Texas Defense-Tech Expo Spotlights a Hard Truth: Demos Don’t Equal Deployment

Editor’s Note: Defense technology now sits at the intersection of faster acquisition pressure, tightening cybersecurity expectations, and a growing investor push toward resilience and national security markets. This story captures what that convergence sounds like when government innovation leaders, a major financial institution, and accelerator stakeholders share a stage. For cybersecurity, information governance, and eDiscovery professionals supporting defense-facing companies, the practical implications are immediate: CMMC requirements are entering contracts, data-handling expectations are becoming part of diligence, and documentation discipline can decide whether a pilot expands or stalls. For investors, the discussion highlights why timeline and compliance risks—including FOCI and ITAR exposure—often matter as much as technical differentiation. For founders and innovators, it reinforces that interoperability and security are product decisions, not administrative cleanup. For corporate and government partners, it shows how early engagement helps shape solutions toward mission fit and sustainable adoption.

Industry News – Technology Beat

Texas Defense-Tech Expo Spotlights a Hard Truth: Demos Don’t Equal Deployment

ComplexDiscovery Staff

At Plug and Play’s Innovation Triangle Aerospace & Defense Batch 2 Expo on Jan. 22 in Bryan, Texas, government and finance speakers told defense-tech founders the same thing: cyber readiness and interoperability are no longer optional—they’re table stakes.

The event, held at Traditions Club with the main program running from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. local time, was billed as a showcase of “breakthrough technologies” and “real-world applications,” inviting investors, corporate partners, government stakeholders, and mentors to meet the accelerator’s latest cohort. But the fireside chat that anchored the afternoon kept circling back to what happens after a demo impresses: the gap between interest and contract, between pilot and program.

Moderated by Tejas Perwala, Corporate Partnerships Associate at Plug and Play, the panel featured Barry Tishgart, Director of Corporate Ventures at the Army Applications Laboratory under U.S. Army Futures Command; Derek Theis, Vice President of Commercial Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.; and Melissa Garmoe, Chief of the Accelerate Branch at SpaceWERX. SpaceWERX describes itself as the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force and a division of AFWERX, focused on transitioning capabilities and connecting military operators with innovators.

In moving into questions about acquisition reform and industrial capacity, Perwala briefly used the shorthand “DoW,” reflecting the Pentagon’s authorized secondary title under Executive Order 14347, signed September 5, 2025. The statutory name remains the Department of Defense, as only an act of Congress can formally change the designation.

If the expo was designed to spotlight new tools, the conversation kept returning to the same reality check: defense buyers are signaling speed, but they are also raising the bar on readiness. Startups are being pulled toward faster evaluations, tighter security expectations, and architectures that can plug into larger systems without costly reinvention.

The Batch 2 Mandate

The shift in tone at the Traditions Club was no accident; it reflected the specific evolution of this second cohort. While the inaugural batch of the Innovation Triangle focused largely on conceptual dual-use validation, Batch 2 arrived with a pivot toward operational maturity. The selection process for this group was narrowed to prioritize “battle-ready” capabilities that solve immediate friction points. Specifically, the program demanded technologies designed for disconnected or limited-bandwidth environments—ensuring cyber readiness isn’t just a feature, but a baseline. By emphasizing a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), the accelerator pushed its founders to build tools that “plug and play” into existing military architectures. This move away from proprietary silos toward interoperable systems underscored the day’s recurring theme: in the current landscape, a tool is only as valuable as its ability to survive the transition from a controlled demo to a chaotic field environment.

Army Applications Lab: “In the Hands of Soldiers”

Tishgart framed the Army’s near-term appetite as a push toward buying what exists and proving it quickly. For founders, he argued, it is not enough to show technology in isolation; it has to map to a mission problem, survive in the field, and deliver usable feedback loops. Army Applications Laboratory, he said, is built to get technology “in the hands of soldiers” and return end-user feedback to companies.

That theme is easy to applaud and harder to execute. A founder can cut real risk by designing the first government pilot to be brutally runnable. Assume the unit has limited time for setup. Reduce dependencies on perfect connectivity. Make onboarding work without a long training plan. Then, when feedback comes in, turn it into a short, dated change plan and push an updated build fast. In defense, responsiveness often reads as reliability.

SpaceWERX: Bridging the Valley of Death

Garmoe’s focus, by contrast, was what happens after a pilot succeeds. SpaceWERX has spent years trying to narrow what many in the ecosystem call the “valley of death,” the stretch where early awards and prototypes do not automatically become fielded programs. She pointed to two friction points that routinely slow that transition: cyber requirements and the mechanics of security clearances and facility access for small businesses.

The timing on cybersecurity is no longer theoretical. The Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, called CMMC, moved into contract integration with a final rule published September 10, 2025, effective November 10, 2025, beginning a three-year rollout that reaches full applicability by November 2028. For planning purposes, the distinction that matters is between the program rule (which defines assessment levels and compliance requirements) and the acquisition rule (which puts those requirements into contract clauses). Contractors need to track both.

