PreSeed → Series A · Focused Builders
Tareyton
Ventures
Investing in the foundations ofAmerican ResilienceCritical Industries & National Defense
The Thesis
Patriotic. Private. Patient.
Robotics and smart machines in the age of AI deliver asymmetric benefits of scale, across both economic and power factors. The convergence is structural, not cyclical, and it is reshaping the defense industrial base in favor of early-stage companies built on accelerated timelines.
Policy, capital, and technology now point the same way. A $1.5T defense request, with $150B+ already fixed by statute through 2029 and another $350B advancing through reconciliation: bipartisan, and immune to budget cycles. Funded programs show where the Department of War (DoW) is spending; unfunded priority lists show where it is going. Tareyton invests in the gap between the two.
We enter at pre-seed and seed, constructing a concentrated portfolio of 15–25 companies where conviction matters more than consensus. Over 80% of our deal flow is proprietary, sourced through Special Operations, the Intelligence Community, Stanford GSB, and founder networks before it reaches the broader market.
Mandatory Law
Codified in statute. Immune to budget cycles, election swings, and CR politics.
Production-Ready
Edge AI, autonomy, and advanced manufacturing have crossed the chasm.
Wave is Here
Department of War defense-tech obligations doubled in 24 months: a +53% CAGR.
$20K vs $2M
$20K drones force $2M missile responses. Mass at the edge wins, and drives doctrine.
Focus Areas
Where we focus.
AI-Native & Agentic Platforms
Geospatial AI, decision support, agentic autonomy, and edge AI at the tactical level.
Autonomous Systems in Mass
UAS, UGVs, UUVs, and collaborative combat aircraft, plus the counter-drone systems that defeat them. Attritable mass across every domain.
Advanced Manufacturing
AI-driven production, additive manufacturing, and rebuilding the arsenal at wartime rate.
Critical Supply Chains & Logistics
Munitions, low-cost hypersonics, solid rocket motors, critical minerals, and contested logistics at scale.
FIGURES: ENACTED MANDATORY DoW SPEND ALIGNED TO OUR THESIS, AVAILABLE THROUGH FY2029.
Active Positions
Capital Deployed.
Scout AIFoundation model for defense robotics. One operator commands robots across land, air, and sea in plain language, fully autonomous in GPS- and comms-denied environments.
Raven Space SystemsMicrowave-cured composite 3D printing for hypersonics, reentry vehicles, and thermal protection systems. Aerospace-grade structures without hard tooling or long lead times.
REAXExperienced Founder building next generation unmanned attritable mass systems to solve DoW platform and logistic issues.
Next Mission
Sourcing & Selection Since 2021
Investing with Conviction.
Autonomous driving systems for defense and industrial ground vehicles.
Energy-dense autonomous underwater vehicles: affordable, attritable undersea mass at conflict scale.
Frontier AI lab building models for defense and national security.
Natural-language search engine for geospatial and Earth intelligence.
AI-driven robotic sheet-metal manufacturing for aerospace and defense.
Robotically engineered, high-density solar power plants.
Origination engine making early-stage energy and industrial infrastructure investable.
AI content protection: real-time piracy detection and automated enforcement.
Data context software ensuring data is used correctly and compliantly.
Selected prior investments made via prior investment vehicles. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
"Tarey backed Danti early and never went passive. He understands both the defense customer and what founders actually go through, and he's one of my first calls when something matters."
Jesse Kallman · Founder & CEO, Danti
"Tarey gets hardware and he gets the mission. He moved fast when it counted, opened doors in the Navy, venture, and defense worlds, and he thinks like an operator, with relentless focus."
Amir Khan · Co-Founder, Odin Dynamics
"Tarey is patient capital in the truest sense. He backed us early, stayed engaged through the hard parts, and brings a builder's mindset to everything from strategy to fundraising."
Eric Brown · CEO, Planted Solar
Founding Partner
Operator. Investor. Veteran.
