Just weeks into the Trump administration, defense contractors backed by a venture capital fund that Vice President JD Vance holds a financial stake in began winning multi-million-dollar federal contracts. According to his 2025 financial disclosure, Vance holds up to $250,000 in Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, which he helped to launch and manage before he entered politics.
The fund’s portfolio includes at least four companies that have received government contracts from the Trump-Vance administration, according to a review of its publicly listed investments by the watchdog group Accountable.US. Two of those companies, Hermeus and Slingshot Aerospace, landed major new contracts during the administration’s first weeks in office.
Another company in the fund, Anduril Industries, is expected to be one of the big winners of the administration’s national security plans as it is reported to have major roles in the administration’s planned $175 billion Golden Dome missile defense system and autonomous border surveillance towers. Anduril has already received more than $220 million in government contract actions since the start of the Trump-Vance administration, according to federal procurement data. The company’s valuation has increased by about 125% since Trump returned to office, according to private stock tracking company Notice.
Hermeus, a hypersonic aircraft startup, received a $9.4 million contract from the Pentagon for space vehicle equipment and material testing in early February, just weeks after the administration took office. Another company in the fund, Slingshot Aerospace, has been awarded $1.7 million from the Air Force since the administration took office. In January, the company announced it had been selected to further develop its GPS jamming and spoofing detection tools, which have already been used to detect GPS degradation during the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Trump administration’s recent missile strikes on Iranian nuclear sites have fueled fears of escalation in the Middle East, where Slingshot’s surveillance tools are already in use. Another company in the fund, ATLAS Space Operations, has been paid more than $1.4 million by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration since the beginning of June.
Although the Revolution fund invested in Hermeus and Slingshot Aerospace after Vance had left the company in early 2020 to found his own Thiel-backed VC firm, Naryca Capital, he reported his stakes in them on his 2023 Senate financial disclosure, showing awareness of the investments. His 2025 financial disclosure indicates that he held the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund as of the end of 2024, and he has not since filed any transaction reports that indicate the investment has been sold since he took office.
In 2017, Vance, then a principal at Peter Thiel’s Silicon Valley firm Mithril Capital, announced he’d be heading back to Ohio and joining Revolution LLC, a D.C.-based venture capital firm co-founded by media mogul Steve Case and businessman Ted Leonsis. There, he helped launch the Rise Of The Rest Seed Fund, a $150 million early-stage fund.
Vance’s financial disclosure also indicates that Vance holds additional investments from being a general partner in an alternative investment vehicle associated with the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, though the exact value of the asset is not ascertainable. The disclosure says Vance is “entitled to 15 basis points of the 20% carried interest in the general partner of Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.”
While many senior executive officials are required to divest financial holdings that pose conflicts of interest, vice presidents and presidents are exempt from those ethics requirements. Vance’s investments in government contractors fuel concerns about self-dealing in an administration that touts its anti-corruption credentials yet appears increasingly entangled with the industries affected by its policies.
“As much as the Trump administration claims to be draining the swamp, their conflicts of interest, self-enrichment and ties to special interests show they are creatures of it. Vice President JD Vance is no exception,” said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US. “Vance’s background and investments in companies benefiting from Trump government contracts come as no surprise given this administration’s record of benefiting themselves while raising costs and gutting health care for hardworking Americans.”
Vance’s financial disclosure also shows up to $500,000 in Bitcoin holdings as the administration has established a controversial “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and has made several crypto-friendly regulatory changes that have contributed to the price of the cryptocurrency currently sitting at all-time highs. Through the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Vance is also invested in The Bitcoin Company, a startup that aims to become “a one-stop shop” for helping everyone in the world own and understand Bitcoin.
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