What happens when a Friday morning coffee turns into a term sheet by Sunday night?

In this episode, Forterra CEO Josh Araujo is joined by Ari Schuler, a returning CTV guest, to take us inside Forterra’s acquisition of goTenna.

Company Overview

About Forterra: Ground autonomy company enabling war fighters to shoot, move, and communicate more effectively. Technical stack includes autonomous driving systems, mission payload integration, and now mesh communications through the goTenna acquisition. Working with military customers across operational theaters. Founded 20+ years ago (as Robotic Research), recently closed Series C while simultaneously acquiring goTenna.

About goTenna: Mesh networking communications company providing interoperable comms, born from Hurricane Sandy in Brooklyn. Pivoted from consumer to military/public safety after discovering product-market fit with operators in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the southern border. Technology enables high node-count networks (100+ devices) sending low-bandwidth position/location data, critical for blue force tracking and preventing friendly fire.

About our Guests

About Josh Araujo: CEO of Forterra, building autonomous ground vehicle technology for military operations. Retired Marine, and Jefferies investment banker covering aerospace and defense. Joined Forterra (then Robotic Research) in 2021 as the first non-technical hire, now leading a company with 20+ years of autonomy innovation transitioning to programs of record.

About Ari Schuler: Former CEO of goTenna, now leading the communications division at Forterra. Built goTenna’s pivot from consumer to B2G, deploying mesh networking technology in conflict zones globally. Former DHS official who created Customs and Border Protection (CBP)’s innovation team, bringing government operator perspective to commercial tech development.

Key Takeaways

1. Skip the vitamin, find the medicine.

Ari’s mentor gave him a deceptively simple framework: are you selling something people want (vitamins), or something they can’t live without (medicine)? goTenna started as a consumer product, but product-market fit became unmistakable once the technology hit Afghanistan, Iraq, and the southern border. Ari explains that when you found the true medicinal use case, you go all in. Straddling consumer and government markets wastes capital and credibility that companies don’t have to spare.

2. The ability to sustain operations in the field is the real moat.

Both Forterra and goTenna had extraordinary technical pedigrees: Forterra’s co-founder holds 100+ patents, and goTenna’s mesh protocols are proprietary and deeply differentiated. But Josh was explicit: deploying at scale into combat environments is “miles apart” from having a cool demo. The muscle required to do customer success, field maintenance, and operational support in places like Afghanistan or Ukraine is not taught in any graduate program.

3. In M&A, cultural alignment is what ultimately determines deal success or failure.

The core of the conversation centers on how Josh turned a term sheet around in 72 hours, from a Friday morning coffee between Ari and Scott Sanders (another CTV alum), to an afternoon board meeting, to a signed term sheet by Sunday night. This kind of speed is not only a function of high caliber financial modeling and expertise, but of a clear strategic rationale and cultural fit. Josh talked about his view that even the best business alignment in the world can’t overcome a cultural mismatch. Culture doesn’t mean squishy values in this case. It refers to the companies’ shared mission focus, values, and tech stack (NetSuite, Arena, JIRA).

4. The defense VC funding model is creating a structural problem for which consolidation is the only solution.

Josh flagged a concern that most defense tech founders are quietly aware of: many of the best companies in this space have great technology, great teams, and genuine product-market fit, but lack venture-scale TAMs. VC math requires one in a hundred to go 100x. At the risk of sounding trite, that calculus alone will not support the entire ecosystem of mission-critical hardware businesses. As a result, if venture is the primary tool, companies that shouldn’t fail will fail because of capital structure problems. This is why Josh is shaping Forterra into a leading consolidator to create a home for these companies.

5. In a post-merger integration, the first priority is “do not break what’s working for the customer.”

Too many post-merger integration efforts try to move fast, combine everything, and extract synergies. In this deal, Josh and Forterra explicitly rejected this. The approach has been phased and deliberate: first, validate the technology combination (goTenna’s X2m module was physically integrated into Forterra’s Vector platform within 30 days, achieving 25x the range of the previous radio). Second, resource the acquired team to execute on their existing pipeline. Third, after the teams have developed organic trust, start to combine go-to-market and engineering functions. This cadence matters because defense vendors cannot afford to push artificial disruptions on their customers. As Ari explains, “We can figure out the HR systems. What we can’t do is mess up operational deployments.” The customer relationship is paramount.

