American Dynamism and its defense tech descend on D.C.
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The American Dynamism Summit in Washington was open to the press for the first time this year.
- It's a reflection of the defense-tech and reindustrialization moment.
The big picture: Founders are emerging as pop-culture characters. Weapons work is, overall, more digestible than it was years ago. Trump 2.0 officials want it known they pull no punches. And there's a sense — at least on social media — that factories are sexy again.
Driving the news: "The government has made tremendous changes over the last couple years to really say that they don't want to have a one-sided barbell prioritizing legacy incumbents and slow, bureaucratic process," David Ulevitch, a general partner at venture-capital juggernaut Andreessen Horowitz, told Axios.
- "They actually want to have the other end of the barbell gain weight," which means "working with startups, introducing new technology, procuring things more quickly, clearing regulatory hurdles."
- "A lot of that happens because you put people in the same room together."
State of play: The one-day summit was held blocks from the Capitol, at the Waldorf Astoria, formerly bearing President Trump's branding.
- The flourishes were golden; the suits, dark. Palantir Technologies chief executive Alex Karp joked onstage about being "batshit crazy." Elton John's "Rocket Man" played before NASA administrator Jared Isaacman spoke.
- While Pentagon participation was dampened by Operation Epic Fury — still ongoing — chief technology officer Emil Michael fielded questions about the Anthropic feud.
Follow the money: Andreessen earlier this year raised more than $15 billion. Its American Dynamism Fund 2 sat just shy of $1.2 billion.
- That sum is aimed squarely at aerospace, energy, defense and supply chains. "National interest" is the term thrown around.
- "The defense industrial base is the anchor tenant of manufacturing in this country. But it is not the only tenant," Ulevitch said.
- "Part of the reason for essentially doubling the size of our fund was to make sure that when we find these generational breakout companies — the Andurils, the Saronics, the Base Powers, the Castelions, etc. — we actually have the balance sheet to be able to write a high-conviction check."
Zoom in: Anduril is raising around $4 billion at a $60 billion valuation, led by Andreessen and Thrive Capital.
- Saronic, Base Power and Castelion are worth billions as well.
What we're watching: Whether the "build, baby, build" attitude of Trump 2.0 persists, and how American Dynamism adapts to the next administration, run by whoever that may be.
- "The surface area of exciting opportunities continues to get larger," Ulevitch said. "We're still in the very early innings."
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Why Hill and Valley is defense tech's "Rosetta Stone"
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