Andrew Couillard (Harpoon Ventures) / VC Breakdown & Contact

About Andrew Couillard

Andrew Couillard is a former Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer who led teams across multiple continents and managed a $50M unmanned underwater vehicle portfolio, giving him rare hands-on experience with military AI/ML and autonomous systems that most VCs lack when evaluating defense and dual-use startups. At Black Flag, he personally designs and runs the accelerator curriculum while serving as what he calls a supporting commander to founders, and he's unusually public about sharing specific fundraising mechanics like his probability-weighted system that requires lining up 300% of target funding in probable demand before launching a raise.

Where they've Worked

This is some text inside of a div block.

Video Interview

On creating urgency and being "desirable" as a founder

"Let's be honest. Early stage venture is the hot girl thing, right? It's all about how do you be the hot girl at school? There's no art. It's more of an art than a science, but you want to make yourself desirable. There's urgency, there's scarcity. So how do you create urgency? You have a lot of people interested in you."

Andrew Couillard

Investor, Harpoon Ventures

On the probability-weighted fundraising strategy

"You say, all right, this firm average check size, two and a half million times point seven. And you do that for every single firm... And whenever you get to 300% of your target fundraise, then you start the fundraise and then you go down to your high conviction list. That 70%, you call them and say, hey, remember that talk we had two months ago? I'm raising, are you in?"

Andrew Couillard

Investor, Harpoon Ventures

On the fine line between persistence and desperation

"If you're constantly blowing up a VC asking for followups nearly every day on your application, it looks desperate. What's so interesting and compelling is when you're persistent and you're actually adding value every time you do a follow up."

Andrew Couillard

Investor, Harpoon Ventures

On founders leaning too heavily on stats instead of story

"Stats should add to your story. They shouldn't be the basis of your story. If you were describing a problem in numbers and things that you can get on Perplexity or Claude, it's really uncompelling. A lot of founders miss the forest for the trees and they don't zoom out at the holistic big picture of like, what's the story? What's the narrative?"

Andrew Couillard

Investor, Harpoon Ventures

On the biggest mistake founders make after closing a round

"We've seen so many founders, they raise the money, they get it in the bank, they freak out because they've never had that many millions in a bank account and they still eat ramen, sleep on a cot, and they refuse to hire the best people because they're trying to maintain their cash burn. It's like no, we're doing this to accelerate your business. Use the money."

Andrew Couillard

Investor, Harpoon Ventures

About their Fund

Harpoon Ventures

Sectors

Defense, Deeptech / Hardware, Energy, Climate, Cybersecurity, Materials, AI, Chips, Biotech, Robotics

Rounds

Pre-Seed - Series A

Avg Check Size

$100K - $5M

Notable Investments

This is some text inside of a div block.

Harpoon Ventures is led by Larsen Jensen, a former Navy SEAL and Olympic swimmer, who brings a "warrior ethos" to investing in what the firm calls the "Freedom Stack"—foundational technologies like AI, autonomy, cyber, space, and energy that are critical to American national security.

The firm specializes as a bridge between early-stage startups and complex government buyers, with a team of former national security operators and acquisition experts who help founders navigate procurement and dual-use commercialization beyond typical venture capital support.

Other partners at the fund