For more:

* Website: Forterra | goTenna

* LinkedIn: Forterra | goTenna

* Follow Josh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-araujo/

* Follow Ari: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ari-schuler-1ab93239/

* Follow Crossing the Valley: https://www.linkedin.com/company/102082197/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

About Dino Mavrookas

Dino Mavrookas is the CEO and co-founder of Saronic. He served 11 years in the U.S. Navy SEALs (2004–2015), with his final five years on SEAL Team Six. After leaving the military, he transitioned to private equity at Vista Equity Partners, where he spent roughly five years before the pull of mission-driven work drew him back to defense. Dino describes his transition as a gradual realization, like being a “frog in boiling water,” that he wanted to dedicate his career to building solutions that protect the country. He founded Saronic in September 2022 with backing from 8VC and a slew of other high profile investors.

About Saronic

Saronic is a maritime autonomy and shipbuilding company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in September 2022, the company designs, builds, and deploys autonomous surface vessels for the U.S. Navy and allied forces. In just over three years, Saronic has grown to approximately 1,000 employees across six U.S. locations and two international offices (Australia and UK). The company’s flagship products are Corsair, a 24-foot autonomous speedboat built at their 500,000 sq. ft. Austin facility (capacity: 2,000+ units/year), and Marauder, a 180-foot autonomous ship being built at their shipyard in Franklin, Louisiana. Saronic secured a $392 million contract with the U.S. Navy in late 2025, with the Secretary of the Navy publicly endorsing their approach as the model for future procurement. The company has announced Port Alpha, a $5B+ initiative to build the world’s largest and most advanced shipyard, with the goal of producing 10 million gross tons annually. This would effectively 100x current U.S. shipbuilding capacity.

For more on Saronic:

* Website: saronic.com

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/saronic-technologies/

* Follow Dino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dino-mavrookas-190244127/

* For Careers: https://jobs.lever.co/saronic

For more Crossing the Valley: www.valleycrossers.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

How Wirescreen is Turning Investigative Journalism Into a National Security Intelligence Tool

About our Guests

David Barboza is the CEO and Co-Founder of Wirescreen. Before founding the company, David spent over two decades as a journalist at The New York Times, where he served as Shanghai bureau chief for 12 years and won a Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting on the hidden wealth of Chinese political elites. A history major by training, David’s career was defined by painstaking, multi-year investigations that required connecting vast networks of corporate records, government documents, and financial data across borders. He also co-founded The Wire China, an independent publication covering the U.S.-China relationship.

Bradley Martinez is the Head of Go-to-Market at Wirescreen. Bradley’s career has centered on using data and analytics to drive risk-based and opportunistic decisions, primarily in financial services. Before joining Wirescreen (shortly after the company’s Series A), Bradley held roles at FactSet and other data-driven firms. At Wirescreen, he has overseen the company’s pivot from a financial services focus to a government-first go-to-market strategy, building the partner networks and sales infrastructure needed to scale in the federal market.

About Wirescreen

Wirescreen is a Sequoia-backed intelligence platform that maps Chinese business networks and their global connections for the U.S. government, defense contractors, and the broader national security community. The platform aggregates millions of Chinese corporate records (including ownership structures, investment flows, patent filings, supply chain relationships), translates them into English, and connects them to reveal hidden relationships between commercial entities and state/military actors. Originally conceived as a business intelligence tool for financial services, Wirescreen found its strongest product-market fit serving government agencies dealing with the complexities of great power competition. Use cases span export controls, IP theft investigations, CFIUS reviews, fentanyl precursor tracking, university research security, critical minerals mapping, and defense supply chain vetting. The company also operates The Wire China, a journalism division that both generates revenue and serves as a data quality feedback loop for the platform.

