Lopez: Federal startup funding programs will survive the incoming Trump administration
Yeri Lopez · 39 - Deep Tech and National Security: Insights from J2 Ventures' Yeri Lopez · Apr 10, 2025 · at 18:39
Yeri Lopez of J2 Ventures discusses the expected impact of the incoming Trump administration and DOGE cost-cutting on federal defense tech research and non-dilutive grants.
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“While all of that may occur on the large-scale budget items, the non-dilutive sources of capital that I think are the real source of strength for J-II, which is the SBIR contracts, or the SIDR contracts, or the Kratos, and those kinds of things. I don't think that those will be touched as much because if you look over the course of the 20th century, regardless of which party has been in power the United States government has always invested heavily in research and early stage financing. I think that those parts we will be, will remain. And if you look at a SBIR two contract that takes two years to fulfill, that takes you halfway through the Trump administration anyways, and chances of them disappearing, I think are small, particularly when they have outsized impact on the market. So I remain bullish on that piece of the thesis.”
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