Defense money map

Who sells AI to the government, who funds them, who owns the funds. This page explains what the map shows and how to read it. If you would rather just look, start with Anduril.

The argument

Venture-backed defense technology is usually described as an industry: dozens of startups, a boom in funding, a new kind of contractor. Read the money instead and it looks like a network. A small set of funds backs most of the companies. A smaller set of people runs those funds, and several of them have held government posts while doing so. Behind the funds sits money that belongs to the public, in pensions and endowments, and almost none of it is disclosed.

The four layers

Limited partnerspensions, endowmentsFunds17 on the mapGeneral partners22 peopleCompanies44 on the mapMoney moves left to right. This map can see the last three layers; the first is almost entirely private.
Limited partners
Whose money it is. Public pensions, university endowments, sovereign wealth funds, insurers, family offices. No fund here discloses its LPs, but state pension funds disclose their side. So far 19 of them are documented in ten of these funds; What the pensions hold lists every stake.
Funds
The firms that pool that money and pick companies. Fourteen venture funds plus a CIA-backed nonprofit, a defense prime's venture arm, and one family office. Sized on the map by assets under management.
General partners
The people who run the funds. They choose the companies, sit on the boards, and in several cases have held government roles at the same time. The dossier covers each one.
Companies
Who sells to the government. 44 companies, of which 36 have a named backer on this map. Sized by total capital raised. Together the private startups have raised about $50B, though $14.3B of that is Meta's 2025 purchase of Scale AI shares from existing holders rather than money into the company.

The views

  • Lineage — the origin story in one diagram. Five PayPal alumni, three funds, and every path ending at Anduril. Read it first if you want the shape of the argument in a minute.
  • Network — the full graph. Click any person, fund, or company to light up its connections and read its profile beside the graph. Filter companies by what they build. Switch to the list view if you prefer names to circles.
  • People dossier — the general partners, grouped by fund, with what they did before, what they back, and any government role.
  • Funds — each fund, who runs it, and everything on the map it backs.
  • Whose money is it — we filed public-records requests with 46 state pension funds asking which of these funds hold their money. Four more states only take requests from residents, and the page writes that request for you.
  • What the pensions hold — every stake found so far: 19 state pension funds hold money in ten of the funds on this map, each tied to the pension fund's own document.
  • Sources and caveats — where every number comes from, how links were confirmed, and what the map cannot see.

Reading the graph

  • Circle size follows money on a logarithmic scale, capped at $20B so the AI labs do not swallow the picture. Companies by total raised, funds by assets under management, public companies by market cap.
  • Hollow circle means no disclosed figure.
  • Solid line means the fund was a named lead or co-lead in a round announcement.
  • Dashed line means the fund is named in the round but did not lead.
  • Faded nodes are not connected to what you selected. "Hide unconnected" removes them entirely.

What this map is not

It is not a complete census. About 60 defense startups raised $10M or more in 2025 and 2026; this map names 44. It is not a claim that every link is improper. It is a record of who is connected to whom, with a source for each connection, so that the question of whose money this is can be asked of the people who hold it.

Open the network → · Read the lineage →