US-based IT consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton has launched a $100m corporate venturing unit to invest in startups across defense, cybersecurity, deep tech, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Booz Allen Ventures, as the new unit is called, will focus on technologies that will dual commercial and defence sector use. It will target companies at seed, series A and series B stages, with a view to potentially build out joint intellectual property collaborations in addition to its equity investments.
It already has at least three portfolio companies – Synthetaic, an AI-enables data insights platform whose $13m series A round was backed by Booz Allen in March this year, as well as visual analytics and computer vision technology developer Reveal Technology and AI-neural network training platform Latent AI.
In September last year Booz Allen Hamilton also completed its acquisition of Tracepoint, a digital forensics and incident response company, for an undisclosed sum in a deal that was meant to bolster its cyber services. It followed the initial investment it had made in the company in January that year.
Booz Allen Hamilton’s chief technology officer, Susan Penfield, said in a statement: “We are proud and excited to continue our work with the best startups to support our US 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.”
Brian MacCarthy, vice-president for tech scouting and ventures at Booz Allen, said: “Booz Allen Ventures allows us to actively bridge the gap between opportunity and capability and accelerate the services-to-solutions transformation.”
