Empowering & expediting defense innovation.
Innovation Ranch is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating, finding and fostering the most advanced defense innovations and putting it in the hands of United States warfighters.
The collaborative IR ecosystem is part think tank, part lab, part accelerator, part testing facility, part venture resource… and ALL Innovation! We bring together industry, military, university, and domain experts to help companies fail fast, commercialize and win Department of Defense contacts in months, not years.
The Mission
Find and create advanced technologies that will give the United States and her allies strategic advantages over our adversaries.
The Tools
Whether you’re creating innovative software, hardware, or something completely different, to break into the defense market you need to test, stress, break, document, and improve your tech constantly. To win contracts you need trusted champions within the DoD to support and promote your efforts. To scale in defense you need arduous government certifications that are typically cloaked behind secrecy. Innovation Ranch provides tools that can only be obtained through decades of hands on defense innovation work.
The Work
Innovation comes in all forms and formats. The defense market is vast and complex, luckily we know it extremely well. Most startups innovate in industries other than defense, however that doesn’t mean their technology doesn’t have defense applications. DEF X (Defense X) is an 8 week, non-equity accelerator program led by the IR ecosystem that propels its cohort members into the world of federal contracting and gets them DoD ready.
“Innovation Ranch is like an elite secret society, comprised of the successful, the connected, the thought leaders. However IR is not secret, it’s right in front of you. You just have to open the door.”
— Michael Adam, CEO - ADAM Aerospace
“Within the labyrinth of defense contracting lies opportunity. Innovation Ranch helps navigate bureaucracy, resources and demystify the process. We accelerate innovation to impact.”
— Elizabeth Thelen, Network Navigator / Director of Whitewater University Innovation Center
Contact IR
Innovation Ranch is a bipartisan nonprofit and we welcome members and partners that are passionate about advancing defense innovation for the United States and our allies. Feel free to contact us with any questions. We look forward to working with you.