Harpoon Ventures closes $155M fund targeting defense and national security technology

you're designing the next banger app, get in Figma. Agents, meet the canvas. Your AI agents can now create and modify your Figma files with design system context. And our next guest is in the waiting room. We have Larsson Jensen from Harpoon Ventures. He's the founder and general partner. How you doing?

What's up, boys? Good to see you. Thanks for having me. What's happening?

Good to see you. Uh I'm obsessed with the portfolio. We can go into that, but uh introduce yourself first and get us up to speed on what the fund is doing and what the news is today.

Sure. Jordy John, great to be here. Thanks for having me. My name is Larson Jensen. I'm the founder and GP at Harpoon Ventures, early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in technology in the national interest of the United States and our allies when appropriate. Uh today we're announcing that we're ra we raised $155 million fund for so fired up

for the gong. Wish I was there to see it.

We wish you were here. This this new mallet setup we have, it really like you just feel the the full force of the gong coming right back at you.

Yeah, that's sick. I felt it on my end. Thanks, guys. I'm glad.

Good. Good. Uh, Harpoon Ventures. Great name. Great name. Uh, would you

take us back?

If it was necessary, would you invest in a company that you was using Whale Blubber to power uh data centers? Now,

is this even a question? Of course I do that. Like I mean if it's necessary, it might be necessary. We do all the energy we can get. So let's go.

We do. No, it's a great This is the show I'm on.

So yeah,

take us back in time. Give me a little bit of the the journey to venture capital because you have a you have a fascinating you actually have the non-traditional background that so many VCs wish they had when they say, "I went to Stanford and then I worked at Google before becoming a venture capitalist."

Well, a lot of guys say they're an operator. uh you know in the background of you know what operator meant it was special operator uh in the career that I came from same stolen it's interesting to hear when I showed up to Silicon Valley was like oh I'm an operator I'm an operator I'm like I don't know if it's the same kind of operator that I was used to but I guess different you know different ecosystems have different terms uh which is fine um and definitely sure

the real operator should start saying like yeah I was a employee I was an employee

yeah basically

that's cool too you know that's Just trade. Just trade.

Exactly. So, yeah, grew up in the central valley of California. My parents are almond farmers. Uh, went down to USC. Fortunately, was pretty good at swimming and worked pretty hard at that. Brought me to two Olympic games. 04 and 08. I got a silver in 04, bronze in '08. 08 is where Phelps got his eight gold. So, um, you know, if there's anything that's common about my my trajectory is I'm sort of like a nothing compared to the people that work in the industry or in the careers that I'm in. Had to compete against guys like Phelps and Locky and that whole generation. uh when I was swimming and then similarly you know moved into the SEAL teams thereafter. Wanted to serve my country in a different way than just serving on the playing field uh but do so on the battlefield. Felt like I had the um you know hopefully the courage I guess we would see uh some of the determination and and the hard work to make it through SEAL training which fortunately did. Um and then deployed in combat to Afghanistan. Um had the opportunity to be an early adopter to Palunteer. They told us we were an early customer, but you never really know what the government what the truth is. Um, is you know, across history. Um, but they said we're early adopters to Palunteer and I was just mind blown by the capability and that gave me the tech bug. Um, so decided to apply to Stanford and if I got in, I'd move up to the to the valley and if I didn't, I'd do another rotation in the SEAL teams. Fortunately got in. Um,

you did go to Stanford.

Traditional background. Traditional very traditional traditional background.

Great. I got traditional back. How was how was uh

I was a DER up at Stanford uh at the time.

How was how was Buds as like an Olympic medalist swimmer? Like was

Dude, it was [ __ ] hard. It was really hard.

Okay. Was there was there was there any points where you're like, "Ah, this is kind of easy. I feel like I'm just kind of

Well, yeah, the swimming was was a piece of cake. Like, you know, as you can imagine, I was literally the fast I'm still the fastest American of all time in the 400 meter freestyle. So, if it wasn't easy for me, we'd have a real problem. Um, so it was it was it was easy. I don't say that to brag. I'm just saying you asked the question like, you know, was was it was it easy or hard? But I got my ass kicked and like everything else.

So, what was the hardest part then? What outside?

