# Brian Raymond

> Brian Raymond is the Founder and CEO of Unstructured, the leading enterprise ETL platform for making raw, unstructured data LLM-ready. A former CIA intelligence officer and White House National Security Council director, Raymond pivoted from government service through investment banking and AI startup Primer before founding Unstructured in 2022. In just two years, he raised $65 million across three rounds from Menlo Ventures, Databricks, IBM, NVIDIA, and others, building the critical 'first mile of AI' infrastructure that powers enterprise RAG pipelines and GenAI applications globally.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Unstructured
- **Organizations:** Unstructured, Primer AI, Harris Williams & Co., National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** MBA, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, BA/MA in Political Science and Government, University of California, Davis, Intelligence Analysis Training, CIA Sherman Kent School
- **Known for:** Raised $65M across 3 funding rounds in under 2 years as a first-time founder, Built Unstructured to 800,000+ downloads and 2,500+ GitHub integrations by 2023, Secured backing from NVIDIA Ventures, Databricks Ventures, IBM Ventures, and Menlo Ventures

## Career timeline

- **2009-2014** — Intelligence Officer at the Central Intelligence Agency; drafted assessments for the President; served as daily intelligence briefer for the White House and State Department
- **2014-2015** — Director for Iraq at the White House National Security Council; advised President Obama and VP Biden on Iraq, ISIL, and Middle East policy
- **2015-2017** — MBA at Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth
- **2016-2018** — Investment Banker at Harris Williams & Co.
- **2018-2022** — VP Global Public Sector / President of Federal Business at Primer AI; led national security group building AI solutions for US government and Fortune 100 companies
- **2022** — Founded Unstructured with co-founders Matt Robinson and Crag Wolfe; raised seed funding from Bain Capital Ventures
- **2023** — Unstructured reached 800,000+ downloads and 2,500+ GitHub integrations; raised $25M combined seed and Series A led by Madrona
- **2024** — Closed $40M Series B from Menlo Ventures, Databricks Ventures, IBM Ventures, and NVIDIA; recognized as 2024 IA40 winner; spoke at Databricks Data + AI Summit

## Achievements

- Raised $65M across 3 funding rounds in under 2 years as a first-time founder
- Built Unstructured to 800,000+ downloads and 2,500+ GitHub integrations by 2023
- Secured backing from NVIDIA Ventures, Databricks Ventures, IBM Ventures, and Menlo Ventures
- Named 2024 IA40 winner in AI infrastructure category
- Served as White House NSC Director for Iraq advising President Obama
- Briefed the President and senior US officials daily as a CIA intelligence officer
- Spoke at Databricks Data + AI Summit 2024
- Built open-source ETL library supporting 25+ file types for LLM data preparation

## Latest updates

- **2024-03** — Closed $40M Series B led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Databricks Ventures, IBM Ventures, and NVIDIA Ventures
- **2024-06** — Spoke at Databricks Data + AI Summit 2024
- **2024-01** — Named 2024 IA40 winner in AI infrastructure category

## Links

- Website: https://unstructured.io
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-s-raymond-309a79101
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/UnstructuredIO

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/brian-raymond
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-27