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Two-Time Olympic Medalist and Navy SEAL Raises a $125 Million Venture Fund
Larsen Jensen may be the most interesting man in venture capital.
Jackson Fordyce
December 14, 2023
Larsen Jensen with President Bush and Michael Phelps. PHOTO: White House photo by Shealah Craighead
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The Story: Two-time Olympic medalist, former Navy SEAL, and now a venture capitalist—the resume of Harpoon Ventures’ founder and general partner Larsen Jensen is impressive, and now added to that long list of accomplishments is a raise of $125 million in his firm’s fourth fund.
Jensen also has some impressive supporters who believe in his firm. Harpoon Ventures is backed by an LP group that includes Andreessen Horowitz’s Peter Levine; Jensen’s first foray into venture capital after serving as a Navy SEAL for six years was at a16z in 2015.
Harpoon primarily invests in startups that have one standalone commercial product that can also be sold to and used by federal agencies.
That’s a primary driver for why a16z’s Levine was interested in investing in the firm in the first place. He told Bloomberg’s Lizette Chapman that Harpoon are, “experts at mapping the government landscape, understanding your business, helping find product market fit, procurement, and the ebbs and flows of the government purchasing cycle.”
Expert Take: Larsen Jensen, founder and general partner at Harpoon Ventures, chatted with us about the challenges of raising a fund in 2023, the unique value proposition of Harpoon, and his bold prediction for venture markets in 2024.
Jensen explains what’s unique about Harpoon:
I think that the nuance for us has been the performance that we’ve demonstrated over the past half a dozen years, the uniqueness of the value proposition that we provide our founders, which we think leads to upper-echelon deal flow and upper-echelon access. And I think the story is a really really important part to getting LPs to commit in this market.
Although Jensen believes AI and national security investing will continue to drive investment dollars in 2024, he sees them disappointing compared to the hype. His “bold prediction for 2024” is that, “these areas tend to be overhyped in the early innings and ultimately go through a trough of disillusionment until they become mass market applicable. So I wouldn’t be surprised if [AI and national security investing] really start to cool in 2024.”
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