Some defense tech founders have spent decades delivering military programs. Others previously built gaming hardware, travel apps, or cybersecurity businesses.
Using CB Insights People data, we profiled repeat founders behind 10 defense tech companies. Their track records include selling Oculus to Facebook, co-founding one of India’s first private rocket companies, and delivering more than 40 US defense programs.
Now they’re building autonomous aircraft and vessels, counter-drone interceptors, satellites, and secure chips.
Note: Includes founders of companies that raised funding or participated in an accelerator in September 2026.
What makes these founders stand out
The Oculus founder and Palantir alum behind the $61B autonomous defense company
Palmer Luckey & Trae Stephens — Anduril
Luckey founded Oculus VR at 19 and sold it to Facebook in 2014 for $2B. He later founded retro gaming hardware maker ModRetro and, in 2025, co-founded Erebor, a bank for tech and crypto companies. Stephens was an early Palantir employee and is a partner at Founders Fund. He has also co-founded space manufacturer Varda Space Industries and e-reader maker Sol.
Anduril builds autonomous systems and defense hardware for the US and its allies, tied together by its Lattice software platform. It more than doubled revenue to $2.2B in 2025 and began producing its Fury autonomous combat aircraft at its $1B factory in Ohio earlier this year. It is also building one of the prototypes for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
The 30-year drone builder and Kano founder making $1,250 drones in Ohio
Shawn Theiss & Yonatan Raz-Fridman — Agilis Air
Theiss founded Theiss UAV Solutions, which delivered more than 40 US Department of Defense programs and fielded more than 600 drones over nearly three decades. Raz-Fridman co-founded edtech platforms Kano and Kodo, as well as immersive marketing startup Supersocial, the latter of which was acquired in 2025.
Agilis Air, which spun out of Theiss UAV Solutions, builds low-cost, American-made drones in Ohio. Its $1,250 Remora quadcopter is sold through the Army’s UAS Marketplace. Its $1.4M September round included retired Gen. John Murray, the first commanding general of Army Futures Command, who also serves as an advisor.
The Agnikul co-founder and IIT Madras alum building satellites that see through clouds and darkness
Satyanarayanan R. Chakravarthy & Suyash Singh — GalaxEye
Chakravarthy is an aerospace engineering professor at IIT Madras who co-founded rocket maker Agnikul Cosmos, electric aircraft startup The ePlane Company, and engine technology company Aerostrovilos. Singh, GalaxEye’s CEO, co-founded a local AIESEC chapter and worked as a data analyst at Tata Consultancy Services.
GalaxEye builds satellites that combine radar and optical imaging. Its first satellite, Mission Drishti, launched on a SpaceX rocket in May 2026, but an anomaly after a solar storm left recovery unlikely, according to the company. GalaxEye acquired spacecraft engineering firm StarOps in August and plans to launch two more satellites within 24 months. In September, it raised a $10M bridge round and a $6.7M convertible note from India’s Technology Development Board.
The Vitabi co-founders building autonomous landing craft to resupply troops without a port
Nhat Lieu & Yuta Shiina — Bulwark Dynamics
Lieu and Shiina co-founded travel health app Vitabi in 2024, when Lieu was 19. The company addresses medical access challenges for overseas travelers, backed by angel investors Hiroka Miyama, Mitsuo Aikawa, and Shungo Shibukawa.
Bulwark Dynamics builds Caravel, an autonomous vessel that delivers supplies to troops directly on shore, without needing a port, pier, or crane. In early 2026, its 15-foot Caravel prototype completed a full mission on its own: transiting, beaching, unloading cargo, and pulling back into the water, all without GPS. Alongside its $6.8M seed round in September, it signed an agreement with Japanese shipbuilder Onomichi Dockyard, also an investor, to build its Caravel vessels in Japan.
The Secure Thingz CEO making microchips that block cyberattacks at the hardware level
Krishna Anne — SCI Semiconductor
Anne led IoT security company Secure Thingz as CEO through its 2018 acquisition by IAR Systems and founded audit-trail software company DataTrails. He has been CEO of chip IP company Agile Analog since 2025, after earlier roles at Broadcom, AMD, and Rambus.
SCI Semiconductor, which Anne co-founded in 2023, makes memory-safe microchips that block cyberattacks at the hardware level. It has more than $2.7M in chip orders and $10.4M in UK government contracts, is a core supplier to the UK’s Accelerated CHERI Adoption Programme, and has partnerships with Google Research and Microsoft. The Sheffield, UK-based company raised a $6.8M seed extension in September led by Mercia Ventures and PXN Ventures, and received a grant from the UK’s Defence Technology Exploitation Programme in 2025.
The founder going from animal genetics and fusion to quantum-safe encryption for the Indian Army
Pravin Kini — QNu Labs
Kini started his career as a reproductive medicine doctor in 1989 and co-founded Bourn Hall Clinic’s IVF expansion in India in 2010. After selling his stake in 2014, he co-founded Tropical Animal Genetics and nuclear fusion startup Anubal Fusion.
QNu Labs builds quantum-safe encryption for government and critical infrastructure, and supplies its Armos quantum key distribution system to the Indian Army. The company was incubated at IIT Madras in 2016 and now has a team of about 160 engineers, physicists, and mathematicians. Its $21M Series A-II in September was co-led by India’s Department of Science & Technology and Speciale Invest, with Sony Innovation Fund participating.
The former LG engineer building high-speed interceptors that knock drones out of the sky
Minyoung Ahn — Airbility
Ahn co-founded Korean air mobility startup PLANA, which raised over $10M by 2022, and was a research engineer at LG Electronics.
Airbility, where Ahn is COO, builds high-speed VTOL interceptors that take down hostile drones in the air. The company was founded by former engineers from Korea’s Agency for Defense Development, Hyundai Motor, and LG Electronics, and it originally set out to build a two-seat passenger aircraft before turning to drone interception. The company raised a $4.7M Series A in September and plans to bring its AB-U10, a drone that captures hostile drones with a net, by the end of 2026.
The Swedish Armed Forces reservist helping drones track targets without GPS
David Nilsson — Synclair Vision
Nilsson has been a Swedish Armed Forces reserve officer since 1987 and spent two decades in sales leadership at Telia, Luvata, and Aurubis. He co-founded Anavid, a Paris-based computer vision company that turns retailers’ existing security cameras into theft-prevention and analytics tools, a direct precursor to Synclair’s camera-based drone vision.
Synclair Vision, where Nilsson is CCO, builds AI camera systems that let drones track targets without GPS. Six Linköping University students founded the company, which landed its first military deal through a Swedish civil-military accelerator and raised a $510K pre-seed round in September from Almi Invest and East Sweden Capital.
The product designer building heavy-lift drones for the Indian Army
Rahul Kumar — BonV Aero
Kumar co-founded product design company Karkhana Hub and was an engineer at Asteria Aerospace.
BonV Aero, where Kumar is co-founder and chief of design, builds heavy-payload logistics drones for rough terrain and counts the Indian Army as a customer. Its drones have carried 30 kg at more than 19,000 feet on Ladakh’s Umling La pass, and it was selected for the UK Ministry of Defence’s heavy-lift drone framework. In September, it became the first Indian company named a finalist in GENIUS NY, a New York accelerator for uncrewed systems with a $1M grand prize.
The former Northrop Grumman engineer bringing AI and cloud services to defense customers
Valentine Nwachukwu — Zaden Technologies
Nwachukwu co-founded Inspirit Solutions and previously worked at Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and AWS.
Huntsville-based Zaden Technologies, where Nwachukwu is CEO, provides AI, cloud, and cybersecurity services for defense customers. Its Icarus tool uses AI to generate system models from engineering documents and automate testing for complex defense systems, and it won an Air Force AFWERX contract to develop it in 2024. The company has won about $3.7M in federal contracts since 2024, including a $1.8M award in 2025 to work with the Air Force Research Laboratory. CB Insights predicts its next Funding Window opens in December 2026.
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