Defense procurement

INSIDE THE ROOM WHERE TECH ACTUALLY VIES FOR MILITARY JOBS

The Pentagon views tapping into Silicon Valley's expertise as essential to competing in an arms race that may hinge on developing technologies like artificial intelligence. But landing a government contract has traditionally been a grueling and laborious process, requiring companies to comply with a list of regulations that, when printed out, weighs 8.5 pounds. That’s discouraged lots of startups from even trying to compete and has prevented the government from accessing some of the freshest emerging ideas in tech.

With the demo day in New York, the Air Force wanted to shrink that process. Over the course of one day, Raj and 50 other grantees walked away with $3.5 million in initial funding, with another $5 million set to be paid out in installments. On average, it took 15 minutes from the end of their pitches for the funds to be transferred into the companies' bank accounts, using an Air Force credit card. (And yes, the folks running the event did get some frantic calls from payment processors wondering why the US government was spending millions of dollars in $50,000 increments in Times Square.)