Mission-driven
Founders committed to solving consequential national-security problems and strengthening the people responsible for confronting them.
Capital meets the Mission
Backing those who see over the horizon
Galadriel Ventures is an early-stage venture fund backing solutions to the most significant national-security challenges.
01 / OUR THESIS
We are focused on supporting founders and solutions that provide significant tactical and strategic advantages.
We enter early, when field-informed judgment, trusted relationships, and focused capital can have the greatest leverage.
Legacy development cycles cannot match the pace of adversarial innovation. Commercial advances in artificial intelligence, autonomy, cyber, sensors, and space are redefining the landscape.
02 / THE GALADRIEL DIFFERENCE
Galadriel’s edge is proximity. For more than fifteen years, we have been immersed in irregular warfare communities—working in the world’s gray zones and conflict-affected regions, and building relationships across both the Beltway and the operators who carry out the mission. Having helped bring more than $3.5 billion in innovative solutions across multiple markets, we offer a vantage point few investment partners possess: the experience to work alongside exceptional teams to transform inventions into deployed capabilities.
03 / WHO WE BACK
We back founders building solutions that respond to emerging threats, and maintain a decisive national-security advantage.
Informed by the threat
Teams with a clear understanding of how adversaries operate, adapt, and exploit vulnerabilities across conventional and irregular environments.
Built for operational effect
Technologies designed to produce a measurable advantage in the field.
Clear vision to deployment
Early-stage companies with a clear vision for deploying solutions that create strategic advantage for our national defense.
04 / INVESTMENT FOCUS
Technologies that further our national-security advantage.
Stage Seed, Series A & Series BInvestment size $1M–$10M
AI & Decision Systems
Edge intelligence, computer vision, data fusion, and tools that compress the decision cycle.
↗Autonomy & Robotics
Uncrewed systems extending human reach into contested and denied environments.
↗Space, Sensors & ISR
Persistent awareness and advanced sensing across every operational domain.
↗Cyber & Resilient Comms
Zero-trust architecture, secure networks, C4ISR, and contested communications.
↗Advanced Energy
Power systems, directed energy, and capabilities that change the economics of defense.
↗Industrial Resilience
Advanced manufacturing, supply-chain integrity, and infrastructure essential to readiness.
↗05 / WHY NOW
The need for innovation has never been greater—the time to build America’s next great advantage is now.
A generational shift
The way America deters, supplies, and protects is being remade—a change this industry has not seen in decades.
Depleted supply, surging demand
Critical stockpiles are running dry as demand climbs—an urgent opening to rebuild supply in faster, groundbreaking, and more resilient ways.
Capital at the decisive stage
More talent and focus are aimed at defense than ever, creating a robust venture market—where strategic capital at the earliest stage makes the greatest difference.
06 / LEADERSHIP
Dominique L. Plewes
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Dominique L. Plewes operates at the intersection of national security, geopolitics, and strategic capital, bringing a field-informed perspective to defense innovation and deployment. As Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Galadriel Ventures, she invests in early-stage companies with the potential to create strategic advantage for the United States and its allies—and works alongside founders to accelerate their path from technological promise to differentiated operational capability.
Her investment approach is grounded in over a decade of firsthand experience across the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central America, and the Indo-Pacific. By engaging the people closest to the mission—from military operators and policymakers to heads of state, business leaders, and local communities—she identifies emerging threats, operational gaps, and deployment realities before they are widely understood. This “ground truth” methodology shapes how Galadriel evaluates technologies, supports portfolio companies, and connects innovation with mission demand.
In 2017, Plewes founded the SOF Support Foundation, where she developed mental-health, family-support, and transition programs for the U.S. special operations community. She later launched the SOF Support Congressional Fellowship Program, placing combat-experienced veterans within the federal policymaking process to help anchor defense decisions in operational reality.
A published author on national security and gray-zone conflict, Plewes has advised policy makers and stakeholders on challenges including transnational crime, trafficking, stability operations, civil-military coordination, and governance. Across her work, she translates deep relationships and firsthand experience into differentiated investment—helping founders build, position, and deploy technologies that meet consequential national-security needs.
07 / BEGIN A CONVERSATION
Building something consequential?
We want to hear from founders developing technologies with the potential to strengthen American national security.