Critical & Emerging Technologies, explained

Not at all — most founders we back have never used the term. “Critical and Emerging Technologies” (CET) is just the U.S. government’s shorthand for the areas it considers most vital to national security: things like AI and autonomy, secure communications and sensing, counter-drone and directed energy, advanced manufacturing, and more. If you’re building in or around those areas, you’re already a CET company, whether you call it that or not. Mapping your work to where the U.S. is actually spending is our job — building it is yours.

Yes — often that’s exactly it. Some of the most important defense technology is the unglamorous, battle-tested kind: counter-drone, autonomy, sensing, secure comms, electronic warfare, resupply. If your product solves a real operational problem and there’s genuine U.S. demand behind it, that matters far more to us than how futuristic it sounds. Proven and needed beats novel and speculative.

We invest at Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A. You don’t need a program of record or big revenue yet, but we do want to see that it works outside the lab — roughly TRL 5–9, meaning it’s been demonstrated or used in a real or operational setting — plus a believable path to U.S. customers. If you’re field-tested and U.S.-relevant, it’s worth talking early.

Usually through a few routes, often combined: partnering with or selling through U.S. prime contractors, allied procurement channels, pilot programs with operational units, and innovation pathways like the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). It almost never happens by cold-emailing the Pentagon. We invest with those routes in mind from day one and help you navigate them — the introductions, the requirements, and the procurement process.

It helps. Technology with both civilian and military applications — “dual-use” — can sell into commercial and defense markets at the same time. That widens your customer base and makes you less dependent on slow government budget cycles. Far from a distraction, it’s often a strength.

They can — and it’s worth getting ahead of. U.S. defense work is sensitive about who sits on your cap table. Funding tied to foreign adversaries — for example, entities connected to China, Russia, or Iran, sometimes called “adversarial capital” — can disqualify a company from sensitive contracts or trigger a national-security review (CFIUS). We help you check this early and keep your path into the U.S. market clean.

A lot of strong technology stalls in the gap between a working prototype and a funded government program — what people in defense call the “valley of death.” Being U.S.-ready means you’ve closed that gap: your product fits a real mission need, it’s structured so the government can actually buy it, and there are no surprises in your ownership or compliance. That’s the difference between a great demo and a deployed capability — and bridging it is much of the work we do alongside founders.

Most of the value is operational. Our team has spent decades inside the defense, national-security, and government world, and we work hand-in-hand with The CET Sandbox — a U.S.–Israel hub that connects Israeli companies with American defense customers and partners. We help you align your roadmap to real requirements, make the right introductions, and navigate procurement, so good technology doesn’t stall on the way to the field.