Just four months after coming out of stealth mode, Atlanta-based Danti has landed a new contract that will bring their AI-powered search capabilities into the US Space Force, the newest branch of the US Armed Forces.
Danti just announced it was awarded a $1.2 million contract with AFWERX, the innovation arm of the Department of the Air Force. Founder and CEO Jesse Kallman said the Danti team got connected to Space Force through the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s gSEARCH Program.
The contract shows just how important searchable Earth data is for the intelligence and defense communities, says Kallman.
“Across the federal government, easy access to data — whether it’s from a satellite or drone — is something that is incredibly helpful,” Kallman told Hypepotamus. The problem is that today, most analysts and geospatial experts are working through a “cumbersome and challenging” workflow in order to search geospatial datasets and repositories. Danti allows users to use natural language queries to find images of the Earth that are needed for “support quick and effective decision-making.”
That means users can get the most up-to-date information on tank movements inside of a war zone, assess the safest land routes out of a conflict area, or get the most accurate look at how a natural disaster has impacted a specific community.
Alongside the AFWERX contract, Danti also announced it is adding to its cap table with Humba Ventures, the deep tech arm of the well-known early stage firm Susa Ventures, coming on as a new investor. The firm is currently backing a long list of startups (many of which are still in stealth mode) across national sectors like defense, manufacturing, and energy.
Humba, a San Francisco-based firm, joins a list of Atlanta investors VC firms Tech Square Ventures and Overline VC that are also backing Danti.
An Earth-Sized Opportunity
While the contract with AFWERX will imbed Danti further into the defense industry, the technology is certainly needed within insurance, property, and infrastructure industries, the team added in a press release.
Danti is one of a growing number of geospatial technology startups looking to improve how different industries think about the data we collect about the physical world. There have been 125 geospatial startups founded since 2020, according to available Crunchbase data, and are working across industries including agriculture, energy, GovTech, forestry, defense, and environmental engineering.
