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Defense Unicorns raised $35 million in a 2024 Series A co-led by Ansa Capital and Sapphire Ventures. The company builds software for delivering and operating applications in secure environments, including systems that are disconnected from the internet. In January 2026, it reported a $136 million Series B and a valuation above $1 billion.
Who invested $35 million in Defense Unicorns?
Ansa Capital and Sapphire Ventures co-led the Series A, according to Ansa Capital’s announcement dated March 7, 2024. Defense Unicorns’ company timeline places the event in February 2024. The company said the investment would support product development and growth in open-source software and artificial intelligence for national-security missions.
Defense Unicorns was founded in March 2021 by veterans of the Department of Defense software ecosystem, including people with experience associated with Kessel Run, Space CAMP, and Platform One. Its early product-led approach included Zarf, an air-gap-native software delivery tool.
What does Defense Unicorns do?
Defense Unicorns develops software intended to help government and defense teams deliver applications across varied computing environments while addressing security and compliance demands. Those environments can include cloud systems, on-premises infrastructure, bare-metal hardware, and tactical-edge settings. Its central platform is the Unified Defense Stack, or UDS.
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The problem the company targets is the difficulty of deploying modern software across systems with different technical and security requirements. Ansa Capital’s 2024 announcement described outdated systems, diverse compute environments, and complex security and compliance standards as obstacles to deploying new capabilities on mission-relevant timelines.
What is UDS, and can it work in air-gapped environments?
Defense Unicorns publicly launched UDS on October 9, 2024. The company describes it as a secure, air-gap-native platform designed to support classified and unclassified national-security missions. Air-gapped environments are isolated from the internet or other networks; “air-gap-native” signals that the platform is designed for delivery and operation in such disconnected settings, rather than relying only on always-connected infrastructure.
Defense Unicorns says UDS is portable across cloud, on-premises, bare-metal, and tactical-edge environments. The company also claims that UDS satisfies up to 90% of the NIST 800-53 technical controls that program offices are responsible for in Impact Level 4, 5, and 6 environments. That figure is a company claim, not an independently established compliance certification or guarantee that a particular deployment will meet every program’s requirements.
The wider product family includes Zarf, Pepr, Lula, and LeapfrogAI, as well as UDS Registry and UDS Army. The company positions UDS Registry as a military software-supply-chain registry. UDS Army is intended to help commercial vendors bring secure, mission-ready software to Army programs.
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What is the Airgap Store?
Announced on October 29, 2024, the Airgap Store is a marketplace for applications intended to run in fully disconnected, semi-disconnected, or otherwise highly secured environments. Its initial release included dozens of applications, with Defense Unicorns describing a longer-term goal of building a catalog of thousands.
The company says the store is built on UDS and is meant to help Department of Defense program managers and operators find and deploy pre-integrated, portable, secure, and compliant mission applications. It is a discovery and deployment channel for software suited to restricted environments, rather than a replacement for the underlying infrastructure or the security review required by an individual program.
How has Defense Unicorns expanded its defense-software reach?
SAIC partnership
On March 12, 2025, government technology contractor SAIC announced a strategic partnership with Defense Unicorns. SAIC said it would integrate UDS into its software-delivery ecosystem for cloud, on-premises, and tactical-edge environments. The partners said their combined approach was intended to reduce delivery timelines from months to weeks or days; this is a stated goal, not a reported measured result.
SAIC and Defense Unicorns described the software as trusted by critical systems in the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, and Space Force. That adoption characterization comes from the companies, rather than an independent audit in the announcement.
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Funding after the Series A
Defense Unicorns announced a $136 million Series B on January 13, 2026, led by Bain Capital. The company said the financing valued it at more than $1 billion and reported a 300% year-over-year increase in adoption in military systems. Both the valuation and adoption growth are company-reported figures.
| Financing | Date reported | Amount | Lead investors | Valuation reported |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | 2024; Ansa Capital’s announcement was dated March 7 | $35 million | Ansa Capital and Sapphire Ventures, co-leads | Not stated in Ansa Capital’s announcement |
| Series B | January 13, 2026 | $136 million | Bain Capital | Above $1 billion, as reported by Defense Unicorns |
The Series B announcement also named Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, Ansa Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, AVP, Uncorrelated Ventures, and David H. Petraeus as participants. The later round provides financing context, but it does not change the amount or co-leads of the 2024 Series A.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why did investors back the company?
The investment thesis centers on a persistent deployment challenge: defense organizations need to deliver software across systems that may be outdated, disconnected, or subject to demanding security controls. Defense Unicorns is betting that a portable platform and a collection of related tools can make that work easier across multiple environments.
At the time of the Series A, CEO and co-founder Rob Slaughter said outdated technology, diverse compute environments, and security and compliance complexity created delays that could put the country at risk in future conflicts. Co-founder and CTO Jeff McCoy later connected UDS to his Air Force experience with the difficulty of modernizing technology and delivering updates in air-gapped environments. These statements explain the company’s rationale; they are not independent evidence that a specific deployment will be faster or more secure.
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