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For more on Wirescreen: https://wirescreen.ai/

Follow David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-barboza-7bba4325

Follow Bradley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleymartinez/

Follow Noah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahsheinbaum/

Subscribe to Crossing the Valley: youtube.com/@CrossingtheValley

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

About Our Guests

AJ Piplica is the CEO and co-founder of Hermeus, a defense technology company developing hypersonic aircraft powered by air-breathing engines. His technical background centers on aerodynamics and hypersonics, with early career work on rocket engines and re-entry systems. Unlike many defense tech founders who come from software or commercial tech, AJ’s obsession with speed and aviation started in childhood and led him down the space track in college before gravitating toward the aviation side of hypersonics. He chose this path specifically because he wanted to push boundaries rather than spend a career optimizing incremental performance improvements on existing turbine technology.

Zach Shore was recently promoted from Chief Revenue Officer to President of Hermeus. After beginning his career as a Marine Corps Intelligence Officer, Zach served in a variety of industry roles, including as a consultant at Deloitte, Sr Director of Business Development for JAD C2 at Anduril, and Vice President of Product at Vertafore before joining Hermeus in 2022.

About Hermeus

Hermeus builds hypersonic aircraft designed to operate in what AJ calls “the final frontier of aviation.” The company focuses on air-breathing, reusable systems rather than expendable rockets or boost-glide vehicles. Their approach mirrors the commercial space industry’s transformation of launch: prove you can iterate rapidly on full-scale hardware by treating vehicle loss as an acceptable cost of learning when no crew is involved. Hermeus has won Other Transaction Authority (OTA) awards like Chimera and Antares, where the government pays for data and milestone achievements rather than traditional cost-plus development contracts. The company is building 30,000-60,000 pound aircraft, which requires substantial upfront capital and a production-first mindset from day one.

Key Takeaways

1. Separate mission assurance from safety to unlock hardware iteration

The most critical insight from the commercial space revolution applies directly to hypersonics: hardware risk and human safety risk are fundamentally different categories. Traditional aerospace culture treats hardware loss with nearly the same level of concern as human casualties, creating a risk-averse engineering environment that prevents the kind of rapid iteration required to advance into new flight regimes. The regulatory frameworks inherited from crewed aviation assume that preventing crashes is paramount, but autonomous vehicles enable a different approach where controlled crash scenarios become acceptable learning opportunities. This shift in mindset allowed SpaceX to iterate at full vehicle scale, and Hermeus is applying the same principle to air-breathing hypersonics.

2. Build products for operators from day one, not technology looking for a mission

The traditional research lab model follows a sequential path: develop interesting technology, demonstrate it works, then attempt to transition it to an operational program. This approach has a poor track record because it separates technology development from real operational requirements. Hermeus inverts this by starting with the operator and ensuring every development decision solves an actual warfighter problem that delivers substantial value. This explains why product companies often struggle to work with organizations like the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which see themselves as architects who design capabilities and expect contractors to build to spec. When you show up with your own product vision, there’s inherent friction with a “not built here” culture.

3. Concentration of capital beats diversification for hard tech at scale

The Defense Innovation Unit’s hedge strategy tapped into a fundamental reality of complex hardware systems: you cannot prototype your way to a 60,000 pound aircraft on Small Business Innovation Research funding. The temptation in government innovation programs is to spread risk by funding many small bets, but this approach fails for systems that require immense upfront investment to de-risk both technology and production scalability. While giving 25 companies $5 million each might work for low cost attritable systems, in capital intensive hard tech the Hermeus team would prefer to see the government fund five companies with $25 million and pick some winners. This requires clear accountability and transition pathways, but it enables companies to actually build hardware that can reach production scale.

4. OTA structures unlock speed by paying for outcomes instead of activities

Hermeus had success with awards structured as Other Transaction Authority contracts because they changed what the government was buying. Rather than paying for development activities and managing the technical approach, OTA programs pay for data generated along the way and for milestone achievements that deliver specific capabilities. This shifts the focus from process compliance to outcome delivery. For a company like Hermeus, this means the government isn’t dictating how to develop the aircraft or micromanaging spending decisions. Instead, they define what capability they need, and the company has the flexibility to build the infrastructure and processes required to deliver it efficiently.

Summary

Counterintuitively, the hypersonics race may not be about who has the most PhD researchers or the biggest simulation clusters. The Hermeus team suggests it will come down to who is willing to take hardware risk at full scale, iterate based on flight test data, and build products that solve real operational problems from day one. Hermeus represents a new generation of defense companies that learned from commercial space: embrace hardware iteration, separate mission assurance from safety, focus on operators instead of technology for its own sake, pursue concentrated capital rather than diffuse funding, and hold yourself publicly accountable through concrete metrics.

