Published by Brett Granberg, CEO at Vannevar Labs
We are excited to announce that we raised $75M in new funding to bring the best of Silicon Valley software to the public servants that keep our country safe.
The mission for fielding better defense technology is urgent. Ukraine is engaged in a war for survival with Russia. China regularly flies nuclear-capable bombers into Taiwan and Japan’s airspace and launches ballistic missiles over Taipei. The US and our allies are fighting a war of deterrence with these countries with 30+ year outdated systems and most of America’s best and brightest sitting on the sidelines.
Times are changing though. The Department of Defense is becoming more aggressive in fielding new systems. New defense technology companies are demonstrating serious mission value, leading to more DoD investment, more company success, and more interest from investors. It’s early, but the flywheel is beginning to spin.
We’re a small part of that flywheel. We started Vannevar to build technology to prepare for the fights of the next couple of decades. Over the last 12 months, we’ve had the privilege of deploying our products with military teams and public servants across more than 15 military bases around the world in support of missions like battlefield information for allies in war zones, operational security for US persons operating in dangerous areas, and countering malign activity by adversaries. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and we have a lot more to do.
We hit some important milestones as a business – including reaching $25M in revenue and becoming profitable. These are both big deals for us as a young company. This is due to the truly exceptional team of humans across product, engineering, recruiting, mission, success, etc. I have the privilege of working with every day.
The Series B funding round is important because being venture-backed allows us to operate much more aggressively on product development than traditional defense companies. For example, every $1 of funding DoD has invested in our technology has allowed us to raise and reinvest >$3 of private funding into product development – this has been a good return for the Department of Defense.
Most importantly though, being commercially funded means we don’t have to wait on the government to fund our research and development (R&D) costs. We take the R&D risk and use our own money to bet on new products we think will be important for national security missions in the future. This saves us 2-3 years of time to getting new technology fielded and is well worth the extra risk for us.
Over the next 24 months, we will be focused on developing and launching additional products on missions we think are essential and under supported for preparing for and preventing future conflict. We will also be focused on winning our first “program of record” for Decrypt, our first product and what we’re most known for across DoD.
If you’re amped by the mission, join us
We are a place where people of diverse, exceptional talents can apply their skills to problems that are difficult and absolutely worth solving, and we’re just getting started. We’re hiring across product, engineering, mission, and business operations roles. If you’re interested in the mission, check out our job board. We’d love to hear from you.
Additional reporting: