Boston Tech Week & Where to Build a Defense StartUp
20 May 2026 - A Weekly Publication by New North Ventures
It’s Boston Tech Week, which means hundreds of founders, investors, operators, and researchers are gathering across the city to talk about what’s next. But beyond the noise, the real opportunity is finding the signal and increasingly that signal is defense tech, dual-use innovation, and the builders creating companies in Boston. Few ecosystems combine the same density of world class labs, research universities, engineering talent, maritime testing grounds, early stage accelerators, and government connected innovation networks. Boston has become a place where companies can go from breakthrough research to deployment-ready technology faster than almost anywhere else.
This Thursday, May 28, New North Ventures Co-Founder & GP Jeremy Hitchcock will be speaking at Boston Tech Week on the panel “Future of Dual-Use: What’s Pacing Human-Out-Of-The-Loop Autonomy?” As more founders realize Boston is one of the best places in the country to start and scale frontier technology companies, conversations around autonomy, defense innovation, and national security are becoming central to the region’s next chapter of growth. We hope to see you around Boston this week and reach out if you are a founder building in defense tech.
Where to Build A Defense Start Up
Most founders default to Washington, DC as the place they need to be to build their tech. They think about proximity to Congress, to lobbyists, to the prime contractors with the long institutional foundations. They’re not wrong that DC matters. They’re wrong about how much it matters and when it matters.
Where you build a defense startup is a capital allocation decision. It shapes who you can hire, how fast you can iterate, who will fund you, and how quickly you can get in front of the operators who will actually use what you build. Getting it wrong doesn’t kill you outright, it just adds drag, at every stage, compounding over time.
Here’s our perceived map of where we think are some hubs, while keeping in mind that in today’s day and age, if your technology is great, you can be anywhere and investors will find you.
Los Angeles, CA:
This is where a defense tech renaissance was, over the past two decades, born and where it remains densest in raw industrial terms. Anduril (Costa Mesa), SpaceX (Hawthorne), Impulse Space (Redondo Beach) among others.
The clear connection here is manufacturing gravitas. At least half of all space vehicles and satellites are currently manufactured in El Segundo. The Los Angeles area has decades of aerospace talent, which includes propulsion engineers, systems integrators, manufacturing workers who have seen generations of defense tech pass by before their eyes. They’ve been building defense tech for Northrop, Raytheon and Boeing for years. The result of this is a talent density that’s nearly impossible to replicate.
For founders building in hardware intensive defense domains, to include autonomous systems, propulsion, weapons systems and spacecraft, there is probably no better place. The ecosystem has also produced a network of ex-SpaceX, ex-Palantir, ex-Anduril engineers who are now founders themselves, creating a secondary talent gravity that accelerates startup formation.
NOVA/DC:
Sure, we mentioned DC earlier, and it might’ve felt like we were tossing shade at it but in all realities, it’s the oldest answer in the define startup playbook. For the right type of company, it’s definitely still the answer, it’s just not the only answer anymore. Companies in the NCR have proximity to the Pentagon, the intelligence community, and the defense contracting ecosystem, making it the rational choice when your go-to-market depends on deep government relationships, classified environments, and long acquisition cycles.
The structural advantage is customer density. In DC/NOVA, the program offices that typically decide whether to buy your technology, the contracting officers who execute the deals, and the end users who will actually operate your system can all be reached within a 30 minute drive. That’s a meaningful friction reduction when you’re navigating SBIR applications, STRATFI transitions, or Other Transaction Authority contracts.
What DC does fundamentally lack though is a startup culture. There’s a reluctance to move fast, accept the unknowns and frankly, fail at all. The region’s talent has historically been socialized into the contractor mindset: stable, process-driven, security-conscious. We believe that’s changing, the Pentagon has issued statements saying, in fact, that that must change, but it’s been relatively slow thus far.
Austin, TX:
Austin’s defense tech story runs through one building. Here’s a list of defense acquisition arms that maintain a presence there.
T2COM (formerly known as Army Futures Command), Army Applications Laboratory, AFWERX, NavalX, Defense Innovation Unit, National Security Innovation Network and Joint Defense Innovation Unit.
This is the result of a deliberate DoD strategy, beginning when DIU established its first Austin outpost in 2016, to build a front door to the commercial tech ecosystem outside the Beltway. The primes are now following, hoping to keep their eyes on some of the novel technologies that the defense ecosystem has been boasting about down in Austin. In 2025, BAE Systems announced a $150 million campus expansion in Austin, adding 500 jobs. Oracle launched a defense ecosystem offering cloud infrastructure. The primes are there and there are sure to be more on their way.
Founders here are not socialized into the contractor mindset. The tech ecosystem is populated by builders who want to move fast, and the DoD innovation units that chose Austin specifically want to work with them. Austin’s strength is increasingly in AI, autonomous systems, cybersecurity, and drone technology.
San Diego, CA:
The maritime industry. Look, it’s being talked about daily.
The hubs above have legible narratives and established gravity. But the next tier is worth understanding and in some cases, there’s a structural tailwind that the broader market hasn’t fully priced in yet.
The Navy and Marine Corps have massive installations in San Diego, and that proximity shapes everything from who you can hire (veteran naval officers with domain expertise) to who will take your first meeting (program managers who work a few miles from your office).
