Mission
Resilience, National & Economic Security and the Immediate Need for Action
The largest platform innovations have been a result of tremendous public and private collaboration.
Typically, “moonshot” scale platforms are championed by the collaboration of government and industry to bring these ideas to life. Examples that touch everyone include the Internet (from ARPANET), space travel (space race), self driving cars (DARPA Grand Challenge).
These platforms are examples of the hardest problems and teams of the best people working together to advance innovation. Companies that work around these platform shifts create outsized value.
Today - this collaboration is more important than ever.
We are in a Great Power competition for global leadership and companies face “nation-state” threats daily. USA technology leadership is being challenged and digital identity / sovereign communications control who has a voice -- and supply chain integrity / manufacturing resilience control who has a product.
We all read about increasing cyber security attacks, digital authenticity, chip shortages, artificial intelligence practices, and privacy around massive datasets. Some of the greatest innovations like ARPANET/internet, the modern space program, and the Human Genome Project exemplify what can go right. New North Ventures is at the front row looking for companies who are working in these spaces to become the next Cisco, SpaceX, or Moderna.
Origin Story
New North Ventures was co-founded by Brett Davis (a government intelligence community officer) and Jeremy Hitchcock (a serial entrepreneur) to fuel the resurgence of American industry, innovation and resilience. They met through an effort to start a corporate venture platform and in a “never mind, we’ll do it ourselves” moment, decided to start an early-stage venture fund. Stephanie Bellistri joined the fund as a general partner early in the fund’s operation.
NNV is directionally inspired by the World War II era Office of Strategic Services as a fusion center for action. The hallmark of the best successes were through finding the best talent from government and industry. By tackling some of the hardest, frontier problems, teams solve a particularly vexing national security problem but also scale a massive commercial opportunity.
Critical Technology Areas
At New North Ventures, we are committed to collaborating with visionary companies and founders who are at the forefront of innovation. Our technology focus and investment thesis are driven by a mission to strengthen our national security and economic resilience in an increasingly complex landscape of evolving threats. The Department of Defense has identified 14 pivotal technology domains that are essential for National Security, as outlined by the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)).
These 14 critical technology areas are categorized into three distinct groups: Seed Areas of Emerging Opportunity, Effective Adoption Areas, and Defense-Specific Areas. This list is an essential framework for New North as we sharpen our focus for the future. For a comprehensive list of these domains organized within their respective categories, please refer below.
Seed Areas of Emerging Opportunity:
Biotechnology
Quantum Science
Future Generation Wireless Technology (Future G)
Advanced Materials
Effective Adoption Areas:
Trusted AI and Autonomy
Integrated Network Systems of Systems
Microelectronics
Space Technology
Renewable Energy Generation and Storage
Advanced Computing and Software
Human Machine Interfaces
Defense Specific Areas:
Directed Energy
Hypersonics
Integrated Sensing and Cyber