JANUARY 3, 2025 – The Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) today announced the release of its Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Investment Strategy, which details how OSC will prioritize investments through credit-based financial products for critical technologies, assets, and their supply chains.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III established OSC in December 2022 with the mission to attract and scale private capital to support U.S. national security. In December 2023, Congress formally enacted OSC into law through the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24 NDAA), granting the office new authorities to issue loans and loan guarantees to eligible companies working in 31 Covered Technology Categories (CTCs) listed in statute.
The FY25 Investment Strategy incorporates these new authorities; defines arenas of strategic competition; develops a framework to optimize capital allocations; and identifies industry segments of particular interest for OSC investments.
“At this moment of global challenge, the Department of Defense must seek novel and effective ways to keep the United States secure,” said Secretary Austin. “I was proud to establish the Office of Strategic Capital in 2022 so that the Department can promote investment opportunities that make America safer and stronger. This Investment Strategy will ensure that we continue to build the foundation for ongoing technological leadership, economic strength, and American security.”
The FY25 Investment Strategy highlights the industry segments of particular interest for the OSC credit program, which are a subset of the 31 CTCs, to include: advanced bulk materials; advanced manufacturing; autonomous mobile robots; battery storage; biochemicals; bioenergetics; biomass; hydrogen generation and storage; microelectronics assembly, testing, and packaging; microelectronics manufacturing equipment; microelectronics materials; nanomaterials and metamaterials; sensor hardware; spacecraft; and synthetic biology.
“The OSC FY25 Investment Strategy provides an overarching framework as the office deploys its federal credit tools to build enduring advantages for our nation,” said Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu. “With the Investment Strategy as a guide, OSC investments will help reduce vulnerabilities to economic chokepoints, support the production of key industrial capabilities, and lead the development of next generation critical technologies.”
To read the full FY25 Investment Strategy, visit here.
Concurrent with the release of the FY25 Investment Strategy, OSC is opening the application window for its first credit product, focused on equipment finance. Under its federal credit authorities, OSC launched the equipment finance Notice of Funding Availability on September 30, 2024, to issue direct loans to companies in the critical technologies value chain that have capital investment needs. The “Application Part 1” window for equipment finance loans opens on January 2, 2025 and closes on February 3, 2025. To learn more, please visit www.osc.mil/credit-program.