🇺🇸 The Veteran Fund Update: Q1 2025
As geopolitical tensions elevate the demand for critical technologies, we are proud to report that The Veteran Fund has delivered a breakout quarter.
Our investment thesis is not just working - it’s winning. Veteran-led portfolio companies are thriving, proving the unmatched value of backing mission-driven leaders with elite military backgrounds. At a time when many sectors are facing headwinds, private market investments into dual-use technologies - those that solve urgent defense needs while simultaneously driving commercial innovation - have proven to be especially resilient.
The Veteran Fund now has 21 portfolio companies that have collectively raised $150M+ in private investment capital, and over $30M of non-dilutive funding. This quarter’s performance underscores the strategic advantage of venture capital investment at the intersection of mission-driven leadership and critical technology. Our founders’ backgrounds in the military give them the decisiveness, resilience, and leadership thinking required to build in complex, regulated, and strategically-important markets.
In addition to introducing two new portfolio companies, we’re thrilled to share performance updates, subsequent funding rounds, and other announcements.
We remain focused, disciplined, and bullish on the future. The Veteran Fund was built for this moment - and we’re just getting started.
🚀 New Investments
Originally developed for military-grade information warfare, Andromeda is a cutting-edge enterprise intelligence platform that delivers unparalleled, hallucination-free analysis of massive, unstructured data sets. As one of the first tools capable of navigating and analyzing millions of documents with no hallucinations, Andromeda empowers high-stakes sectors like government and risk management with rapid, reliable decision making through fact-based intelligence. The team is led by an accomplished group of executives and advisors, including the former Chief Data Officer for SOCOM and the Department of Defense, with deep expertise in data science, machine learning, and AI.
Glīd is developing the first AI-powered, road-to-rail autonomous vehicle platform for freight and logistics. Led by a team of former SpaceX, Google, and U.S. Army and Air Force veterans, their patented system combines robotics, intelligent infrastructure, and freight brokerage software to unlock massive efficiency and value in the autonomous logistics market. The Veteran Fund invested in Glid’s pre-seed round, and they are now raising a seed round to scale production and deploy their next-generation vehicles and software to achieve more than $5M in revenue by the end of 2026.
📈 Portfolio Highlights
HavocAI closed a $13.4M Seed+ financing at a substantial markup to expand manufacturing and accelerate the development of a new sea vessel. The company's low-cost, attritable approach has secured multiple contracts with various branches of the military and defense contractors. With this momentum, the company is aiming to begin its Series A in Q2 this year.
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The Veteran Fund increased our investment into Proteus Space, helping close an oversubscribed $6.1M Seed-2 funding round with participation from Lavrock, SAIC, Moonshots Capital, and AIN. The company achieved a breakthrough with their automated high-fidelity structural design engineering system, MERCURYâ„¢, which drastically reduces custom satellite design from over 12 months to under 1 week - a more than 48x cost and schedule reduction. Proteus also secured their first commercial payload customer, a major defense contractor, for Mercury One launching Oct 2025.
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Firestorm Labs continues to distinguish itself by successfully securing STRATFI funding from the U.S. Air Force to scale production and operational deployment of its modular unmanned aerial systems. The award aligns with the DoD’s goal of rapid capability fielding, providing scalable and adaptable UAS to support warfighters in demanding operational environments. Firestorm’s 3D-printed, rapidly deployable drone technologies can produce drones 10x faster at 20% of the cost, while enabling on-demand mission customization. Firestorm’s success exemplifies the strategic value of critical, defense-ready technologies led by elite veteran founders. Read the press release here.
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In a landmark achievement, Lonestar has validated the viability of commercial data infrastructure on the lunar surface with their second Moon landing. Despite challenges faced by Intuitive Machine’s lander, Lonestar’s payload achieved unparalleled operational success, conducting robust data transmission across all phases of the mission. Lonestar's ability to maintain full functionality under extreme conditions and their consistent performance across multiple lunar missions underscores their engineering excellence and reliability, positioning them as a leader in the emerging lunar data economy. Lonestar is raising their Series A to build their cislunar satellite, providing 24/7 connectivity to Earth and power from the Sun, and unlock a large pipeline of customer demand. Learn more here.
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Tern AI was featured in TechCrunch about their low-cost, AI-driven positioning system as a compelling alternative to GPS. As critical infrastructure and defense systems increasingly require robust, reliable, and secure positioning solutions, Tern's innovation addresses a crucial gap. Beyond its defense applications, Tern's innovation unlocks substantial commercial potential within the multi-trillion dollar logistics and automotive industries, where GPS reliance represents a single, catastrophic point of failure. Read the article here.
