Carlyle strikes first deal in new defense push

Jake Angelo
Jake Angelo
US Newsroom Fellow
Jul 27, 2026, 7:30am EDT
Business
Carlyle
Jeenah Moon/Reuters
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Carlyle has acquired Secturion Systems, the first deal from the private-equity firm’s new fund focused on medium-sized companies that sell to the government.

The DC-based investment firm, which has $475 billion of assets under management, has been raising up to $3 billion for a new platform that focuses on mid-market companies in aerospace, defense, and supply-chain resiliency, people familiar with the matter said. (The effort was first reported by Bloomberg.)

Secturion’s customers include the US Navy and Boeing.

In a statement, Ian Fujiyama, the fund’s chairman, called Secturion a “compelling fit” for its first investment.

Private-equity firms are racing to seize on an uptick in military spending across the US and Europe. PE investments in global defense and aerospace companies exceeded $50 billion in 2025, just shy of 2021’s record, according to Pitchbook data, with a record 332 deals struck last year.

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Founded in 2012, Secturion’s hardware encryption technology meets the NSA-certified esignation, meaning it can be used to transmit classified data across military systems. The financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“As quantum computing advances and AI-enabled threats grow more sophisticated, the need for hardware-based, high-assurance encryption has never been greater,” Secturion’s incoming CEO, Sean Berg, said in a statement.

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