Some companies chase unicorn status with pitch decks, vibes, and a perfectly rehearsed story for investors who have never seen a classified network. Defense Unicorns chased it through air gapped systems, contested environments, and infrastructure where failure is not an inconvenience, it is a mission risk. $136M raised in a Series B at a valuation north of $1B is not a moment of hype, it is a receipt. Led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, with continued conviction from Ansa Capital and Sapphire Ventures, plus participation from Valor Equity Partners, AVP, Uncorrelated Ventures, and General David H. Petraeus, this round reflects execution, not optimism.
Defense Unicorns exists because the founders lived the problem before they ever incorporated a company. Dr. Rob Slaughter took the hard lessons from Platform One and turned them into a business that treats software as national power, not office tooling. Jeff McCoy built for environments where bandwidth is scarce, security is unforgiving, and uptime actually matters. Andrew Greene kept the product honest, grounded in operational reality instead of theoretical elegance. Veteran-founded, engineer-driven, and built by people who understand the difference between a demo and deployment. 100+ engineers deep, many with direct DoD experience, building for submarines, ships, aircraft, forward bases, and the tactical edge where connectivity is optional and consequences are not.
The Unicorn Delivery Service is not branding, it is infrastructure. UDS Core runs open source, airgap-native, with near zero CVE baselines, FIPS validated modules, and environments that are ATO ready from day one. Zarf, Pepr, Lula, the UDS Registry, Tactical Edge, and UDS Army exist for one reason: move secure software fast where it historically stalled. Bare metal, classified networks, cloud, and disconnected systems all treated as first class citizens. That discipline is why adoption grew 300% YoY and why the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, Space Force, and allied partners trust it in live systems.
The $300M DoD wide contract, with more than $100M already task ordered, is not a press release trophy. It is repeated validation from operators who watched the platform perform. Supporting Navy CANES Next Generation is not about logos, it is about delivering modular, cyber resilient capability to the Fleet without breaking operations. When people talk about software as a strategic deterrent, this is what it looks like when the theory meets reality.
Bootstrapping to roughly $30M in annual revenue before taking institutional capital says everything about discipline and demand. This Series B is not a victory lap. It is fuel. Fuel to deepen UDS Core, expand the Registry, scale UDS Army, and keep American maintained software moving to missions that cannot afford dependency, delay, or excuses. Defense Unicorns did not arrive quietly. It arrived tested, trusted, and already in the fight.
