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ABOUT FDVC
Mark Scianna is the General Partner at Forward Deployed VC, investing in mission-critical sectors and tech.
Defense
Energy
Industrials
Artificial Intelligence
As an operator, most of his experience was at Palantir, where he was a founding member of their defense team, spending 11 years as a forward deployed engineer. In that role, he deployed extensively with US and allied forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Horn of Africa, and beyond. When not deployed, he was responsible for development of Forward (basis for an 800M Army contract), Mobile (used by federal law enforcement), and Project Maven (advanced AI). Mark’s team not only developed life saving products, but also built an incredibly valuable business: revenue grew from zero to billions, and the company went public in 2020.
Mark's work at Palantir was featured in CTO Shyam Sankar's "The Primacy of Winning" and Head of Product Adam Judelson's "The unconventional Palantir principles that catalyzed a generation of startups".
As a venture investor, Mark got started in 2010 by participating in Palantir’s Series D round, becoming the only employee to purchase preferred shares. In 2014 he began investing via Y Combinator Demo Days, and in 2018 completed their Startup Investor program. In 2022 Mark launched FDVC Fund I.
12-year track record, top quartile returns
2010-2021: 28 companies
39% IRR, 4.6x TVPI, 2.9x DPI
PORTFOLIO
Wastewater Epidemiology
(DCVC, MIT, In-Q-Tel)
Privacy-first Mobile Carrier
(A16Z, Point72, XYZ)
Modern Defense Production
(A16Z, First In, Lavrock)
AI Data Compliance
(Altman, Haystack, Susa)
Ultra-fast Charging
(Initialized, Airbus)
Government Contracting
(8VC, Insight)
Transportation & Delivery
Exit, NASDAQ:LYFT
Autonomous Cyber Defense
(Stealth)
AI Data Pipelines
(Village Global, AIN, Inner Loop)
Nuclear Micro-Reactors
(Sam Altman, 8VC)
Exit, NYSE:OKLO
Drones as First Responder
(Khosla, Paul Buchheit)
Data & AI for Operators
Exit, NYSE:PLTR
Auth for B2B
(8-Bit, Crosstimbers, Soma, YC)
Enterprise AI Governance
(BoxGroup, Definition, Jackson Square)
Mission Requirements
(Long Journey, Wischoff)
Rockets and Spacecraft
(Founders Fund, Sequoia)
Status & Incident Comms
Exit to Atlassian
Space Security
(Harvard, Ken Griffin, Immad Akhund, YC)
Production Workflow Orchestration
(Gradient, Bessemer)
AI for Operations
(In-Q-Tel, CMU)
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