Onebrief Closes $70M Series C, Becomes Defense Tech Unicorn with Strategic AI Focus

Defense tech startup Onebrief has raised a total of $70 million in Series C financing, including a recent $20 million extension led by Battery Ventures. The raise pushes the Honolulu-based company’s valuation to $1.1 billion, underscoring investor appetite for cloud-native and AI-enabled platforms serving the military and national security community.

Founded in 2019 by Grant Demaree and Rafa Pereira, Onebrief has developed a planning and decision-support platform designed to streamline how military staffs develop and communicate operational plans. The software, already deployed across multiple secure government networks—including SIPR, NIPR, and JWICS—enables real-time collaboration and integrates AI to automate workflows that were traditionally time- and labor-intensive.

The core value proposition is speed and clarity in complex planning environments. By replacing legacy systems and PowerPoint-heavy processes with dynamic, interactive planning tools, Onebrief is gaining traction across the US Department of Defense and allied militaries. Its software is now embedded in three of the four largest operational plans globally, according to the company.

The $50 million Series C round, closed earlier this year, was led by General Catalyst and Insight Partners, with participation from Caffeinated Capital, 9Yards Capital, and Human Capital. The recently announced $20 million extension was led by Battery Ventures, nearly doubling Onebrief’s valuation from $650 million to $1.1 billion in just three months.

According to co-founder and CEO Grant Demaree, the funds will be used to scale engineering, grow the platform’s capacity to handle 100,000 simultaneous collaborators, and expand AI-driven capabilities. This includes development of an “AI Co-planner” designed to suggest viable courses of action in complex operational environments—essentially, an AI assistant for military decision-makers.

“The world’s most important missions require the world’s best teams to plan and act faster than their adversaries,” Demaree said in a recent announcement. “This funding allows us to continue building the future of mission planning alongside the people who need it most.”

The defense tech sector has seen an influx of private capital in recent years, as investors look to modernize a procurement environment historically dominated by large contractors. Onebrief’s rise reflects a broader shift toward agile, software-first tools that can adapt to the fast-changing nature of multi-domain operations. The company operates at the intersection of SaaS and national defense—two domains that are rarely combined but increasingly relevant in a digitized military ecosystem.

Battery Ventures, which led the extension round, emphasized the platform’s operational maturity and its long-term upside in coalition and allied settings. “We’re seeing software-native platforms like Onebrief unlock real value across mission-critical workflows,” a partner at Battery noted. “The dual-use potential of this technology—across defense, emergency response, and security operations—is part of what makes this an attractive long-term bet.”

The company’s product roadmap reflects a growing ambition to reshape the defense planning stack. Onebrief plans to roll out deeper integration with modeling and simulation tools, as well as expand wargaming features that can evaluate the downstream impact of different courses of action—essentially enabling military staffs to rehearse operations in silico. These upgrades align with strategic priorities under the U.S. Department of Defense’s AI and Digital Modernization strategies.

To support its next phase of growth, Onebrief has also expanded its leadership bench. Chris C. Miller, former Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense, has joined the company’s board of directors, bringing decades of operational and policy experience. Devesh Senapati, a former Stripe and Bain Capital Ventures executive, has come on board as VP of Product to help scale the platform with a product-led growth strategy.

With total funding to date now surpassing $100 million, Onebrief is emerging as a key node in a new generation of defense-first startups attracting top-tier capital. While traditional defense primes still dominate hardware and platform delivery, software-native startups like Onebrief are carving out space in planning, intelligence, logistics, and operations.

The company’s strategic focus remains on expanding within the U.S. military and its allies, with the possibility of future growth into adjacent verticals such as disaster response and national-level contingency planning. While it has not commented on IPO timing, the rapid valuation increase and strong backing from top-tier firms place it on a short list of defense tech unicorns with clear exit potential.

As the geopolitical landscape evolves and demand grows for real-time, AI-assisted command-and-control capabilities, Onebrief is well-positioned to be one of the defining platforms of the military software era.