Marlinspike Partners closes oversubscribed $127M Fund II for dual-use technologies

Marlinspike Partners has closed its Marlinspike Disruptive Technology Fund II at $127 million, significantly surpassing its original $75 million target. The Arlington, Virginia-based venture capital firm will deploy the capital into early-stage companies developing dual-use technologies with applications in national security and commercial markets, with a focus on artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and advanced manufacturing. Founding partners Neil Keegan and Mislav Tolusic lead the fund, which has already taken positions in Layup Parts, Kodiak AI, BrightAI, and JetZero. Investors include legacy Marlinspike backers, family offices, Conway Investment Solutions, and the Fairfax County Employees’ and Police Officers Retirement Systems.

This capital raise lands at a moment when defense-driven advanced manufacturing is pulling in both policy tailwinds and private capital. Marlinspike’s portfolio already includes Layup Parts, a service bureau leveraging additive manufacturing for low-volume, high-complexity defense components - a segment that directly benefits from NDAA provisions favoring domestic supply chains. The fund’s dual-use thesis aligns with the broader shift in AM investment from consumer desktop and speculative applications toward production-capable, qualification-heavy end markets. Marlinspike is betting that the combination of AI-enabled design and robotics-driven manufacturing will compress development cycles for defense systems, creating a pipeline for AM service providers and materials vendors that can deliver on both speed and certification requirements.

For the AM industry, the signal here is less about the dollar amount and more about the thesis: Marlinspike is placing concentrated bets on founders who can bridge lab-grade innovation and program-level production. The practical question for its portfolio companies, particularly Layup Parts, is whether they can scale capacity and build the quality-management systems that defense primes require. Unlike the 2020-2022 SPAC cycle, this fund is backing operational execution over narrative - and that distinction will determine whether these investments yield enduring production footprints or remain venture-scale experiments.