For more: hermeus.com

Follow AJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajpiplica/

Follow Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharyshore/

Subscribe to Crossing the Valley: valleycrossers.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

About Ian

Ian Cinnamon is the co-founder and CEO of Apex Space, which he launched to solve a fundamental bottleneck in the space industry: the lack of available, high-quality satellite platforms. Prior to Apex, Ian worked in aerospace engineering and identified the satellite bus as a critical constraint for the growing commercial and defense space ecosystem.

About Apex Space

Apex Space is a merchant supplier of satellite platforms (buses), building standardized, high-volume spacecraft that customers can purchase off-the-shelf and customize for their missions. The company has raised over $400M across its Series C and D rounds from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, Shield Capital, and Interlagos. Apex differentiates itself through production speed, vertical integration, and a focus on unit economics. Surprisingly, they make money on every bus they sell. By mid-2026, the company expects to have approximately six satellites on orbit across various customer missions.

Key Updates (One Year Later)

1. DOGE Resilience: At the start of 2025, DOGE caused significant turbulence, cutting programs, shifting priorities, and forcing sales leaders to rebuild pipelines. Apex learned to “bend with the wind” rather than rigidly pursuing predetermined opportunities. Today, the company’s opportunity set is 10x larger than a year ago, but composed of entirely different programs than originally anticipated.

2. Raising Capital on Their Terms: Apex closed two major rounds in 2025, a $200M Series C and a $200M Series D. The Series D came unsolicited from Interlagos, who saw Apex’s execution and customer traction and pushed to invest even when the company wasn’t actively fundraising.

3. Vertical Integration as Strategic Imperative: As Apex scaled, external suppliers couldn’t keep pace. So they’ve brought almost everything in-house. By mid-2026, 70% of Apex’s subsystems will have in-space heritage. By year-end, the target is full vertical integration. This required significant capital investment but ensures supply chain resilience as production scales.

4. Betting Ahead of Demand: Apex announced Project Shadow, a self-funded ($15M) space-based interceptor technology maturation program. They are positioning for massive opportunities even before demand.

5. Building for the Bubble: Ian believes defense tech and space are in a bubble that will eventually pop. So his goal is to ensure Apex never needs another dollar of outside capital to survive. The company is profitable on every satellite bus it sells. This operational discipline means Apex can weather a market correction while competitors dependent on continuous fundraising may struggle.

Learn more: apexspace.com

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ABOUT BEN

Ben Van Roo is the CEO and Founder of Legion Intelligence. He comes from a military family (his brother is currently on active duty), giving him both personal connection to and deep understanding of the defense community’s needs. His career encompasses a combination of academic rigor and operational execution.

ABOUT LEGION INTELLIGENCE

Legion Intelligence is an applied AI company that connects AI capabilities to the actual workflows, processes, and legacy applications used across the Department of Defense.

The Core Problem: AI models have gotten remarkably good, but they remain disconnected from how work actually gets done.

The Legion Product: Legion builds the infrastructure that makes any workflow, across any environment, AI-enabled. The company’s offerings runs on edge, cloud, or hybrid environments; connect to legacy applications without requiring expensive system integrator rebuilds; and are model-agnostic (e.g., work with open source, proprietary, and government models). Ben also says they are the first to deploy an agentic workflow platform in IL5 and IL6 classified environments.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The Plumbing Problem Is the Real Problem

When Ben was at Primer in 2017, he watched open source models become “terrifyingly good.” But nobody was actually using them across their workflows. He realized it wasn’t as much about the model as it was about connecting AI to the six or seven systems people actually touch to get work done.

2. Find Champions Who See the Future

General Fenton at SOCOM was “light years ahead of everyone, including venture capitalists” in understanding enterprise AI. He wanted to bring AI across the enterprise before ChatGPT made it obvious. Legion secured their initial IDIQ contract because one visionary leader saw where things were going.