That schedule has changed how primes and program offices talk to suppliers. Startups aiming for defense work do not need to become auditors, but they do need to treat compliance like product work. Map where Federal Contract Information or Controlled Unclassified Information could land inside your systems. Document access controls and data flows in a form you can hand to a partner during diligence. If you are still early, choose tooling and architecture with those controls in mind so you are not rebuilding later under time pressure.

Ownership, Investment, and FOCI Risk

The panel also returned to a theme that travels with defense dollars: who owns you and who invests in you. Garmoe cautioned founders to know who is investing in their firms because restrictions can surface when companies enter national security work.

That advice plays differently depending on the room, but the compliance implications are concrete. Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI) determinations can delay or block facility clearances, and ITAR restrictions on foreign persons can further complicate investor and staffing decisions. A CFIUS review triggered by a late-stage investment can stall a program timeline. The fastest way to derail a promising path is to discover late that governance, ownership structure, or overseas ties collide with eligibility expectations. For compliance teams, the takeaway is straightforward: vet cap tables and board composition early, and document the analysis before diligence requests arrive.

Collaborative Autonomy and Open Systems

Perwala steered the discussion from compliance into lessons buyers are extracting from recent conflicts. Tishgart used the phrase “collaborative autonomy” to describe the direction he sees, emphasizing systems that work together rather than tools that remain closed within a single vendor box. Garmoe reinforced that the services are moving toward open system architecture, urging companies to think early about how their work fits with other programs.

That push has been echoed in Pentagon guidance. A 2025 guidebook from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering describes MOSA as an acquisition and design approach built around widely supported standards and modular components, enabling capabilities to be added or upgraded over time.

For founders, MOSA shows up in small choices that compound. Write integration documentation before a customer asks for it. Define interfaces early and keep them stable. Be ready to explain how updates will roll out without breaking interoperability. If your product touches mission data, be prepared to describe formats, access controls, and how you will handle patching and vulnerability response. Those are not “extra” in defense; they are often the difference between a pilot and a program.

Garmoe also pointed companies toward Space Force entry routes intended to reduce the “where do I even start?” friction. Space Systems Command’s Front Door portal—recently rebranded as Space Force Front Door to reflect its expanded scope—is designed to streamline submissions, connect companies to program offices, and lower barriers to entry, especially for emerging and dual-use technology firms.

Capital: The Security and Resiliency Bet

Capital was the third leg of the conversation. Theis described investors showing rising interest in defense and resilience themes, and he pointed to his firm’s own posture. On October 13, 2025, JPMorgan Chase announced a 10-year, $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative, including direct equity and venture capital investments of up to $10 billion, aimed at industries tied to national economic security and resiliency.

For investors, that matters less as a headline than as a signal of how the diligence lens is sharpening. In defense tech, the most punishing risks are often timeline risks: integration costs, compliance gates, and pilots that never transition. That is why corporate and government partners increasingly probe for readiness on day one, and why founders who can show credible security posture and interoperability planning can compress the trust-building cycle.

The Founder’s Survival Tactic

Near the end, Perwala asked for advice for the startups in the room. Garmoe’s answer was operational and easy to carry into the next meeting: “Never leave with a no, always leave with a question.” The point was not wordplay. It was a founder’s survival tactic in a system where one office’s “not for us” can become another office’s introduction, if the company treats every meeting as both a pitch and a learning loop.

The Innovation Triangle bet is that proximity helps that loop run faster: startups closer to buyers, buyers closer to builders, and capital close enough to see constraints that do not show up in a demo. On Jan. 22, the message was consistent across the panel: the way to move faster is not to skip the hard parts, but to design for them early.

As defense tech accelerators pitch “real-world applications,” the next winners may be the teams that can answer a simple test when interest turns into action: when the government says yes, can you deliver fast, securely, and in a way that fits the larger system?

News Sources

• Original on-site reporting by ComplexDiscovery. Transcripts and observations were captured during the Innovation Triangle Aerospace & Defense Batch 2 Expo on January 22, 2026.
• Innovation Triangle Aerospace & Defense Batch 2 Expo (Eventbrite)
• Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Restores the United States Department of War (The White House)
• CMMC 2.0 Details and Links to Key Resources (U.S. Department of Defense)
• Implementing a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) in DoD Programs (DoD Chief Technology Office)
• JPMorganChase Launches $1.5 Trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative to Boost Critical Industries (JPMorganChase)
• SSC’s Front Door Expanding Efforts to Connect Innovators with USSF, Other Agencies (Space Systems Command)

Assisted by GAI and LLM Technologies

Additional Reading

• Freezing a Nation Into Submission: Russia’s Nuclear Substation Campaign and the Human Cost of Infrastructure Warfare
• Kaja Kallas Warns of Democracy’s Algorithmic Drift at Tallinn Digital Summit
• Defending the Digital Frontier: European Nations Forge Resilience Against Relentless Cyber Warfare
• When the Sky Falls Silent: Europe’s New Hybrid Threat Landscape
• Innovation Triangle Showcases First Aerospace and Defense Accelerator Cohort with a Vision for the Frontier

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