For me, it was boats boats on heads, which if you've seen the videos, you're like carrying these like inflatable boat uh rafts and running around and stuff like that. It looks like they'd be in a background like a backyard pool. Trust me, they're not. These things are a couple hundred pounds and you're carrying those on your head for for weeks on end. In the case of hell week, you pretty much always have them on your head. And so that was brutal. Um, so anything that was impact oriented, I'm still feeling today. I think a lot of guys are. I mean, when you're when you're loaded up and and ruck and rucking around the mountains, I mean, you're doing so in full kit wearing, you know, 200 lb uh almost of gear on top of what you're already whatever your existing body weight is. So, it's brutal. And um, you know, I was definitely not the best at it. Wasn't the best swimmer, wasn't the best seal, but was fortunate to be part of the community. Mhm.

That's awesome.

So, take us from Stanford to venture. What were some of the first investments? What was the strategy back then? Where'd the money come from?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my venture career sort of started pre-stanford. I got lucky and got an internship at Andre and Horowitz. Uh, which was awesome. Great learning opportunity to go there preGSB. Similarly did between years over at Lightseed of the GSB and then after Lightseed had the opport or after the GSB had the opportunity to go to Lightseed for about a year. And I just really had this uh like any crazy founder might have like this hairbrained idea or a gap in the market, something you're so passionate about you can't sleep without. Uh and that was me in terms of investing in technology for the national interest. And at the time there really wasn't a fever for this. Now there certainly is, thank God, but at the time there really wasn't. And I I sort of had this idea that's maybe not that novel, but I effectively said, "Hey, what if we could create a private sector inel? Wouldn't that be pretty cool?" And that's what I set out to do. So fortunately pitched the GPS and the team over at my former two employers uh at Andre and Lightseed and they're our first LPs ever in Harpoon to sort of go out there and start taking it uh taking that mission to the market. So that's what we've been doing. Um when back in 2018 when we started the market was obviously very very different. Most of what we did was very much you know known as dual use. um at the time that meant very much enterprise technology and we would try to work with them to help them break into a government market that these founders didn't really know existed but you know we and our team knew existed from our you know lived experience I guess you could say uh for cyber security tools or next generation data infrastructure what have you for autonomous autonomy uh platforms all the things that people sort of like know today are applicable to the government market but back then it was super fauxpaw man it was crazy I was I felt like I was going to get laughed out of town. It almost was. Um, and so now we're doing much more defense focused things because I think the founder ecosystem provides for it. I think that we've uh evolved along with the ecosystem. At the time there really wasn't very much national security or government focused um, you know, companies or or engineers or talent. Now there's a ton. I jokingly say that I Go ahead. Go ahead.

Go for it. Go for it. No, I was going to say I I used to go to these conferences that the government would put on, you know, in and around the Pentagon and Crystal City and all these places as a venture guy and there'd be like nobody there. There'd be like no like high horsepower entrepreneurs. There'd be no other venture firms and like man, what am I doing going to these places? There there's nothing for me to invest in. Um and and you know, ultimately now that's all changed and I'm so happy about that. We're going we're celebrating our nation's 250th birthday this coming weekend. Hopefully all of you are celebrating the fourth in in in traditional good fashion. Um, and you know, I I think that now to see the ecosystem what it is is just just tremendous. I'm super fired up about it.

Where how are you thinking about early stage defense? Like are you still are there still pockets of of uh white space and and opportunity? feels like the boom of

or you really need to be doing like hardcore R&D like

like like it it seems like the last 5 years there was an opportunity to do hardcore R&D like actually new technology or just like deliver a capability that's necessary and kind of leverage existing technologies and just deliver a great product for a need whereas it feels like there there's less and less like you know we have a bunch of great maritime focused companies now doing kind of every major category. So, does a new company need to do like, you know, real R&D and come up with something totally novel or or compete with existing or there still is there still like pockets where you're like there needs to be

I think both are true. Like one, you know, I want the discombobulator. I want to invest in that. I don't know exactly what it is, but Trump came out with the discombobulator and said that that's what helped in Venezuela and like I want to find the next version of that and I want to back that technology. Similarly, I have a buddy of mine that that I'll that we might need some R&D on that. Um, you know, also have a buddy of mine who I went to OCS with. I'll keep his name off the tape here just, you know, but he testified to Congress on the UAP phenomenon, which I know you guys are deep in as well. And I I texted him not too long ago and I'm like, "Hey man, we got some alien tech. I'm ready to go. All the rest of this stuff is like I don't know, not really doing it for me." And so we had a quick call, but you know, didn't didn't end up going anywhere. So, if you got any founders out there that are, you know, want to reverse engineer, listen, I got a signed poster of Bob Lazar in my office. I'm super fired up. I go deep on this. Um, so

Jesse Michaels guy.