🇺🇸 Featured Limited Partner: Kevin Bubolz
Kevin Bubolz is a former Army helicopter pilot turned marketing expert. After completing his MBA, he scaled his company, Golden Retriever Life, to 15M+ followers; launched products in over 1,800 Target stores; and collaborated with brands such as USAA, Starbucks, and Amazon. Kevin’s business expertise and mission-focused impact have been featured on industry-leading media platforms including The Tonight Show, Mr. Beast’s platforms, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and People Magazine. Kevin recently joined 9FB Capital as a General Partner and will announce an NFL Draft pick representing the Pat Tillman Foundation in April. We are honored to have Kevin in The Veteran Fund LP network.
📣 Announcements and Events
Welcoming the newest member of our tribe: We are thrilled to share that our incredible General Partner, Lisa Song Gunderson, and her husband, Josh Gunderson, welcomed a beautiful baby boy, Gabriel Gunderson, into the world this quarter. Lisa’s passion for building a stronger future continues to inspire our team, and we are overjoyed to celebrate this special milestone with her. The Veteran Fund is truly a family, and we’re honored to welcome Gabriel as the newest (and youngest!) member of The Veteran Fund tribe.
The Veteran Fund Annual LP Summit: We hosted The Veteran Fund Annual LP Summit in Las Vegas January 30th - February 1st. We shared exclusive fund updates, team building activities, and an opportunity for our incredible investor ecosystem to meet one another. We find that partnerships, collaborations and friendships, like the Antarctica expedition below, always emerge from this annual gathering.
Invitation to Antarctica with Deepak Chopra (LPs Only): We’d like extend an invitation to join a collaboration between two Veteran Fund LPs leading a 10-day transformative expedition to Antarctica. LP Carl Shephard, founder of Insider Expeditions, has partnered with LP and wellbeing pioneer Dr. Deepak Chopra for a once-in-a-lifetime experience in science, spirituality, and nature to venture to the Earth’s southernmost pole. More information on the trip can be viewed here, and Veteran Fund LPs can use code TVF2025 for a $1,000 discount.
From top left to bottom right: 1. Chris Gosselin (Skypad), Mike, Nicole Stott (astronaut), Craig Cummings (Moonshots Capital), Ryan 2. Craig, David Kervin (Proteus Space), Katie Swanson (SAIC), Mike 3. Angelina, Mike, Julia Price (Millbrook Estate), Ryan 4. Mo Jomaa (Capital G), Maggie Sprenger (Audere Capital), Paul Campbell (Brown Venture Group), Mike 5. Mike and Dan Magy (Firestorm) 6. Mike, Sherman Williams (AIN), Kelly Perdew (Moonshots Capital) 7. Lt. General Ross Coffman (ret), Mike, Sherman, Lt. General Edmond Brown (Army Futures Command) 8. Melissa Medina (Medina Ventures/eMerge) and Mike 9. Steven Simoni (Allen Control Systems), Mike, Will Edwards (Firehawk), Naweed Tahmas (Aeon)
The Veteran Fund On The Road: Q1 was packed with high-impact events and unforgettable moments for our team.
General Partners Mike Sherbakov and Ryan Micheletti joined several LPs in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to witness the historic launch of Lonestar’s lunar data center aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket - marking another milestone for one of our standout portfolio companies.
Mike served as a judge for the pitch competition at the 2025 Military Veteran Startup Conference, supporting the next generation of veteran-led startups - congratulations to winner Charles Masters Rodriguez, CEO of Autoket!
Mike and Ryan took the stage at FounderX, Founder Institute’s global summit of entrepreneurs and investors in Austin, Texas. Mike connected with founders and LPs while speaking at SXSW, judging their pitch competition hosted by KPMG.
He also joined the lineup at eMerge Americas, Miami’s premier tech conference, where he shared insights moderating a panel on the future of dual-use and defense innovation.
We are proud to represent The Veteran Fund across the country and strengthen relationships with our community at each stop.
We remain incredibly grateful to our world-class Veteran Fund LP base for their active involvement across our portfolio companies, with the majority of LPs being highly-accomplished investors, technologists, exited business operators, and decorated veterans.
Please continue to make warm introductions to exceptional veteran startup founders building critical technologies and values-aligned investors to support our mission.
We are honored to be stewards of this community.
-Ryan, Justin, Lisa, and Mike
