Forward Deployed VC backs mission-critical teams and technologies at the earliest stages. Backed by Bain Capital Ventures and operators from Palantir, Anduril, and other national security innovators, the firm combines institutional capital with operational depth. General Partner Mark Scianna served as a Forward Deployed Engineer at Palantir, where he shipped code into U.S. military repositories, set up servers in Kandahar, and deployed alongside warfighters on live missions. In the teardown above, he’s boarding a Chinook helicopter from Kandahar to Spin Boldak, near the Pakistan border. This isn’t just operator experience — it’s embedded execution that builds real-world judgment and high-trust access. That context shapes how the firm supports founders: with capital, clarity, and domain fluency. Marc Andreessen famously said software is eating the world — yet many of the systems that underpin national and economic security are still catching up. Forward Deployed VC exists to bridge that gap, led by Scianna’s firsthand experience and a high-agency network built for founders taking on the most consequential problems facing the country.