Investing in what makes a nation sovereign.
US$5 billion across two funds, deployed into defense, space, quantum, sovereign AI, energy, strategic real assets and the talent behind them. Eight offices. One investment committee, in Dubai.
The next half-century is being built at the seam between state and founder. We invest there.
Sovereignty is the asset class
Orbit, encryption, energy, compute. We underwrite capability, and hold it long enough to compound.
Operators, not tourists
Two decades on the government side of the table. It changes what we see, and what founders tell us.
One committee
Seed to listing without changing counterparties. Four arms, one balance sheet, one decision.
US$2.5 billion. Second vintage.
Larger control positions. Deeper sovereign co-investment. New sleeves for sovereign AI, power and nuclear, real estate and education.
Defense & Deterrence
US$600M
Space & Orbital Sovereignty
US$400M
Quantum & Frontier Computing
US$300M
Sovereign Intelligence & Cyber
US$300M
Energy Security & Nuclear
US$300M
Strategic Real Assets
US$200M
Education & National Talent
US$150M
Biosecurity & Life Sciences
US$250M incl. reserve
Four arms. One spine.
Concept to liquidity, under one committee.
Capital Nexus™
Anchors LPs. Seeds allied managers.
StratEdge™
Government and prime veterans, inside the company. Cost carried by Elmirate.
AscendX™
Lead checks from Series B to control. Fund II's principal arm.
Elevate™
The exit, designed from the first board.
Three frontiers. One mandate.
Orbit, launch and compute. Where sovereign capability is being built this decade.
Eyes, ears and timing in orbit.
Constellations, launch and ground segments as national infrastructure.
Shorten the kill chain.
Software-defined systems and the sovereign factories that make them.
The decision layer.
Post-quantum cryptography, secure inference, autonomous decision systems.
Dubai at the hinge of the world.
Two-thirds of humanity within eight flying hours. Eight offices where the capital, the technology and the end users are.
Returns follow relevance.
We told Fund I investors something unusual: we would measure ourselves first on what a nation could do after our capital that it could not do before. Returns would follow. They did.
Fund II is the same conviction with a larger balance sheet. Allied governments now treat orbit, encryption and compute as instruments of statecraft. They want capital partners who understand procurement as well as a cap table. That is a short list. We intend to stay on it.
Notes from the frontier.
The decision layer compounds faster than the hardware
Why the second vintage carves out sovereign AI.
ReadUS$200 million into West African defense manufacturing
Where allied capacity will be built next.
ReadPost-quantum cryptography is a deadline, not a market
The Gulf can lead the migration.
Read
Built for the seam between state and founder.
Patient, sovereign-aligned private equity for the technologies that decide national capability. Formed in Dubai. US$5 billion today.
From a thesis to a US$5 billion platform.
A thesis from inside government
Twenty years in intelligence, then private equity. The observation: the companies nations would need most were financed by people who had never met the end user.
Dubai. One committee. Permanent capital.
Elmirate Investment LLC, regulated by the UAE Securities and Commodities Authority. Early relationships in Washington and Tel Aviv shaped the defense thesis.
US$2.5 billion, five sleeves
Seven sovereign pools joined institutions and family offices across the Gulf, Europe and Asia. The four arms were built during deployment.
120 allied funds
Procurement introductions and syndication above US$250 million, across allied markets.
A further US$2.5 billion
Larger control positions, deeper sovereign co-investment, a dedicated sovereign AI sleeve. Eight offices, four continents.
A relevance fund, not a yield fund.
Every investment is scored on what the host nation can do afterwards that it could not do before.
Patience
Permanent-capital vehicles. We do not sell a sovereign capability because a fund term expired.
Conviction
Eighteen to twenty-four positions. Partners sit on most boards.
Lawful and allied
Allied export regimes only. Human-in-the-loop as a hard rule. Six commitments, audited annually.
Sovereign at the core.
Limited partners chosen for alignment as much as capital.
- Sovereign
- Seven pools across the Gulf, Europe and Asia, several with co-investment rights
- Institutional
- Global managers, pensions and endowments with defense and aerospace programs
- Family offices
- Multi-generational offices in the Gulf, Europe and Asia
- Strategic
- Primes, aerospace manufacturers and infrastructure operators investing for access
- General Partner
- Partners commit in every fund
Governance
- Committee
- One committee, four arms, unanimous decisions. Declines in writing within two weeks.
- LPAC
- Independent. Conflicts, valuation policy, the annual stewardship audit.
- Reporting
- Quarterly, with capability-index scoring. Annual audited accounts.
- Regulation
- SCA-regulated manager. Funds domiciled in the United Arab Emirates.
- Compliance
- Export control, sanctions, AML/KYC and end-use as gates, not checkboxes.