Listen, I I I dive into anything you'll give me. So, send me some books. Send me whatever you got. I'm ready. But like ultimately, I think that there's plenty of meat on the bone for other novel capabilities to come up and get funded. Um I I think for us as a venture firm I used to superimpose my view of what should be created on the ecosystem and we've effectively stopped doing that and just tried to be you know good judges of of founders that are high octane and have a huge vision and when we're surprised and we believe them we want to back them as early as possible which is another evolution of the firm when we started I don't think we had the brand the reputation the credibly or the credibility to credibly lead some of these these rounds now I think we do and we launched our black flag accelerator which is helping us go earlier uh creep into doing more preeds and seedstage investments where we've led a lot through that. And so I think the future is bright for entrepreneurs, you know, chipping away at a variety of different problems.

You're wearing a flag on your hat. It's the stars and stripes. Beautiful American patriotic flag. Black flag I associate with pirates. They're not on my team. Why why black flag?

Well, I I should have wore my other hat. So I got the Jolly Roger over uh the red, white, and blue. I should have wore that one for you guys, you know, figuring that you'd bring that up. But actually,

are they on our team? Have we recruited the pirates? How does it work?

We've recruited them. They're on our team now.

Okay, I got it.

This is an American pirate.

Patriot.

I like it.

Pirate hybrid.

I mean, if you look I mean, we thought about this for a while. And if you look at all the squadron patches that are out there for aircraft squadrons, you know, various SEAL teams, special operations, etc., like they all have some pirate themed, you know, uh, insignia. So, it's actually not all that Believe it or not, we we're pretty thoughtful about the name Harpoon and the name Black Flag. You actually thought about the pros and cons, and some people might not like it, but you can't you can't win over everybody.

Tell us how did you what is your overall take as an Olympian on uh the enhanced games? How did you process it? Uh

if you know, if this was like before your venture career and you were done with the, you know, Olympics, would you have considered going in there? I want I want your whole take. You know, I I I should have tracked it more closely. You guys are probably much better read on this than I am. But on the swimming, I you know, I believe somebody entered that wasn't enhanced at all and still won and did a best time, I believe, in the backstroke. Um, which is interesting. And I saw some jokes on Twitter about people saying like, "Oh, these guys are already enhanced. You know, they don't need to be even more enhanced." And I think that's just a lot of BS. Like, you know, we get drug tested so much. It's insane. We could we could go a whole offline segment on, you know, what it's like to have the drug testers show up and, you know, watch you go to the restroom, take your blood, and all of this stuff unannounced. You have to fill out where you're going to be for literally a quarter in advance down to the day. And if you miss three tests in a row, it's the same as being, you know, being a positive test. So, um, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think that you might not be attracting to the enhanced games the right

athletes right now. I don't know to put it. I don't know if they're the gold medalist, silver medalist, bronze medalists that are showing up. Um,

yeah. So, it's like a gold medalist is still going to outperform the like number eight guy who's taking

I would whoop those guys asses like for sure. Like I mean, it's not just me. It's like anybody who's like who meddles. Anybody who meddles like there's a big drop off between like meddling and sort of finaling and then not finally. And so, you know, I would have sort of welcomed I think an interesting aspect of the enhanced games would be like let's let's load these guys up and put them headtohead with you know whoever the modern like Katy Leiddki let's see if they can beat Katy Leiddki.

I mean there that was part of the interesting production of the enhanced games was that it did tell you something about the real games and that and that there is a gap there and that was in and if you look at it as like a a science experiment it was a cool experiment that we got to run and I think we all learned a little bit from it. uh even even if it wasn't this, oh yeah, obviously with the with the drug regimens, they just blow everyone out of the water, which is sort of what some people expected, but that wasn't really the message of that campaign.

No, it was a really cool experiment and great great to see.

Yeah. Anyway, thank you so much. Congratulations around

San Diego, California, but I'm on the road. I'm actually in New York right now, but you know, uh I'm back in San Diego quite frequently.

All right, fund five.

Come on live,

hang out.