Exclusive: The Pentagon is committing $150M to a maritime-tech VC fund and appears to be ramping up venture deals

The Pentagon, which started making capital commitments to U.S. venture capital funds around three years ago, has begun making new allocations to funds that invest in “critical” technologies it deems important to national security.

The Department of Defense, via the Office of Strategic Capital and the Small Business Administration, committed $150 million to Mare Liberum, a maritime-technology-focused venture fund founded three years ago, for its second investment fund, Fortune has learned. The capital was committed in September 2025.

The Pentagon announced its first 13 commitments in late 2024, and a few months later, shortly before President Trump’s inauguration, published a list of 17 funds that had been added to the program in early 2025, including America’s Frontier Fund, which is backed by Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel. The Department of Defense has since gone quiet on the program, however, not announcing any further commitments. The DOD appears to have made five other VC fund commitments since 2025, though Fortune was not able to learn the details of the investments.

“The process was extremely onerous,” says Erik Bethel, a general partner at Mare Liberum, who says the vetting process took about 10 months, and that Mare Liberum underwent reference checks and rigorous due diligence, and spent more than “six figures of legal” bills to become one of 23 firms to be selected by the Office of Strategic Capital. More than 386 fir...