Defense Builders Directory
The Defense Builders Directory highlights 83 high-signal companies selected from Merge Combinator's in-person Defense Tech Combine cohort. Public profiles retain rich company narrative and technical metadata while withholding direct contact details, fundraising data, scores, badges, and internal evaluation outcomes.
300 Below Inc.
Reliability, double weapons life, double engine life, double brake life, double pump life, double electric motor life. 200% gains for 20% cost.
AEROSENS
AEROSENS transform readiness with smart sensors, real-time tracking, tamper alerts, and instant digital inspections, even without connectivity.
Agventure Tech INC
We provide light duty autonomous utility vehicles for quick deploy perimeter defense, casualty med evac, and supply distribution.
Airtrek Robotics
Wingwalking and FOD walks consume significant manpower, yet human errors in manual handling cause damage, impacting the defense fleet readiness.
Alitheon, Inc.
Eliminating counterfeits and gray market items from entering DoD; streamlining inventory management; reducing human error from misidentification
Anuma Aerospace Corporation
Limited endurance and loiter of aerial ISR sensors.
Ardent MC
Too much data for analysts to find what they're looking for and connect the dots
ARES Security
Physical security for fixed / expeditionary sites is challenged by evolving threats (ie Ukrainian attack on 40 Russian A/C) and personnel shortages.
Bayes Edge
The problem is to deliver ordinance accurately in offensive and insurgent operations. Single drones are more susceptible to known countermeasures.
BestDefense, Inc
Slow, costly, and complex red team operations and long mean-time to remediation of critical vulnerabilities in mission critical software and...
BKPK, Inc.
Silent, portable power for dispersed ops where generators are loud, fuel is risky, and legacy systems can’t keep up.
BlackBox Energy Systems
Need for better, lighter, quiet, thermally efficient motors for drones made in the USA
Cachai
They're making lots of drones, and they're making each individual drone very smart, but there's no distributed nervous system that turns a group...
Carolina Unmanned Vehicles Inc.
providing wide area (60 miles) persistent C3, EW, surveillance in a mobile configuration, with low manpower, logistics and C-130 transportabilty
Confidencial Inc.
High-profile breaches show perimeter defenses aren't enough. Zero Trust helps, but adoption is slow and rarely focuses on the core issue - your data.
Corvus Industries
Group 1 and 2 drones that are impervious to EW and drone swarms
DataSoft Corp.
Secure wireless communications at tactical edge
Decisive
Integration of disparate data sources, sensors, formats, and algorithms to empower decision advantage at the
Defense Unicorns
Software deployment from enterprise to DDIL edge environments
Desert Rotor
Interoperability Across Platforms, Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), Next-Generation 5G / SATCOM, Operational Efficiency & Reduced Cognitive Load
Dev Technology Group
Dev Technology Group builds Secure software development, DevSecOps, biometrics, AI/ML, a software capability for Information missions. Its work is...
DigitalCM LLC
DOD training faces challenges with time, funding, standards, and consistency. Our solution ensures standardized, reliable access.
Divergent Space Technologies
NTM Overhead is not widely available to the Warfighter. Access to USG paid for Commercial Proliferated Systems offer a "Persistent Stare" over the...
Dmaterial IP, LLC.
Most vehicles can’t quickly evacuate casualties or carry bulk cargo without pre-installed systems, delaying missions and endangering lives.
Duality Systems
Inefficient manpower and resource allocation (complex scheduling)
Dunedain
AI accelerated workflows for staff and line units
ElectricFish Energy Inc
Aging grid, soaring AI/eVTOL peak loads, and fuel-heavy genset stopgaps leave bases without rapid, resilient power.
EM Sektet
Propulsion in space. Refueling, maneuvering, space combat
EvoLux Transportation, LLC
Optimizing air mobility logistics and modernizing user experience interfaces for DoD Personnel to improve scheduling and efficiencies
FibrX
FibrX solves the problem of hidden structural degradation—like corrosion and fatigue—by providing real-time fiber optic monitoring that prevents...
Flagged Inc.
Phishing, business email compromise, social engineering scams, and zero day vulnerabilities across multiple communication systems.
Gallatin AI
Gallatin is aiming to establish logistics decision dominance for the US military and our allies.
Genesis Codes Inc
Move data faster (10X throughput, 10% latency), safer and more resiliently, in challenging networks.
Hadron Industries
Hadron Industries builds Advanced Collaboration Enterprise Services (ACES), a software capability for Command and Control missions. Its work is...
Helical Solar
Extend generator to five 9's reliability (99.999%) uptime while minimizing fuel consumption/recurring maintenance and mitigating fuel shortage events.
HI-Spectral
Traditional high-perf snapshot hyperspectral systems are too large to deploy on drones and cubesats
High Entropy Security
Securing cryptographic keys in jammed, Zero-Trust environments
Husmann Technolgies
Problem: Automate mechanical systems monitoring and understanding.
Infinite Composites, Inc.
Enabling vehicles to travel further, faster, or carry more payload by reducing the weight and increasing capacity of pressurized fuel storage tanks.
Intelligenic
The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is highly manual, resulting in inefficiencies, high costs, and long delivery times.
