Startup Obviant will revolutionize defense spending visibility after securing a $99 million prototype award from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). This contract tasks Obviant with creating an authoritative platform that modernizes how leaders access and utilize budgeting, contracting, and acquisition data across the U.S. Government.
Obviant’s solution represents a critical step forward in leveraging Defense Acquisition AI to accelerate the delivery of essential capabilities to military forces. The Defense Department currently struggles with scattered information across disparate program records and Congressional reports, hindering swift decision-making.
Unifying Defense Procurement Data
The new AI-powered platform tackles the persistent lack of a “single source of truth” that often complicates selling to and buying within the Department of Defense (DoD). Obviant’s sophisticated system actively ingests and unifies data from thousands of sources, including budget justification books and program documentation.
By consolidating this information, the platform provides role-based decision support tailored to the needs of commanders, program managers, and analysts. This unification process eliminates the manual drudgery involved in tracking spending and identifying capability gaps across the DoD enterprise.
Accelerating Capability Delivery
The ultimate goal of this initiative is to bridge the gap between promising commercial technology and the warfighter. Obviant’s data provides a shared, real-time view of mission capability gaps, available solutions, and clarified funding pathways.
Co-founder and CEO Brendan Karp emphasized that the platform “enables faster and better decisions, reduces duplicative efforts, and accelerates delivery of needed capabilities to the front lines.” While the initial deployment will support DIU’s commercial team, the contract includes options to expand the platform’s use across the armed services and joint Combatant Commands, significantly expanding the impact of Defense Acquisition AI across the military enterprise.
The prototype award runs through the end of 2026 and reaches a maximum value of $99 million if the government exercises all options.