3. Get Technology Into Users’ Hands Immediately

The most important lesson Ben took from Primer was that feedback cycles are everything. At Legion, the philosophy became: “Any exercise, any event, anything where we can go—we’re going to be there.” Bring your own hardware, do all the work to get there, and prove it works.

4. Make Early Technical Bets That Seem Confusing

Legion was first to deploy GenAI on small form factors for national security. First on-prem. First on IL5. First on IL6. These investments seemed odd at the time, when others were just focused on the cloud. But they created defensible positioning as the market evolved.

For more on Legion: legionintel.com

Follow Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanroo/

Follow Noah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahsheinbaum/

Subscribe to Crossing the Valley: valleycrossers.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

About Ben Nicholson

Ben is the Chief Business Officer at Ursa Major, bringing over 22 years of government service to the defense tech startup. His career includes 10 years in the Coast Guard, legislative experience as a congressional staffer on appropriations, and corporate leadership at defense giants L3 and Honeywell.

At age 50, Nicholson made an unexpected leap from the established defense industrial base to a venture-backed startup, driven by a desire to give back and the realization that his experience and perspective could help bridge the gap between young engineering talent and the realities of defense procurement.

A self-described “constitutional geek” who signs half his emails simply “America,” Ben brings an unusual combination of technical credibility, government insight, and entrepreneurial drive to URSA Major’s mission.

About Ursa Major

Founded 11 years ago during the space launch “gold rush,” Ursa Major pivoted to focus squarely on defense propulsion, addressing what they see as the long pole in the tent for anything that moves fast in the battlespace.

The company is focused on three key mission areas:

* Homeland Defense: Hypersonic propulsion systems

* Munitions: Solid rocket motors

* Space Mobility: Propulsion for orbital applications

The Business Model: URSA Major is a products and systems company, not a services shop. They’ve received $250 million of private capital (including a recent $100 million Series E), opened a 400-acre test facility in Northeast Colorado, and can go from clean sheet design to hot fire in 29 days.

The Core Innovation: Ursa Major combines additive (3D printing) and agile manufacturing to achieve rapid iteration while building toward scale. Their philosophy is to use printing to lock designs fast and avoid costly mistakes before committing capital to production tooling.

Check out the Website: https://ursamajor.com/

Follow Ursa Major: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ursamajortech/

Follow Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-nicholson-666257205

Follow Noah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahsheinbaum/

Subscribe to Crossing the Valley: www.youtube.com/@CrossingTheValley

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

Gecko Robotics — From College Project to Critical Infrastructure

ABOUT TROY DEMMER

Troy is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Gecko Robotics. He started the company 12+ years ago as a college senior project at Grove City College in Western Pennsylvania, alongside co-founder Jake Loosararian. Troy came from a medical background and saw an opportunity to bring diagnostic thinking to industrial infrastructure. He personally led Gecko’s expansion into defense starting four years ago, and the company now manufactures robots in Pittsburgh while deploying them across power plants, refineries, naval vessels, and nuclear facilities.

ABOUT GECKO ROBOTICS

Gecko Robotics builds AI-powered climbing robots that inspect and assess the structural health of critical infrastructure. The company started by serving commercial clients — power plants, refineries, and manufacturing facilities — before expanding into defense. Today, their technology inspects ICBM silos, destroyers, submarines (including SSNs and SSBNs), and is moving into new construction for Columbia-class submarines and naval reactors. Sam Altman wrote their first check during their YC batch, and the company turned down an early acquisition offer from an OEM. Gecko manufactures in Pittsburgh, PA and emphasizes keeping robots “employed” rather than sitting unused.

TIMESTAMPS

[1:10] Origin story: The power plant problem that started it all

[2:35] How a college alumni connection led to Gecko’s first customer

[4:00] “You can’t build this in a lab”

[4:48] Two years in one boiler: Jake’s journey building the first robot

[6:33] Forward deployed engineering and the Palantir inspiration

[8:02] Finding product-market fit: The YC experience and Sam Altman’s first check

[10:00] “Hiding in plain sight”

