JPMorgan Chase financed $230 billion through its national security program in its first year

JPMorgan $JPM Chase deployed $5 billion in equity investments through its Strategic Investment Group in the first year of its $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative, the company said Monday.

The group, led by Todd Combs, committed half of the initiative's initial $10 billion equity allocation, the company said. It invests in venture, growth and later-stage companies. Recent investments support defense technologies, distributed battery storage, automated manufacturing and frontier technologies.

"Putting $5 billion to work in our first year shows how many exceptional businesses are building in industries that strengthen critical supply chains and the solutions our economy and security depend on," Combs, head of the Strategic Investment Group, said in a statement.

Most of the group's investments remain undisclosed, though they include holdings in Hadrian and Castelion, two defense startups, according to CNBC. In August, the bank was among the lead backers of Hadrian's $1.4 billion fundraising and also took part in Castelion's $1 billion raise, according to CNBC.

JPMorgan Co-President Doug Petno told CNBC the bank could grow the effort past its original $10 billion commitment.

Separately, JPMorgan provided financing for or helped arrange transactions totaling over $230 billion across five focus areas during the past year, the company said. They are supply chain and advanced manufacturing; defense and aerospace; energy independence and resilience; frontier and strategic technologies; and pharma and healthtech.

The total includes the $125 billion merger of Dominion $D Energy and NextEra $NEE, a transaction that bankers acknowledged they would have pursued regardless of the initiative, according to The Wall Street Journal.

JPMorgan built a team of more than 35 initiative professionals, including 13 managing directors, supported by hundreds of bankers across the firm, the company said. Nearly one-third of the initiative's activity in the past year occurred outside the United States.

The bank said in April it would expand the initiative into Europe. The program launched in the U.S. last October as a 10-year commitment and extended to the U.K. two months later. The company has also expanded it to Canada this year.

As the initiative enters its second year, JPMorgan said it will focus on turning value-chain research into action. That includes supporting companies that can expand critical capacity, structuring strategic projects so they can be financed, strengthening supplier and workforce ecosystems and expanding cross-border policy coordination.