DIUx

Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) organization focused on accelerating commercial technologies to the U.S. military. The organization has been called "The Pentagon's Innovation Experiment".[1] DIUx is staffed by civilian and both active duty and reserve military personnel. The organization is headquartered in Silicon Valley (Mountain View, CA), with offices in Boston, Austin, and the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

Leadership

DIUx was first launched in August 2015. In May 2016, then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced a reboot of the organization, designating that it report directly to his office. As of May 2017, Raj Shah served as Managing Partner.[1] Shah is a Wharton MBA graduate who flew F16s in Iraq as an Air National Guard reservist and co-founded Morta Security, which was later acquired by Palo Alto Networks.[2] Other leaders include Isaac Taylor, Chris Kirchhoff and Vishaal Hariprasad. Taylor spent 13 years at Google, designing and building its first self-driving cars, then later rising to operations director of Google X where he started a number of projects involving robotics and augmented reality. Kirchhoff was a long-serving strategist in President Obama’s National Security Council and as the civilian assistant to General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hariprasad is a highly decorated Air Force cyberwarfare officer who later cofounded Morta Security with Raj Shah.

Portfolio companies

DIUx provides non-dilutive capital in exchange for commercial products that solve national defense problems. Portfolio companies include Tanium, Improbable, Saildrone, Shield AI, Qadium, Bromium, Quid, Sonitus Technologies, Halo Neuroscience, Orbital Insight, Yubico, Polyverse, and Lastwall.[3] DIUx portfolio companies are backed by Andreessen Horowitz,[4] Social Capital,[5] Lux Capital,[6] In-Q-Tel,[7] Founders Fund,[8] and New Enterprise Associates.[9]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "The Pentagon’s Innovation Experiment". technologyreview.com. 2016-12-19. Retrieved 2017-05-16.
  2. ↑ Rao, Leena (2014-01-06). "Palo Alto Networks Buys Cyber Security Startup Founded By Former NSA Engineers, Morta". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-05-16.
  3. ↑ https://www.diux.mil/portfolio
  4. ↑ http://a16z.com/portfolio/
  5. ↑ http://www.socialcapital.com/portfolio/
  6. ↑ http://www.luxcapital.com/companies
  7. ↑ https://www.iqt.org/portfolio/
  8. ↑ http://foundersfund.com/portfolio/
  9. ↑ http://www.nea.com/portfolio
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