[11:47] Transition to defense: From power plants to national security

[13:05] AFWERX and SBIR: Building the foundation for defense work

[14:24] What translated from commercial and what required rethinking

[16:21] Working with OEMs: Reverse scanning and the first acquisition offer

[18:35] First defense asset: The path to inspecting ICBM silos

[20:09] Inside the room: Getting robots certified for nuclear environments

[21:33] Current state: Scaling across destroyers, submarines, and new construction

[25:37] Business model: Robots as capability vs. permanent fixtures

[27:00] Manufacturing in Pittsburgh and scaling production

[28:07] “95% of robots are unemployed”

[29:35] Advice for startups: Think integration from day one

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Access to the Problem Is the Unfair Advantage

Gecko’s origin story embodies the ethos of building with not for a customer. A power plant operator came to their college with a specific problem: 70% asset uptime and constant unplanned downtime. He offered access to his facility. Co-founder Jake spent two years inside a single boiler refining the first robot. Troy is emphatic: “I don’t think you could build a technology like this in a lab. That was the unfair advantage — just access to the problem.”

2. Using SBIRs to Build Infrastructure

When Gecko decided to pursue defense, they started with AFWERX and SBIR programs — Phase 1, and a number of Phase 2 contracts. Beyond the funding, the value was in building what Troy calls “the semblance of a defense company”: registrations, certifications, procurement knowledge, and the operational credibility needed to scale. Jake and Troy recognizing Small Business Innovation Research for what it was: scaffolding for the larger business they wanted to build.

3. Target O&M Budgets to Bypass Procurement Timelines

Gecko made a strategic decision to enter defense through operations and maintenance cycles rather than new procurement. The reasoning was practical: O&M money already exists and can be spent in-year. “If we had a capability that could be used today to improve an O&M cycle, great. We can buy that in year. We don’t have to set up this longer cycle.” This let them demonstrate value quickly, build relationships, and expand scope from a single destroyer to entire platform classes.

4. Start at Forward Bases Where Urgency Is Higher

Gecko’s first naval deployment wasn’t at a major domestic shipyard — it was at SRF Japan, a forward-deployed repair facility. Troy’s logic: “You’ve got a little less capability at a forward base. The urgency to get things done with creativity and innovation might be a little bit higher than your mother shipyards here back at home.”

5. Design for Integration, Not Just Capability

Troy’s parting advice cuts to the core of why many defense tech companies struggle to scale: “In order to deploy technologies here, it’s not just pushing code. You’ve got to meet the physical realm where it’s at. If it doesn’t work for the people on the ground, if it doesn’t make their lives easier, you’re gonna get organ rejection.” Gecko succeeded because they thought about tech insertion from day one.

FOR MORE:

About Gecko: https://www.geckorobotics.com

About Troy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-demmer-27037526

Crossing the Valley: youtube.com/@crossingthevalley

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

ABOUT DAN SMOOT

Dan Smoot is the CEO of Vantor, formerly Maxar Intelligence. He comes from a background in high-tech companies and has led major business transformations before. Since taking the helm, Dan has overseen the company’s transition from a publicly traded satellite imaging business to a private, solutions-focused company. He led the controversial decision to retire the Maxar brand — one of the most recognized names in commercial space — in favor of the new Vantor identity. Under his leadership, the company has launched six satellites, dramatically increase recurring revenue, and is expanding aggressively into international markets.

ABOUT VANTOR

Vantor (formerly Maxar Intelligence) is one of the world’s leading commercial satellite imagery and geospatial solutions providers. The company operates a constellation of satellites delivering 30-centimeter resolution imagery — the highest commercially available. After being taken private by Advent International and BCI, Vantor sold its manufacturing division and completely transformed its business model from transactional imaging sales to subscription-based solutions. The company’s products include maritime awareness, site monitoring, GPS-denied navigation, and 3D mapping. Vantor claims to be one of only two companies (alongside Google) with global 3D mapping at scale, and serves customers across defense, intelligence, and commercial markets worldwide.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Sometimes You Have to Kill the Brand to Transform the Business

Maxar was one of the most recognized names in defense tech, synonymous with exquisite satellite imagery. But that brand equity became a liability. Customers saw “imaging company” and couldn’t see the new capabilities: AI-powered analytics, maritime awareness, GPS-denied navigation, and 3D solutions. The rebrand to Vantor was strategic: “You have to reorient the eyes of the customer to make sure they understand there’s broader modernization happening.” Add the complexity of Maxar Space being sold to Intuitive Machines, and leadership felt keeping the old name would only have created more confusion.