The broader ecosystem includes legacy primes like General Atomics and Northrop, which have both been a significant employer of defense engineers in the region for decades, and a growing venture infrastructure that reflects the defense tech boom. Maritime defense, ocean tech, and unmanned surface and undersea vehicle development have found a natural home here.
Boston, MA:
What Boston has is something harder to replicate than the other hubs, and more durable in the long run: the deepest concentration of defense-relevant research institutions in the United States, generating a continuous supply of foundational IP and PhDs that the rest of the places listed in this article cannot match.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory has been the operational core since 1951. It is one of the most productive federally funded defense research institutions and has been the talent factory for the Boston defense ecosystem for seven decades. Since its founding, MIT/LL has spun off more than 100 startup companies.
Boston has become the center of gravity for autonomous maritime defense startups and it’s not just because of the robotics talent pool, though that matters. It’s physical access to operational testing water combined with the proximity to the Navy’s most important undersea warfare institution (NUWC Newport) in the country. HavocAI, a New North Ventures portfolio company currently has three vessel classes in active water testing in Rhode Island: the 38-foot Seahound, the 42-foot Kaikoa, and the 100-foot Atlas multi-mission vessel, all in the waters adjacent to NUWC Newport. That’s not coincidence, it’s deliberate proximity to the customer who will certify and procure the systems.
For founders seeking talent from the most legitimate research institutions in the country, or to partner with some of the most advanced laboratories in the country, there’s no better place. For founders seeking exposure to maritime testing infrastructure, there also may be no better place.
Here are a couple more that could be considered:
Huntsville, Alabama
This defense ecosystem was built up around the redstone arsenal and for decades it operated accordingly, anchoring itself in missile defense and operations. The current administration just announced plans for US Space Command to be headquartered there. That moves a ton of jobs and a Space focus over to Huntsville.
For a defense startup building in missile defense, directed energy, space domain awareness, or any other advanced missile technology, one could argue that there is now no better place in the country to be proximate to the customer.
Colorado Springs, CO
Known as a hub for military operations for some time now, Colorado Springs boasts itself with some serious hubs. USNORTHCOM, NORAD, Ft. Carson, US Space Combat Forces Command, USAFA, just to name a few highly regarded military entities in the Springs. Losing the US Space Command to Huntsville certainly stings but with the deep history that the Colorado Springs corridor has, defense tech, and the need for it aren’t going anywhere.
The Catalyst Campus operates as an accelerator with a direct pipeline to Space Force procurement. Between the young officers coming out of the Air Force Academy with real, genuinely innovative ideas, to the satellite operators and space domain awareness SMEs, this is an excellent opportunity to hire some real defense talent. Companies have and will continue to take advantage of that. The primes are there, with Northrop, Lockheed and L3Harris boasting massive operations but also, you’ve seen companies such as Parsons and Kratos beginning to thrive there as well, leading us to believe the smaller fish will and should be attracted to this area.
So here are a few aspects to consider when you’re looking at places to found your company… and of course whether you have the freedom and resources to relocate should be a primary consideration. But after that, what are you building? Who are you selling to? What stage are you at? Is there a way to similarly scale your technology to the commercial sector in these locations?
Exclusive-Pentagon spars with SpaceX over Starlink price hike during Iran war
The Pentagon and SpaceX are reportedly locked in a dispute over pricing for Starlink satellite communications services supporting U.S. military operations against Iran. SpaceX has sought higher pricing for bandwidth and terminal services being used in the Middle East, arguing that wartime operations create extraordinary demands on the constellation, including unpredictable bandwidth spikes, contested electromagnetic environments, and heightened risks to the satellites themselves. The Pentagon, meanwhile, argues that existing contracts should already account for surge military usage. The dispute highlights a growing tension in modern defense procurement: commercial infrastructure built for civilian markets is increasingly being relied upon for frontline military operations under active conflict conditions.
The broader implication extends far beyond Starlink. For years, the Pentagon embraced commercial technology providers to move faster and reduce costs compared to traditional defense contractors. That model works well in peacetime, but modern conflicts increasingly target the infrastructure layer itself, from satellites and cloud networks to GPS and subsea cables. For venture investors and defense startups, the lesson is becoming clearer: dual-use business models built around shared commercial infrastructure may struggle when national security missions require sovereign control, surge capacity, and resilience under attack. The companies most likely to win long-term defense contracts will be those architected from the start for contested operational environments where the infrastructure itself becomes part of the battle space.
More links to explore:
Drone Dominance: The Road to the Gauntlet: Phase 2 Qualifier Invitees Announced
Royal Navy Deploys Mine Hunting Mothership for Potential Hormuz Mission
StarCube: New England Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners
Advanced nuclear is re-entering the New England energy conversation, and at the New England Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners, New North Ventures portfolio company StarCube represented the growing momentum behind small modular reactors and next-generation nuclear innovation in the region. Jeremy Hitchcock joined leaders from NextEra Energy Resources, GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Innovation Alliance, and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to discuss how New England will need firm, scalable, carbon-free power to support electrification, AI infrastructure, and industrial growth. The discussion highlighted that SMRs and microreactors are rapidly moving from concept to deployable infrastructure, and that states creating clear regulatory pathways and long-term procurement certainty will be best positioned to attract capital, talent, and energy deployment.
Thanks for reading Securing Our Future! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.