DEFCON AI, an analytics firm, has revealed that it has secured $44 million in seed funding. The company is developing a next-generation suite of modeling, simulation, and analysis (MS&A) tools for the contemporary military. Among others, Red Cell Partners and Fifth Growth Fund participated in the round, which was led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Alongside independent board member Dr. Ray O. Johnson, a former CTO of Lockheed Martin and Bessemer Operating Partner, Christopher Wan of Bessemer joins the DEFCON AI Board of Directors as part of the financing.
According to Yisroel Brumer, co-founder and CEO of DEFCON AI, “we are developing powerful solutions to reshape response planning in contested and disrupted environments.” “We bring to the DoD our capacity to very quickly field transformational software innovation so that defense leaders and planners have the tools they need to effectively coordinate operations and plan around disruptions. Our ability to do this dramatically improves the odds of materiel and manpower making it to their destinations without delay. At a time when near-peer competitors are stepping up their investments in intelligent military technology, such capabilities could mean the difference between winning and losing wars within the next decade.”
Since its founding in 2022, DEFCON AI, an incubator of Red Cell Partners, has had impressive progress. Prior to this, it successfully closed contracts worth millions of dollars for Small Business Innovation Research Phase II and Phase III from the Department of the Air Force, and it received positive feedback from customers for its initial product.
Gen. (Retired) Paul Selva, a co-founder of DEFCON AI and its chief strategy officer, said, “Few organizations can take high-end software engineering and artificial intelligence expertise and combine it with a deep understanding of battlefield and defense operational requirements to rapidly deliver the kinds of technology that the DoD needs.” “With algorithms that are built to allow planners to immediately respond to disruptions, we have already established ourselves as a valuable partner to the DoD.”
The money raised will be used by DEFCON AI to expand its workforce, improve its research and development program to increase the scope of its dual-use offerings, and extend its core capabilities into a variety of Defense missions and the commercial sector, enabling both public and private organizations to anticipate disruptions and act quickly and effectively.
According to David Cowan, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, “the security of the United States increasingly depends upon innovative software that delivers speed, intelligence, and resilience. That’s why Bessemer is proud to fund defense tech startups like DEFCON AI.” “The exceptional group of military veterans and career public servants at DEFCON AI is ideally positioned to collaborate with the Defense Department in the development of more intelligent and agile logistics capabilities.”
“In an era of great power competition marked by increasing complexity, unpredictability, turmoil, and danger, DEFCON AI works to reduce these factors and empower decision makers at all levels when it comes to conducting mobility and logistics operations across a full range of scenarios. With this latest round of funding, DEFCON AI is positioned to not only continue to support the Defense Department, but to enable commercial enterprises to get products where they need to be in a faster, better, and more economical manner.” stated Hon. Mark T. Esper, Chairman of Red Cell’s National Security Practice and a former Secretary of Defense.
