This is the untold origin story of the Fury CollaborativeCombat Aircraft (CCA), as told by those who lived it.

Scott Bledsoe and Joe Murray join Mike to talk about Fury’s very beginning—way back to 2016.

Now known as Anduril’s YFQ-44, Fury originated as an SBIR project from Blue Force Technologies and may go on to become a poster child of SBIR success stories. But it’s not all good news.

The experience—and the decision to sell to Anduril—motivated Scott and Joe to start a new type of investment fund called the DoD Accelerator.

DoD Accelerator bridges the gap between venture capital and private equity, addressing the ‘funding valley of death’ they faced and the factors that led to the decision to sell their company—and Fury—to Anduril.

This is packed with never-before-revealed details and serves as the backdrop for a broader conversation about the realities of having a company in the defense industry.

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• Scott Bledsoe

• Joe Murray

• WOTR High-Low Mix Part I

• WOTR High-Low Mix Part II

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00:00

00:26 intro

01:50 Scott and Joe

07:21 DoD Accelerator

09:51 Fury origin story

11:24 SBIR

16:28 the high-low mix

17:11 writing to understand

18:29 F-117

19:04 no part 3

19:41 red air use-case

24:29 Bandit and ADAIR-UX

25:10 funding and the valley of death

28:04 the capital void

31:11 programs consolidate

32:28 Anduril acquisition

33:37 the small business divide

34:14 DoD Accelerator fit

36:12 Baxter Aerospace example

41:19 the cheat code

44:26 crystal ball

45:17 the prime cartel?

46:32 magic wand - IR&D policy change

49:10 policy hurts start-ups

52:51 DoD Accelerator focus areas