The Capital Stacking Playbook: How Defense Founders Fund Hard Tech Without Losing Equity | Mollie Jahner
26m | Aug 18, 2026Hard tech is hard, and the money you raise to build it can quietly decide which customers you are allowed to serve. This week on GovCon Unscripted, Mollie Jahner makes the case that most defense founders reach for venture capital by reflex, when a stacked strategy of non-dilutive federal, state, and local funding, plus smart teaming, gets them further with more control.
Host Chelsea Roberts sits down with Mollie Jahner (Mission Cultivate, founder of Raise, formerly founder/CEO of Spring & Forge) on capital stacking, why the wrong investor can trip a CFIUS or foreign-ownership review and block your end customer, how teaming unlocks solicitations a single company cannot reach alone, and where Raise fits in helping founders find non-dilutive money faster.
Timestamps:
0:00Ā Intro
1:00Ā Why working moms make great operators
3:00Ā Getting government and industry in the same room
6:00Ā Founding Mission Cultivate and the Raise platform
10:00Ā Teaming and consortia: unlocking bigger contracts
13:00Ā The capital stack: non-dilutive funding beyond VC
15:00Ā The VC trap and the wrong kind of capital
18:00Ā Why human relationships beat AI noise
21:00Ā Who Mission Cultivate serves and the Raise launch
26:00Ā Wrap-up
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