Episode summary
JD Vance’s Co-Founder on Space Defense, Hard Tech, and Solving Hard Problems
How I Invest With David Weisburd
· · Hosts: David Weisburd · Guests: Colin Greenspon
Summary
Colin Greenspon argues that the best venture outcomes come from being first-principles driven, mission-driven, and deliberately non-mimetic. He says Narya was built around backing founders who can solve real problems in the U.S. economy, including defense, space, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and energy, but only when the technology can be translated into a real business model with venture-scale gross margins.
He is bullish on frontier categories but skeptical of most startups crowding into them after they become fashionable. In his view, defense and space can work, but only for a small number of special companies, and often only if the opportunity was recognized before the market became crowded. He contrasts that with “hidden in plain sight” problems, where AI and other recent advances can unlock value in sectors like healthcare that many investors had written off.
Greenspon also emphasizes concentration over diversification. He says Narya typically backs 12 companies per fund and then doubles and triples down on its best bets, while using aligned LPs and domain experts to pressure-test hard technical questions. Across the conversation, he returns to a simple theme: founders and investors should stay focused, avoid trendy distractions, and build durable companies that can compound over time.
Key takeaways
- Greenspon says Narya favors concentrated funds of about 12 companies, with only three to four real big bets per fund.
- He argues that defense and space are investable only when technical innovation is paired with business model innovation, not just hardware ambition.
- He says the firm avoids memetic trends like crypto and NFTs and prefers “hidden in plain sight” opportunities that become attractive before they are crowded.
- He believes too much capital can create distraction, feature creep, and mission drift, especially when teams split attention across product lines.
- He says the best deep tech founders are mission-driven, often older, and usually have enough industrial acumen to understand how the business really works.
Notable quotes
“we try to be very nimble and curious and I think there's there's this barometer where you you know, you you can't go too far into the future”
“our strategy is having a very very concentrated portfolio. So 12 companies per fund. And then you sort of double and triple down on your best companies”
“we were very clear that we weren't going to be chasing trends. We we weren't going to do crypto, we weren't going to do NFTs”
“the best founders tend to tend to be less active there. Think about what what our government's trying to do right now with advances in technology”
How the episode opens
So you started Narya with J.D. Vance in 2019. What was it like working with a vice president in a business context?
Before we started Narya, we've been working together at um since 2014 really. And what always made J.D. a great investor was you know, I think he was a very first principles type investor in that he was excellent at thinking about what the state of the world was today and seeing around corners as to what it might look like 5 to 7 years from now.
And then taking that lens and thinking about how to build investment theses around that. And so he also was very I would say very mission-driven and enthusiastic about themes around what could venture dollars do to help our country, our our government specifically, help our citizens, how could we make the improve the quality lives of most Americans with advances in science and technology. And how could we also serve founders in off-the-beaten-path geographies.
And when you sort of put that all together, you sort of have this interesting investor who was both first principles-driven, but also mission-driven. And when you when you combine that, it gets very interesting. And we were able to look at all sorts of companies across a myriad of sectors including biotech, defense, advanced manufacturing.
And it was really all about this idea of returning venture dollars to backing founders addressing what what we see as the need to solve problems in our country. Almost like this idea of be to be progressive in the asset class, you know, to be regressive in return the asset class to sort of its inception. What did venture really start out to do?
And it was to help our government. It was to help our companies create real GDP growth at scale and it was to help our citizens.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- venture investing
- deep tech
- space defense
- fundraising and vc
- diversification vs concentration
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Narya
- Mithril
- AlphaSense
Watch the episode
Watch “JD Vance’s Co-Founder on Space Defense, Hard Tech, and Solving Hard Problems” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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