Many of the hardest things about warfare are the things that seem the simplest. Like getting the right supplies to the right place at the right time. It’s super tough to know what fighters need and to get it to them before it’s too late, especially in far-flung places like the Indo-Pacific.
(US military leaders complain about this all the time.)
Well, until now, that is. On Tuesday, 8VC-backed Gallatin AI emerged from stealth with $15M in seed funding and a promise to fix major military logistics issues using AI.
“You can’t go too far in DC or talk to people in the military without mentioning the word logistics,” Gallatin founder and CEO Woody Glier told Tectonic. “Everyone sort of throws up their hands and says, ‘It’s hopeless.’”
Same-day delivery: Glier says that military logistics should work less like a middle-school bake sale and more like Amazon Prime.
“All of [this logistics] work is happening on whiteboards, on clipboards. If you’re using Microsoft Excel, you’re considered state of the art,” he said.
That’s where the company’s Navigator software comes in. Navigator:
- Is a “modern SaaS application” that uses hordes of data and AI-powered processing to close the gap between frontline needs and supply availability.
- Was built in partnership with Palantir Foundry, which means it’s plugged into the Palantir ecosystem and is compatible with the Maven and Vantage platforms that the DoD already uses.
- Is designed to be predictive rather than reactive. Glier said that the software allows operators to plan out critical resupply missions before they happen, rather than just figuring stuff out in a crisis.
- Aims to decentralize logistics nodes “from a small number of large nodes to a larger number of small nodes across areas of responsibility,” Glier said.
- Supports manual uploads from the frontline to supplement that sweet, sweet Palantir data, which makes sure Navigator accounts for all needs.
Big leagues: Gallatin and Glier are building on the backs of giants. Glier himself is an alum of Palantir and Scale AI, and his co-founders Daniel Buchmueller and Brian Ballard have worked everywhere from the DoD to Amazon to the Boring Company.
Gallatin was also born out of the 8VC Build program, which famously produced Saronic Technologies, now valued at $4B. The fund (built by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale) has also backed Anduril, Chaos, and Epirus.
In the future, Glier said that Gallatin could provide logistics support to these companies.
“Where I see eventual collaborations within the portfolio is… how we can smooth the on-ramp, the first mile of logistics from the point of production to wherever the government customer needs the equipment,” he said.
For now, though, the funding will be used to get Navigator up and running at scale.