How the four arms work together.
US$2.5 billion for the decision layer and the orbital layer.
Fund I deployed US$2.5 billion. Fund II doubles the platform, concentrates where the world moved fastest, and adds power, property and education.
What Fund I taught us. The fastest-compounding asset was never the airframe. It was the software that decided what the airframe did.
What changed. Allied governments now procure sovereign AI like aircraft, and refuse to rent orbit. Both need capital a sovereign counterparty can accept.
What Fund II does. Leads rounds to US$250 million alone. Syndicates above it through 120 allied funds. Gives sovereign LPs co-investment by mandate. Adds three sleeves Fund I did not have: power and nuclear, real estate and education, the physical and human infrastructure the other six depend on.
Targets at launch. Deployment may vary within committee limits.
Indicative terms.
The PPM and LPA govern. Available to qualified investors following verification.
- Fund
- Elmirate Capital Fund II
- Target
- US$2.5 billion
- Vintage
- 2026 – 2027
- Strategy
- Growth equity and control across nine sovereign-critical sectors, from defense to education
- Check
- US$25M – 250M; above by syndication
- Positions
- 18 – 24
- Hold
- 6 – 10 years; permanent-capital continuation available
- Geography
- Gulf, Israel, US, UK and Europe, India, Japan, Singapore, Africa
- Investors
- Sovereign, institutional, family office, strategic
- GP commit
- Partners invest alongside
- Co-investment
- Sovereign LPs by mandate; allied network above US$250M
- Governance
- One committee, unanimous; independent LPAC
- Reporting
- Quarterly; capability index; annual audit
- Domicile
- United Arab Emirates
- Manager
- Elmirate Investment LLC, SCA-regulated
- Documents
- PPM, LPA, data room on request
Pacing.
Fund II inherits a pipeline Fund I spent three years building.
Foundation
Six to eight positions from the pipeline. Defense control, two orbital platforms, first sovereign AI.
Core build
All six sleeves. Sovereign co-investment activated above US$150M.
Follow-on
Reserves into winners. Exit architecture begins.
Inflection
M&A, dual-track IPO, secondary, or continuation for strategic assets.
Questions we are asked.
How does Fund II differ from Fund I?
What is the capability index?
How is export-control risk managed?
What co-investment rights do sovereign LPs receive?
Who pays for StratEdge?
How do I request the PPM?
Request the private placement memorandum.
Four arms. One continuous capital spine.
A company can enter at concept and leave at listing without changing counterparties.
Capital Nexus™
Anchors LP commitments. Seeds allied managers, Lagos to Tokyo, without diluting the committee.
StratEdge™
Government, prime and public-company veterans placed inside the company. Elmirate pays.
AscendX™
Lead checks from Series B. Control of proven platforms. Fund II's principal arm.
Elevate™
Dual-track processes designed from the first board. NYSE, Nasdaq, LSE, ADX, Tadawul, HKEX.
Concept to liquidity.
Concept — StratEdge
An operator who has sold to that end user before. A relationship that starts a year before any check.
Capital — AscendX · Nexus
AscendX leads from Series B. Nexus brings uncovered markets inside the network.
Consolidation — Elevate
Buy-and-build across the allied network. Control as platforms mature.
Liquidity — Elevate · Nexus
IPO, M&A, secondary, or continuation in a permanent-capital vehicle.
From first check to control.
| Stage | Check | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | US$1 – 5M | Via Nexus-seeded managers |
| Growth | US$10 – 50M | Lead or co-lead, board seat |
| Late growth | US$50 – 150M | Lead, structured, StratEdge embedded |
| Control | US$50 – 250M | Majority, operator-led |
| Platform | US$250M+ | Syndicated with network funds |
| Sovereign co-invest | By mandate | Alongside sovereign LPs |
Edges
- 01
- Permanent capital
- 02
- Seven sovereign LPs
- 03
- Operator-led diligence
- 04
- Origination 12 – 24 months early
- 05
- Eight offices, six venues, one committee
- 06
- Exit designed at the first board
Nine theatres where capability is decided.
Nine theatres where capability is decided.
Only where a company's success changes what a nation can do. Six technology theatres, and the energy, real assets and talent they stand on.
Defense & Deterrence
Deterrence is manufactured, not declared.
Allied nations are rebuilding the consumable layer of modern conflict at home: drones, counter-drone, munitions, secure radios. We back the software-defined systems that shorten the kill chain and the sovereign factories that lengthen the supply chain.
- Unmanned systems
- Electronic warfare
- Counter-UAS
- Tactical comms
- Robotics
- Munitions
Space & Orbital Sovereignty
A nation that rents orbit does not own its future.
