Booz Allen Hamilton launches $100M corporate venture arm – TechCrunch

Booz Allen Hamilton, the Virginia-based, defense-focused IT consulting firm, today announced the launch of a corporate venture capital arm, Booz Allen Ventures, that will initially put $100 million toward "strategic" defensive and offensive technologies. The move signals Booz Allen's desire to shape startups in areas it considers aligned with its core business, mainly AI and machine learning, defense, and cybersecurity. Brian MacCarthy, Booz Allen's VP of ventures, said that the new fund will invest primarily in early-stage (seed, Series A, and Series B) companies and build on Booz Allen's existing Tech Scouting program, which connects with entrepreneurs to vet emerging security technologies. Through Tech Scouting, Booz Allen has recently backed firms including Latent AI, whose technology compresses AI models; Synthetaic, a data-generating platform; and Reveal Technology, which performs analytics on aerial data. In addition to capital, Booz Allen Ventures-backed companies will gain access to Booz Allen's executive and engineering teams as well as client teams, McCarthy elaborated.