DC · Northeast
Washington, DC venture capital & startups
DC metro govtech map — In-Q-Tel, Revolution, and Paladin HQ, plus Arlington startups Pryzm, Cleatus, FiscalNote, and Reston cyber Netography.
The Beltway is a buyer market as much as an HQ market. We separate DC-metro headquarters (In-Q-Tel, Revolution, Paladin, FiscalNote, Pryzm, Cleatus) from defense companies that sell into federal buyers from California or elsewhere.
Washington, DC and Northern Virginia aliases (Arlington, Alexandria, McLean, Reston, Bethesda). Funds matched by HQ aliases plus curated national defense/govtech capital. Startups matched by hq field and curated IDs.
Venture firms in Washington, DC
Matched from fund headquarters in our directory (alias-based). Dual-HQ firms may appear in more than one city.
| Firm | HQ (directory) | Leads |
|---|---|---|
| In-Q-Tel | Arlington, VA | Series A, Series B+ |
| Revolution | Washington, DC | Seed, Series A, Series B+ |
| Paladin Capital Group | Washington, DC | Seed, Series A |
| Andreessen Horowitz | Menlo Park, CA | Series A, Series B+ |
| Lux Capital | 888 7th Ave, New York, NY 10106 | Seed, Series A |
| Founders Fund | New York, NY | Series A, Series B+ |
| General Catalyst | Cambridge, MA | Series A, Series B+ |
| Zeal Capital Partners | New York, NY & Washington D.C. | Pre-Seed, Seed |
Startups we cover in Washington, DC
Matched from startup hq fields. Many profiles still lack HQ — curated lists
in editorial notes fill gaps when verified.
| Startup | One-liner | HQ |
|---|---|---|
| Pryzm | AI command center for federal capture, procurement, and defense-contract discovery. | Arlington, VA |
| Cleatus | Arlington agentic AI platform for government contracting — opportunity discovery, proposal writing, and federal capture workflows. | Arlington, VA |
| FiscalNote | Washington, DC policy intelligence and government relations SaaS — legislative tracking, advocacy, and market intelligence. | Washington, DC |
| Netography | Cloud-native network detection and response for distributed enterprise networks. | Reston, VA |
| Aslan | Human-supervised AI agents for national-security and law-enforcement investigations in online criminal environments. | Washington, DC, USA |
| Cari | Bank-governed tokenized-deposit network so regional banks can move programmable money inside the regulatory perimeter. | Washington, DC, USA |
| Emerald AI | Software that turns AI data centers into flexible grid loads so they can interconnect faster without dropping critical jobs. | Washington, D.C. |
| Method Security | Autonomous offensive and defensive cyber platform for U.S. government and critical enterprises. | Washington, DC area |
| OpenBazaar | Decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace protocol; OB1 was the company supporting development. | Washington, D.C., USA |
Coverage gaps
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Grotech Ventures
Ballston govtech/cyber seed specialist — active in market, no /fund/ profile yet
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FedRAMP-native SaaS boutiques
Dense cyber and federal SaaS layer in DMV — many names lack structured /startup/ pages
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Shield AI / Anduril
Sell into DC buyers but CA HQ — covered as related defense comps, not DC-metro startups
Related reading
Washington, DC FAQs
Practical answers for founders researching this investor.