Booz Allen Hamilton has formed Booz Allen Ventures, LLC, a $100 million corporate venture capital arm that will invest in strategic dual-use commercial technologies for federal clients. Aligned with client demand and the firm's Velocity, Leadership, Technology growth strategy, Booz Allen Ventures will invest in early-stage companies and technologies within four core areas of demand: defense, artificial intelligence/machine learning, cybersecurity and deep technology. "We are proud and excited to continue our work with the best startups to support our U.S. government clients. The ability to navigate bigger, faster technology waves and identify the right emerging technologies for their mission needs, as well as our own, is vital to enabling growth and mission speed," said Susan Penfield, Booz Allen's chief technology officer. Booz Allen Ventures will enable Booz Allen to expand on its existing tech Scouting capability to source and recommend technology investments with a focus on mission-specific applications.

Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the 10 largest U.S. defense contractors, launched a $100 million venture capital fund to invest in fledgling companies creating promising new technology. The fund announced Wednesday, dubbed Booz Allen Ventures, will concentrate on bankrolling early-stage firms working on cutting-edge technology, and help them find ways to get those innovations into the field for use. Brian MacCarthy, vice president of tech scouting and ventures at Booz Allen, said in a Monday interview that the fund plans to invest in four to six firms per year, providing seed money ranging from hundreds of thousands to low millions of dollars. MacCarthy said there is a growing understanding in the defense world that more must be done to open funding streams for firms working on new capabilities such as artificial intelligence, which could in turn help Booz Allen's government clients. He pointed to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence's 2021 final report, which recommended major new investments in AI research and development, as an example of the emerging consensus around this need.

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.