Sovereign constellations, launch and ground segments are now national infrastructure. We invest in the companies that give an allied government its own eyes, ears and timing above the atmosphere, and in the Gulf as a serious buyer and host.
- Launch
- Earth observation
- In-orbit servicing
- Hypersonics
- Satcom & PNT
Quantum & Frontier Computing
The migration has a date. The market does not.
Post-quantum cryptography is a national-security deadline, and quantum sensing will reach the field before fault tolerance reaches the data center. We invest across the stack, including the cryogenic and photonic supply chain every program depends on.
- Quantum processors
- Post-quantum crypto
- Photonics
- Sensing
- Cryogenics
Sovereign Intelligence & Cyber
The decision layer compounds faster than the hardware beneath it.
Governments now procure sovereign models, secure inference and decision systems as national capabilities with controlled export. Our diligence here is adversarial by design, drawing on the partnership's own offensive-security operations.
- Sovereign models
- Secure inference
- Decision systems
- Red & blue teams
- Critical infrastructure
Energy Security & Nuclear
Firm power is the quiet half of sovereignty.
Small modular reactors, advanced fission and fusion, grid-scale storage and the critical-materials chain beneath them, built in allied jurisdictions with sovereign offtake. A nation that imports its baseload imports its leverage.
- SMRs
- Advanced fission
- Fusion
- Grid storage
- Transmission
- Critical materials
Strategic Real Assets
Sovereign infrastructure has an address.
Data centers, defense industrial parks, logistics corridors and secure campuses: the physical layer every other sector stands on. We invest where the tenant is a government, a prime or one of our own portfolio companies, in the Gulf and allied markets.
- Data centers
- Industrial parks
- Logistics corridors
- Secure campuses
- Mixed-use anchors
Education & National Talent
Every sovereign capability begins in a classroom.
K-12 and higher-education operators, technical and defense-adjacent skills, and the platforms that turn a national ambition into a national workforce. Talent is the one supply chain no country can import for long.
- K-12 operators
- Higher education
- Technical skills
- EdTech
- Workforce pipelines
Biosecurity & Life Sciences
Resilience is a capability, not a budget line.
Domestic diagnostics, biomanufacturing and the science behind them are being procured as national assets. We hold this sleeve alongside a strategic reserve, with independent safety review as a precondition of any investment.
- Diagnostics
- Synthetic biology
- Biomanufacturing
- Longevity
Slow at the front. Fast at the decision.
By the time a company reaches committee, we have usually known it for a year.
Reconnaissance
Sixty percent of partner time in the field. A thesis after thirty conversations, revised annually.
- Continuous
Origination
Through operators and end users, not banked processes.
- 12 – 24 months before raise
Diligence
Technical, regulatory, geopolitical, operational, in parallel. Export control is a gate.
- 6 – 12 weeks
Committee
Unanimous. Declines in writing. Approvals with a named operator and a 100-day plan.
- Decision within 2 weeks
Value creation
Operator onboarded in the first quarter. Quarterly board cadence. Network introductions.
- Quarterly
Inflection
Exit designed from the first board. M&A, IPO, secondary, or continuation.
- Years 5 – 10
Policy, not preference.
- Consumer without dual-use signal
- Yield-driven engineering
- Conflict with allied export regimes
- Lethal autonomy without human-in-the-loop
- Sanctioned-jurisdiction exposure
- Founders without an end user
What happens after the check.
The check is the beginning.
Every approved investment arrives with a named operator and a 100-day plan.
The first quarter.
Written in diligence. Approved with the investment. Reviewed by the board at day 100.
Operator in. Policy adopted.
The StratEdge operator joins as executive chair, CRO or program director. The board adopts the end-use policy.
Procurement map
Every allied end user and prime the company could sell to, with a named route into each. Capability baseline recorded.
Network and assurance
Introductions into the allied network begin. An adversarial security review where the company handles sensitive systems.
Board review. Exit architecture.
Progress against plan. Elevate presents likely acquirers, venues and the milestones that make each path real.
Five ways we change a trajectory.
Procurement access
Operators who have sold to ministries and agencies. Relationships in Washington, London, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi.
Export-control engineering
Products and entities structured to sell across allied jurisdictions. A national company becomes an allied one.
Sovereign manufacturing
Localization in the Gulf and allied markets, co-funded by sovereign co-investors with industrial mandates.
Adversarial assurance
Red-team diligence through Fiive Eyes and the partnership's offensive-security network. A company's own systems are never its weakest point.
Exit architecture
Dual-track from the first board. Six venues. A living M&A map.
The network
120 allied funds. Syndication, bolt-ons, market entry.
How it plays out.
Composite, anonymised. They illustrate the model, not any single company.
The software-defined effector
One national customer. A prime program director placed. Two allied markets opened. Gulf production co-funded by a sovereign LP. Now in a dual-track process.
