Deep technology & defense
For companies solving hard physics.
Quantum, photonics, advanced materials, aerospace, and defense. Companies whose customer is often a federal program office, and whose capital stack has a non-dilutive half most founders are never taught to use.
The problem
Two problems on top of every other scaling problem.
A deep tech company carries everything a growth-stage company carries: an operating structure that has to hold, a leadership team that has to scale, a board that has to be useful. Then it carries two more that ordinary advisory does not touch.
The customer is a program office
Selling to a federal program office is not enterprise sales with more paperwork. The buyer has a mission rather than a budget line, the timeline runs on appropriations rather than quarters, and the person who wants your technology is rarely the person who can buy it. Founders who learned to sell commercially arrive with the wrong instincts and lose two years discovering it.
Half the capital stack is non-dilutive
SBIR, STTR, and the agency programs alongside them can fund years of development without touching the cap table. They can also pull a company sideways into work that wins the award and delays the product. The discipline is in which programs to chase, in what order, and which to decline.
The work
What the engagement covers.
Federal capital strategy
Money that costs no equity, sequenced so it funds the product rather than diverting it.
SBIR and STTR strategy across Phase I, II, and the transition to Phase III. Agency and program selection against the actual technology readiness level. Sequencing alongside an equity round so dilution and non-dilutive capital are timed rather than accidental. Which solicitations to decline, which is usually the harder call.
Federal go-to-market
A path from a program office that wants the technology to a contract that pays for it.
Mapping the buying process inside Department of Defense and civilian agencies, identifying the program office and the transition partner, positioning against an incumbent prime, and building the commercial narrative that survives contact with a technical evaluation panel.
Investor access
The rooms that fund a ten-year physics problem.
Introductions to deep tech, defense, and growth equity investors who underwrite long development cycles, plus the narrative and deck architecture that makes a hard-science company legible to a generalist fund without diluting the science.
Technology transfer and commercialization
Out of the lab, into a market that pays for it.
University and research institute commercialization, licensing position and intellectual property strategy, spin-out structuring, and international market entry for technology developed inside a research setting.
Everything on the main page
The scaling work does not stop applying because the technology is hard.
Operating structure, compensation design, board and financial infrastructure, exit readiness. A deep tech company that solves the physics and fails the org chart fails anyway. The full service list.
I have been the Chief Business Officer of a quantum photonics company on federal contracts.
The advice comes from having run the process rather than having read about it, and from a decade inside Colorado's deep tech community, where a good part of the work is knowing which door to knock on.
Where this comes from
The background behind it.
- Former Chief Business Officer, Icarus Quantum, a NIST spinout in quantum photonics funded by Air Force, Space Force, NASA, NIST, and NSF programs
- CEO and co-founder, Azumo, display technology, named to Crain's Chicago Business Most Innovative Companies
- Commercial strategy and fundraising for a quantum photonics company selling into federal program offices
- International commercialization of university and research institute technology
- Teaching Director, Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, Leeds School of Business, CU Boulder
- A decade inside Colorado's deep tech and founder community
Sectors this practice works across:
CU Boulder launched thirty-five startups out of university research in FY2024 according to AUTM, and a meaningful share of Colorado's hard-science formation runs through that pipeline. Much of my work sits at the point where the research leaves the institution.
How it runs
Same structure as every engagement.
A diagnostic first, because a recommendation made before the technology, the capital position, and the agency picture is understood is a guess. Scope and fee are set after the first conversation. Ongoing advisory is retained rather than hourly, with equity participation where it fits.
Days 1–30
Diagnostic
Technology readiness against the programs available, the capital position and its dilution path, the federal buying route, and how the company is organized to execute on all three.
Output: a written diagnostic, a prioritized federal capital and go-to-market plan, and a ninety-day workplan.
Ongoing
Cadence
- Weekly working session with the CEO
- Standing availability between sessions
- Solicitation and program review as they open
- Quarterly check-in with the board or lead investor
Deliverables
What you get
- The diagnostic and the workplan
- A sequenced federal capital plan
- Investor and board materials
- Direct introductions to investors and program contacts
- A second set of eyes, on the record
Get in touch
If the customer is a program office, start here.
Valley View Partners works with a limited number of companies at a time. The first conversation costs nothing and usually settles whether there is a fit inside thirty minutes. Useful things to bring: the technology and roughly where it sits on readiness, where the capital stands, and which agency or program office is already in the picture.
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Boulder, Colorado · Valley View Partners LLC