U.S. Army veteran Tyler Sweatt, pictured, was appointed CEO of Second Front last year.
Second Front
Defense tech startup Second Front, which gives companies a quick on-ramp to deploying software within sensitive government networks, has raised $70 million to expand internationally, the company told Forbes.
Salesforce Ventures led the company’s series C funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to $750 million, according to people familiar with the deal. Existing investors Moore Strategic Ventures and NEA also participated, alongside new addition Battery Ventures.
The new funding comes as venture capitalists have poured more than $100 billion into defense tech companies in the past five years, according to Pitchbook, giving rise to a generation of new startups that have faced myriad uphill battles in selling to the Pentagon. Among them: getting approved to operate on government networks, including classified environments.
Second Front is one of a number of companies looking to provide this service, including the much larger incumbent Palantir, which has a competing product called Fedstart. “If we work in tandem, or if we’re competing directly, the end result is we’re going to create more pathways for more software to come into the ecosystem,” said Second Front’s CEO Tyler Sweatt. “Both of us are trying to optimize for a larger market of software vendors in defense and national security.”
Before deploying software to the Department of Defense, companies typically need to receive accreditation through a process called Authority to Operate, or ATO. To speed up these processes, Second Front allows its customers to deploy software through its platform known as Game Warden, which has already has met ATO requirements. It is also in the process of securing accreditation for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, known as FedRAMP, used for federal civilian agencies. Customers “we’ve talked to have gotten their [software] deployed in the U.S. government within three to six months using Second Front,” said Michael Brown, a general partner at Battery Ventures.
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Launched in 2014 by former Marines, Second Front was founded as a public benefit corporation to initially consult and connect the U.S. government with emerging technology companies in Silicon Valley. But in 2020, the company pivoted to providing data about startups to help inform U.S. government acquisition decisions, landing contracts with the General Services Administration and U.S. Air Force and securing $6 million in seed funding led by Artis Ventures.
Last year, the company pivoted again to focus on its Game Warden product, and raised $40 million in a series B funding round, led by NEA. Now led by Sweatt, a U.S. Army veteran who joined Second Front in 2020 to oversee growth strategy and was appointed CEO last year, the company has grown close to 500% over the past 18 months, and generates “double-digit millions” in revenue from more than 70 customers, including large-language model developer Lazarus AI and Ultra Intelligence and Communications, which provides communications and testing services to the Pentagon, Sweatt said.
Second Front now plans to ramp up hiring for its product and engineering teams and has its sights set on new markets; it recently signed a pilot contract with NATO’s innovation unit, DIANA, to help it onboard new portfolio companies to government networks. “There’s clearly excitement right now around the broader defense and national security market,” said Sweatt. “It’s a hot market.”
For Defcon AI, a startup that helps mitigate threats to logistics chains and transportation with AI, including for the Department of Defense, Second Front’s system allowed the company to deploy its software on a government network in two months, and halved its cloud deployment costs. “When you’re a startup founder, you have in front of you a set of 100 existential risks that you’ve got to knock down,” CEO Yisroel Brumer said. “Second Front just took one of them off the table for us.”
Correction: The story has been updated to reflect that Second Front is in the process of securing accreditation for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program; it does not currently have accreditation. The amount of funds raised has also been updated.
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