Tarey M. Gettys
Founder & General Partner
LinkedIn ↗A STANDOUT VENTURE PROFILE: A B.S. in Mathematics from the U.S. Naval Academy; Surface Warfare and SEAL Officer; an MBA from Stanford GSB; and a decade-plus of finance and early-stage operating experience. Credentials that converge on American Resilience.
His mother a Peruvian immigrant, his father, grandfather and brother U.S. Marines, and his sister U.S. Air Force, Tarey is the third generation of his family to serve in uniform.
Significant experience in institutional finance across PIMCO, PAAMCO, Amundi Smith Breeden, and Dimensional, then back into the fray of company building as a senior operator and corporate venture investor. In 2021, he launched his own investment practice.
Tareyton Ventures
Early-stage investing focused on critical industries & national security.
Solo GP Investing
Built a portfolio of early-stage companies across critical industries and national security as a solo general partner.
Operator & CVC
Senior investor on a $100M corporate venture fund. Brought in by founders and investors at pivotal moments to stabilize and reposition companies for growth, including Securrency (later acquired by DTCC) and VIEVU (later acquired by Axon).
Institutional Finance
Manager diligence from the allocator's side of the table at PAAMCO, a $10B fund of hedge funds. Institutional client stewardship at PIMCO across an $8.8B book. Distribution and strategy at Amundi Smith Breeden and Dimensional.
Stanford GSB
MBA in General Management with emphasis in Finance and Entrepreneurship. President of the GSB Veterans Club; founded the Jack McDonald Military Service Appreciation Award, presented annually ever since to leaders of industry and government who served in uniform and gave back.
Naval Officer & SEAL
Surface Warfare Officer onboard USS Coronado and USS Ogden, then SEAL Officer with SEAL Teams FOUR and EIGHT conducting sensitive operations at a global scale. Left service as a Lieutenant Commander to attend Stanford Business School.
Advisory Board
Actively supporting portfolio companies.
Navy SEAL senior leader and former NSWDG Commander with direct access across DoW, JSOC, and SOCOM. Validates defense deals for operational authenticity and provides a strategic lens on warfighter requirements and procurement at the highest levels of the U.S. military and across the Pentagon.
LinkedIn ↗Google engineer and former IBM T.J. Watson scientist. AI/ML expert whose insights separate real defense technology from vaporware, with deep technical diligence on foundation models, edge AI, and autonomous systems: the same technologies powering the next generation of defense platforms.
LinkedIn ↗Active executive and operator in the defense industrial base, and former Marine Corps officer. President and Chief Strategy Officer at Applied Aerospace & Defense and one of the key leaders behind its June 2026 IPO on the NYSE (AADX). Combines significant Prime relationships and government customer access with deep Aerospace and Defense M&A expertise from 20+ years leading A&D at Harris Williams.
LinkedIn ↗Chief investment officer with deep institutional allocation experience. Brings an allocator's perspective, portfolio construction discipline, and access to the capital networks that back later rounds.
Former CTO of Analog Devices with a deep background in semiconductors and systems, whose chips sit inside every major defense platform from F-35 to Aegis combat systems. Provides unmatched hardware diligence and defense prime engineering relationships that validate our Advanced Manufacturing and Autonomous Systems thesis from the silicon up.
LinkedIn ↗From the FBI to Microsoft, Cisco, and VP, Head of Global Public Sector at Snowflake, along with numerous advisory committee roles. Opens global government go-to-market channels for portfolio companies at scale, bringing deep federal sales expertise, intelligence community relationships, and growth execution that few operators can replicate.
LinkedIn ↗Active advisors contributing deal flow, diligence, and portfolio support. Not passive names on a page.
Supported by a broader network of founders, operators, senior veterans, and industry experts across the Department of War and Silicon Valley.
Contact
Send It.
Building something the mission needs? A warm reference, short email, and a focused deck beats a polished pitch. Reach out.
Dedicated carry to the Navy SEAL Foundation, where Tarey proudly serves as an Ambassador.