside selected deals. Public filings show AIN Ventures Fund I targeting a $50 million offering, with $3.6 million sold to 19 investors as of May 2022. An industry profile named USAA as the anchor investor at the first close, alongside family offices and high-net-worth individuals. The firm's current total assets and fee terms are not publicly disclosed.
The two-market test
Its most concrete service is help with non-dilutive capital. AIN says companies it supports have secured more than $100 million through grants and contracts. For a startup developing a new propulsion system, medical platform or energy device, that money can pay for validation without forcing another equity sale. It can also create a first demanding customer. Used poorly, however, grant work fragments a roadmap. AIN's differentiator is the claim that it knows enough about both systems to keep public money attached to a scalable product.
The portfolio provides the proof points. Inversion is building autonomous re-entry vehicles. Proteus Space integrates small satellites for U.S. and allied government missions. ClimateAI sells machine-learning forecasts for supply-chain decisions. Bright Uro develops wireless urologic sensing. Arcee AI builds domain-adapted language models. Florrent makes ultracapacitors from regeneratively grown hemp biomass. These are not variations on one product. They are variations on one financing and go-to-market puzzle: expensive technology, patient development and buyers whose needs overlap without matching exactly.
A market getting harder, literally
AIN also publishes annual research on the market it is trying to finance. Its fifth Dual-Use Technology report examined 645 companies that had raised more than $5 million in 2024, enriched with federal grant, founder and patent data. The report found hardware rising from 14 percent of the dataset in 2021 to 37 percent in 2024, while software fell from 70 percent to 29 percent. Hybrid systems gained too.
That shift helps explain where AIN fits. Broad seed funds can be wary of hardware timelines. Traditional government contractors understand acquisition but rarely offer a startup's venture-growth model. Corporate venture arms may bring one strategic customer and one set of incentives. Specialist firms such as Shield Capital, Scout Ventures, Decisive Point, Razor's Edge, Harpoon Ventures and In-Q-Tel also operate around national security and dual use. Larger deep-tech investors including Lux Capital and DCVC compete for the same ambitious technical teams.
AIN's narrower advantage is its combination of an emerging-manager fund, an academy syndicate and a non-dilutive-capital practice. Its size can be a limitation when a company needs a large factory or clinical program, making co-investors essential. Its breadth can also look unruly. Spacecraft, biotech and machine-learning infrastructure demand different diligence. The advisory board and network are meant to solve that problem, but a network is only useful when the correct expert shows up and disagrees clearly.
Culture is part of that operating system. The core firm is small, while venture partners and scientific advisers add experience in aerospace engineering, cyber science, trusted AI, energy and government technology. Its public language leans on service values - integrity, practiced leadership and a willingness to speak plainly - but the useful test is operational. Can the team tell a founder that an enthusiastic agency contact has no purchasing authority? Can it find a specialist who spots a fatal technical assumption before the next round? At seed stage, candor is a service.
Who should call - and what to steal
AIN is best suited to a founder at the beginning of an expensive technical journey who can name at least two credible markets. One may be a federal agency, state authority, public health system or defense organization. The other needs to be commercial enough to support a repeatable company. Veteran leadership is welcome and can qualify across sectors, but military biography alone is not the product. The firm's public criteria still return to a capable team, a large market and technology that is meaningfully different.
The reusable lesson is not “sell to the Pentagon.” It is to treat public-sector discovery as product discovery. Map the user, the contracting office, the program, the budget and the acquisition path. Separate a grant milestone from a customer milestone. Ask which technical requirements improve the commercial product and which create a one-off branch. Then design financing so that patient government dollars and impatient venture dollars are paying for the same company.
AIN Ventures occupies the seam where that coordination becomes valuable. National priorities now run through semiconductors, energy storage, biotechnology, climate resilience, autonomous systems and computing. Commercial demand runs through many of the same technologies. The opportunity is real, but so is the paperwork, and a founder can lose years confusing attention with adoption. AIN's bet is that the right translator can turn two awkward conversations into one coherent market.
The useful question is not whether government is a big customer. It is which office has the problem, which budget can pay and how a pilot becomes a purchase.
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