Jericho Security
Defensive & Offensive Social Engineering
Kinard Technologies
Small UAS and FPVs that threaten to tactically and strategically defeat the US
Kindo
Kindo’s Chat Actions automate workflows—no code or middleware needed. Agents act, not just watch, with built-in governance and auditability.
Kinnami
Kinnami AmiShare enables secure, resilient data sharing and access in contested, disconnected, and multi-domain defense environments.
LeVanta Tech Inc.
Persistent rough sea float combined with high speed flight
Leviathan Air
Moving cargo and mission specific payloads quickly long distance over oceans, esspecally in Indo Pacom. But without the need for runways.
Lionfish Cyber Security
The DoD faces a 28,000-person cyber talent gap. Lionfish recruits and trains college students in CMMC/CCP, deploys them to help the DoD supply...
Lymbic AI
Lymbic AI builds Neuroprint, a hardware and software capability for Cyber missions. Its work is relevant to the Cyber domain.
Modular Misfits
Kill chains fail in contested environments because fires can’t be coordinated fast across services, systems, or degraded comms.
Motibera, Inc.
Motibera is addressing critical reliability and acoustic stealth limitations of electric motors by replacing conventional bearings with fully...
Mythos AI
The US needs robust, field-proven systems that reduce reliance on large crews and improve real-time decision-making and resilience across the fleet.
NetCentrics Corporation
The lack of unified, real-time, and mission-relevant visibility across diverse and distributed assets — especially in low-bandwidth, intermittent,...
Nighthawk Integrated Solutions LLC
Deployable 3D Interior Tracking System for Personnel and Equipment to within structures with 1 meter accuracy
Nooks
Classified access for startups and Defense Industrial Base overall
O Analytics
Limited capability to detect and classify unknown space objects in real-time.
Optimized Optics, Inc.
Designing better optical systems, from laser communications to sensors for self-driving cars
Photon-X, Inc.
Passive threat detection and ranging and equipment inspection
Pulse Space
latency of data gathering in space and point-to-point transit time in delivering effects.
Quantum Research Sciences
Heuristics are ubiquitously used to guesstimate solutions. Our tech ends reliance on this inaccurate "guessing" to quickly deliver exact answers.
Radius Method
Most DoD programs lack a secure AI software factory capable of delivering compliant, governable agentic workflows at mission speed.
Redshred
Redshred improves readiness by using AI to enable digital transformation of documents into data for maintenance, sustainment, and operations.
RelayNexus
Exposure of submarines when needing to surface every 11 hours increase signature exposure and Remote Operated Vehicles (ROV) using tethered...
Rune Aero
Moving air cargo in contested in infrastructure-limited environments
Safire Technology Group
The modern battlefield is rapidly becoming more electrified—but the energy systems powering it are outdated.
Sentient Science
Implementation of additively manufactured parts for aerospace is significantly hampered by lack of process insight and in-situ quality controls
Sheridan Technologies
Warfighters in GPS-denied, RF-contested environments lack autonomous ISR and counter-UAS intercept capability that doesn’t rely on satellite...
Skyline Nav AI, Inc.
Determining precise location is extremely challenging when GPS, cellular, and Wi-Fi signals are unavailable, unreliable, or jammed.
Smarter Reality
Smarter Reality builds training and simulation technology for DoD. The company is an Inc. 5000, Austin Fast 50 and Financial Times 500 company for...
Spectrum Defense Systems
EW training and deception ops lack low-cost, modular emitters that flexibly emulate diverse RF signals. Current systems are expensive, rigid, and...
Starcycle
Administrative drag in regulated, multi-party workflows delays fielding and starves warfighters of timely capability.
Stitch3D
Stitch3D brings 3D point clouds and geospatial data to the web with tools for storage, visualization, analytics, and collaboration.
Sunnoo
In the electrified battlefield, fuel dependence, detectability, and power disruption are putting missions and lives at risk. Sunnoo solves this by...
Swarmbotics AI
Swarmbotics AI builds FireAnt, a hardware and software capability for Force Protection (Defense) missions. Its work is relevant to the Land domain.
SynapseMX
We help maintenance teams work better together to get assets back in the air sooner
The Fraclex Group
The Fraclex Group represents 20+ years of lived subject matter expertise in targeting, cybersecurity, Ai, special operations, counterterrorism,...
Trackable Health AI
Trackable Health AI builds Trackable Health AI, a hardware and software capability for Information missions. Its work is relevant to the Air,...
Ultraview AI
Class A/B mishaps are up 10% as maintainer losses grow. Ultraview fills the gap with automated, expert-level aircraft inspections.
Ulysses
Coasts/subsea assets are exploited/damaged; fleets lack affordable, persistent, scalable surface-and-subsea surveillance and intervention solutions.
X-Hab 3D, Inc.
The DoD lacks rapid construction capability for ACE in the Indo-Pacific; labor and logistics intensive, transport constraints.
XR 2 LEAD LLC
XR 2 LEAD LLC builds Mariner-SIM (Maritine Adv RF Training and readiness Simulator), a software capability for Comm missions. Its work is relevant...
XVector
XVector builds Xvector, a software capability for national security missions.
Zephr.xyz Inc.
There is a lack of low bandwidth and low profile capabilities to map jamming/spoofing areas of impact and locate emitters for targeting.
ZeroMark, Inc.
America has overmatch everywhere but the trigger where our warfighters still fight peer-to-peer.