Defense startup taking on Palantir hits $100 million in ARR
Govini, a defense technology software startup that takes on similar palantirIts annual recurring revenue exceeded $100 million, the company announced Friday.
“We’re growing faster than 100% on a three-year CAGR, and I expect we’ll continue to do the same next year,” CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan in an interview. “No matter how big this market is, we can continue to grow for a very long time, and that’s really exciting.”
CAGR stands for compound annual growth rate, which is a measurement of the rate of return.
The Arlington, Virginia-based company also announced a $150 million growth investment from Bain Capital. It plans to use the money to expand its team and product offering to meet growing security demands.
In recent years, venture capitalists have poured more money into defense tech startups like Govini to address growing national security concerns and modernize the military as global conflicts emerge.
The group, which includes unicorns like Palmer Luckey’s Anduril, Shield AI, and AI-leveraging Palantir, is tackling legacy giants like: Boeing’s, LockheedMartin And Northrop GrummanThese have long relied on Pentagon contracts.
Dougherty, who previously worked at Palantir, said he hopes the company can get a “vertical slice” into the defense technology space.
The 14-year-old Govini has racked up a series of major victories in recent years, including a contract worth more than $900 million with the U.S. government and agreements with the War Department.
Govini is known for its flagship artificial intelligence software, Ark, which he says can help modernize the military’s defense technology supply chain by better managing product lifecycles as military needs become more complex.
“If the United States can get this procurement system right, it could actually be a decisive advantage for us,” Dougherty said.
Looking forward, Dougherty told CNBC he expects some disruptions from the government shutdown.
Navy customers could be particularly hard hit, putting the United States at a major disadvantage.
He added that while the US maintains its AI superiority, China has surpassed its shipbuilding capacity and this should be taken “very seriously”.
Dougherty also noted China’s dominance in rare earths and processed minerals, which are critical to making parts and systems for the military.
“The rare earth crisis that we’re in is a serious crisis,” he said, “because one of the things you can see in the data that we have in our proprietary data set is that it traces national security programs back to raw materials.”
