The US Department of the Navy has published a five-item technology wish list and paired it with an unusual pitch to Silicon Valley: co-invest at the seed and Series-A stage, and let the Navy be the anchor buyer once you reach Series D or Series F. Chief Technology Officer Justin Fanelli laid out the strategy on September 19, 2026, telling TechCrunch that his service now spends roughly $150 billion a year but wants venture capital to fill the funding gap between early research and mature procurement.
The five priority areas
Fanelli's list mirrors the compute-and-signals stack that private markets have been pouring money into for the last two years:
- Applied AI — machine learning, autonomous behaviour, and sensor fusion for maritime and aviation platforms.
- Quantum information science — navigation, secure communications and post-quantum cryptography.
- Advanced networking — resilient links for degraded or intermittent connectivity at sea.
- Electromagnetic spectrum operations — adaptive spectrum sensing and management.
- Digital engineering and interoperability — APIs, zero-trust architecture and shared data fabrics.
Co-investment, not another OTA
Rather than launching yet another Other Transaction Authority vehicle, Fanelli said the Navy wants to signal buying intent to VC firms, so private capital funds the risky Series A through Series C phases. The service then acquires products at scale once a company has proven commercial traction. He pointed to Boeing's $562 million MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone contract as an example of the target size, and named Gecko Robotics, Applied Intuition, Domino Data Lab and Armada as vendors already benefitting from the model.
Timing: after the Ratepayer vote, before the Q4 budget push
The pitch lands as Congress moves on defence and energy bills that could reroute billions in industrial spending, and as the Navy prepares to close its FY27 budget. It also arrives days after a wave of defence-tech deals — Anduril sweeping DHS' $1.5B counter-UAS framework and Boeing-Anduril advancing to Phase 2 of the Army's IFPC race — that show how fast a maturing venture-backed vendor can pivot into a program of record when the service explicitly asks for it.
Reporting based on coverage from TechCrunch and the Department of the Navy.