Jason Rathje, director of the Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital, said OSC is looking to partner with other federal agencies to address investment gaps in critical technologies with military applications, Federal News Network reported Monday.
Rathje said OSC has entered into a partnership with the Small Business Administration to launch the Small Business Investment Company critical technologies initiative, which aims to generate capital for technology-focused small or mid-sized enterprises.
SBIC aims to increase the investment to crowd-in private capital and create patient capital investment funds, prioritizing areas with large applications such as semiconductors, Rathje said.
Aside from interagency partnerships, DOD may combine its research, development, test and evaluation funds with private capital to increase investments in critical technologies.
“These are the types of programs we’re looking to apply across DoD, we’re thinking deeply about what are the opportunities that we see in the out-year procurement budgets, like the one released by the President last week, and it’s exciting for us to find opportunities where we see a technology being developed into a capability where we think we can partner with private capital,” Rathje said.
