Renny McPherson on why the U.S. can no longer rely on geography for safety, and how asymmetric threats—from cyberattacks to armed drones—are reshaping what security technology must address.

Drawing on a decade of evaluating founders, Renny McPherson argues that venture-scale builders don’t choose between vision and execution—the best ones embrace both at once.

Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) are entering their operational era. As capital flows back into core defense technologies, we see this category as a fast-converging frontier.

Arthur Karell and Renny McPherson introduce ‘systemic security’—a systems-thinking framework, drawn from their Marine Corps experience, for investing across the interconnected cyber and defense landscape.

Renny McPherson and Arthur Karell on First In’s 2024 themes, and why security across cyber, defense, and industrial domains is now deeply interconnected—land, sea, air, space, and cyber alike.

On All Quiet on the Second Front, host Tyler Sweatt is joined by Arthur Karell, a seasoned expert in corporate development, for a discussion of the human aspect of mergers and acquisitions.

In honor of Veterans Day, the Women on the Move podcast’s Sam Saperstein talks with Lenore Karafa—Marine Corps veteran, venture capitalist, and chair of Bunker Labs—about her transition from the military into finance.

On the Atlanta Startup Podcast, First In Senior Associate Gabby Fong discusses innovation in cybersecurity, defense tech, and dual-use technologies—and her transition from the U.S. Navy into venture capital.

Technology Advisor Maggie Engler examines what the generative AI boom sparked by ChatGPT means for cybersecurity and security technology, from LLM capabilities to the first autonomous agents.

Partner Arthur Karell on why the rush of investor interest into defense tech has made risk and reward harder to read—and where First In still sees durable opportunity along the cost curve.

Renny McPherson and Brian Mongeau lay out First In’s 2023 cybersecurity themes against a backdrop of surging cybercrime costs and an ever-expanding universe of connected, vulnerable devices.

First In Investor Reed Simmons: dual-use and defense technologies are at an inflection point, as the return of great power competition demonstrates the geopolitical importance of technological dominance.

Partner Arthur Karell unpacks a Huawei position paper on national computing power and what distributed computing—cloud, edge, and device—means for investors and for U.S. competition with China.

First In announced the expansion of its investment team to include Arthur Karell as a Partner, with expertise across digital security and data intelligence—from AI and defense technology to distributed computing and web3.