2. Going Private Creates Air Cover for Transformation

Vantor’s transition from transactional sales to 90% recurring revenue didn’t happen under public market pressure. When Advent International took Maxar private, it gave leadership something rare: time and permission to rebuild the business model. Dan is candid about this: “When you go private, you can actually take the time to reformat the business. Getting the sales motion, getting your customers to buy in a different way is not easy.” Today, the company boasts some of that predictability that public markets reward.

3. Acquisition Reform Opens Doors for Commercial Solutions

The recent push for acquisition reform means the government is looking to buy software and modern capabilities differently. Vantor has aligned its business model directly to this shift. Subscription-based solutions fit how the government now wants to buy: modern, updateable, and not locked into elongated contracts.

4. Allied “Sovereignty Panic” Is a Massive Growth Driver

With the US stepping back from certain international commitments, allied nations are suddenly realizing they lack organic intelligence capabilities. They’ve been dependent on American systems for decades. Now they’re scrambling. Dan sees this as Vantor’s biggest growth opportunity: “They’ve gotten ‘wow, we don’t really have our own capabilities.’ You can only build that through commercial. It’s almost impossible to have the funding and time to do it bespoke.” This is true across Europe, Asia-Pacific, and beyond.

5. Geospatial AI Is a Different Problem Than Language AI

Dan’s call for startups challenges the current AI hype: “Start thinking about the spatial side, not necessarily the language side. The mathematics is very different. We’ve kind of solved language with things like ChatGPT. Spatial recognition of change on the ground is a whole different way of thinking about data.”

TIMESTAMPS

[1:19] What brought Dan to RNDF and key takeaways from the day

[2:15] Acquisition reform and how it impacts Vantor's strategy

[3:24] Why Maxar Intelligence became Vantor

[5:42] The role of financial markets

[6:28] Breaking down Vantor's core products and capabilities

[8:08] Driving automation in geospatial intelligence

[8:42] The decision to be more public with capabilities on social media

[10:18] GPS-denied navigation: supporting drones in Ukraine

[10:43] The China satellite photo showdown

[11:43] Non-earth imaging and space domain awareness

[12:05] Current phase of business

[13:36] International expansion and allied sovereignty needs

[14:00] Transitioning to 90% ARR

[15:40] Going private

[17:31] 3D mapping

[19:48] Commercial applications

[21:32] Managing petabytes of data

[24:03] Dan's call for startups

Learn more: vantor.comFollow Dan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielsmoot/For more Crossing the Valley: youtube.com/@CrossingTheValley

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

About Nick LaRovere

Nick is the CEO and Co-founder of Pryzm. As a software engineer at Palantir Technologies, Nick worked on both Gotham and Foundry platforms, gaining firsthand exposure to building federal contracting systems and understanding the critical intersection of technology and national security missions.

A graduate of Colby College, Nick’s experience selling Palantir’s solutions to DOD and three-letter agencies provided him with intimate knowledge of the procurement pain points that would eventually inspire Pryzm’s founding mission.

Nick is part of a core founding team of four Colby College grads, each of whom experienced the pain of government acquisition: Matt Hawkins (president & COO), Justin Deckert (chief growth officer), and David Istrati (chief technology officer).

About Pryzm

Pryzm emerged from a deceptively simple observation: government procurement was drowning in PDFs and Excel spreadsheets. What started as a document processing solution has evolved into a comprehensive capture and relationship mapping platform that serves the entire defense contracting ecosystem.

The product’s core function is transforming traditional capture processes through intelligent automation and visualization. Their “Orion constellations” feature allows users to map influence networks, parse opportunities, and understand organizational relationships in ways that replace traditional whiteboards and Figma diagrams with dynamic, data-driven insights.

Pryzm serves both commercial defense contractors seeking to win government business and government agencies looking to improve their procurement processes. This dual-market approach creates network effects that strengthen the platform’s value proposition for all users. Their recent Seed funding ($12M+ led by Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism team) puts them on an accelerated path across both commercial and federal segments.

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