The Merge Podcast: Golden Dome and the Innovation Reckoning
In Episode 48 of The Merge, Marque Ventures Managing Director Jake Chapman joins host Mike Benitez for a wide-ranging conversation on the current state of defense innovation, venture capital, and what’s coming next.
Jake unpacks the fundraising environment in VC, how Marque Ventures is outperforming, and why defense-focused investing offers fundamentally different risk profiles than generalist VC. He highlights how “de-risking” in defense requires more than a Phase I SBIRs—it requires contracting authority, budgets, and real end-user adoption.
The episode then dives into Golden Dome, the U.S. initiative to protect against air and space threats with layered sensors and interceptors. Mike breaks down the math for the projected $800B price tag over 20 years, it’s one of the fastest-moving procurement programs in recent history—announced in January 2025, industry downselects by May 2025, and a planned demo by 2028.
Jake and Mike explore the fractured U.S. innovation ecosystem—too many players, not enough synchronization—and contrast it with Ukraine, where drone tech iterations happen in weeks.
The episode closes with a sobering reflection: if the Third Offset was about attritable mass and rapid manufacturing, the U.S. may have already lost that race to China. The real challenge now is anticipating—and shaping—the Fourth Offset before it’s defined for us.