The orbital data platform
Commercial revenue, no government anchor. A sovereign anchor introduced. A space-agency CRO placed. Now selling sovereign data in three jurisdictions.
The post-quantum migration
Strong research, no procurement path. An operator from a national cyber agency built the government channel. Now a named supplier in two national programs.
Building something a nation needs?
Dubai at the hinge of the world.
Two-thirds of humanity within eight flying hours. Eight offices where the capital, the technology and the end users are.
Every office has one job. Every deal uses several.
Dubai holds the Investment Committee and fund management, and sits within eight flying hours of two-thirds of the world's population. London runs the global investor pool and European capital markets. New York carries the US government, prime and institutional relationships. Tel Aviv is where much of our defense, cyber and intelligence deal flow begins. Riyadh handles Kingdom programs and localization mandates. Singapore covers Southeast Asian governments and maritime corridors. Tokyo anchors our quantum, photonics and advanced-materials partnerships. Lagos is our foothold in the West African defense corridor.
Deal teams form around a company, not a geography. The committee meets in Dubai with every office on the call, so a founder in Tokyo and an investor in London hear the same answer on the same day.
Why Dubai
A regulated center with sovereign capital, a time zone that overlaps every market we invest in, and a government that treats defense, space and AI as national industries.
How we cover
Each office has one role. Deal teams form around a company, not a geography. The committee sits in Dubai with every office on the call.
A deliberately small partnership.
Intelligence, offensive security, fund management, government finance, cross-border law. Partners invest alongside LPs.
Pankajj Ghode
Founder. Twenty years in intelligence, then private equity across defense and aerospace, with close ties to the US and Israeli ecosystems. Founder of Fiive Eyes and GlobX. Host of The Sixth Eye.
Christopher K. Friedman
Leads the London fund office and the global LP pool. Financial-services lawyer by background. Board and advisory roles across Elmirate and Fiive Eyes.
Frederik De Neree
Senior legal and risk advisor across the US, Asia and the UAE. Fund formation, regulation, export control, transaction documentation.
Team
Fiive Eyes
The sovereign defense and intelligence platform founded by the Managing Director. It gives the partnership operating sight into cyber, orbital, airspace and quantum intelligence, and a global offensive-security network for red-team diligence.
Separate entities, separate governance. Conflicts disclosed to the LPAC.
Six commitments, audited annually.
Obligations a conventional ESG framework does not reach. Reported to LPs every year. Reviewed independently.
Lawful, allied deployment
Allied export regimes only. No lethal autonomy without human-in-the-loop.
Capability uplift
Scored at entry and annually. What the nation can do now that it could not before.
Bio and AI safety
Independent review and red-teaming before deployment. Safety is a product requirement.
Climate alignment
Annual emissions reporting. A fifteen-year horizon for energy and materials.
Workforce
Local hiring and skills transfer in every sovereign co-investment.
Governance
Independent directors on every control board. Quarterly reporting. Annual audit.
How they are enforced.
- Export control
- US, UK, EU, Israeli and UAE regimes. A gate in diligence, a covenant in documents.
- Sanctions
- Screened at entry and continuously. Sanctioned-jurisdiction exposure excluded.
- AML / KYC
- UAE SCA standards, overseen by the Legal Head.
- End-use
- Human-in-the-loop as a hard rule. Policy adopted by every company at closing.
- Conflicts
- Affiliated entities, including Fiive Eyes, disclosed to the LPAC.
- Audit
- Independent, annual, reported with the accounts.
Notes from the frontier.
Writing from the partnership. Longer reports in the LP data room.
The decision layer compounds faster than the hardware
Why the second vintage carves out sovereign AI.
Request the noteUS$200 million into West African defense manufacturing
Where allied capacity will be built next.
Request the notePost-quantum cryptography is a deadline, not a market
The Gulf can lead the migration.
Request the noteDirected energy and the US$14 billion question
Who builds it in the region, and under whose export regime.
Request the notePlan the exit at the first board
Venue, acquirers and export structure are decided years before a process.
Request the noteRare earths: the quiet half of sovereignty
Refining, not ore, is the bottleneck.
Request the noteAnswered within 48 hours.
Founders, GPs, LPs, sovereign programs, strategic corporates. Qualified investors may request the Fund II PPM.
- HQ
- Elmirate Capital
Dubai, United Arab Emirates - capital@elmirate.ae
- Hours
- Monday to Saturday, 08:00 – 18:00 GST
- Offices
- London · New York · Tel Aviv · Riyadh · Singapore · Tokyo · Lagos
- Investors
- PPM, LPA and data room following verification.
- Press
- Select Press. Interviews arranged through Dubai.