# Defense Unicorns

> Defense Unicorns builds secure software delivery infrastructure for military and national security customers. Its Unified Defense Stack combines offline packaging, hardened Kubernetes infrastructure, compliance tools, and fleet management for cloud, on-premises, and disconnected environments.

- **Founded:** 2021
- **Headquarters:** San Antonio, United States
- **Founders:** Rob Slaughter (Co-founder and CEO), Jeff McCoy (Co-founder and CTO), Andrew Greene (Co-founder)
- **Products:** Unified Defense Stack (UDS), UDS Base, UDS Enterprise, UDS Fleet, UDS Registry
- **Notable:** Zarf transitioned from early Air Force research contracts to work across multiple military services, according to Navy SBIR documentation., Zarf accepted into OpenSSF in 2024., Company reported software installation and upgrades within minutes in an F-22 open mission system compute enclave demonstration in March 2026.

## Products & services

- **Unified Defense Stack (UDS)** — Software delivery platform spanning packaging, a secure runtime, deployment, and sustainment. Current materials call it Unified Defense Stack; older sources use Unicorn Delivery Service.
- **UDS Base** — Free AGPL-3.0 foundation including UDS Core and command-line tooling.
- **UDS Enterprise** — Commercial offering adding hardened images, compliance artifacts, support, and enterprise infrastructure capabilities.
- **UDS Fleet** — Commercial management and software distribution for distributed tactical systems, with operator interfaces and a fleet control plane.
- **UDS Registry** — Registry for Zarf and OCI artifacts with package signing, SBOMs, and vulnerability information.
- **Zarf** — Open-source airgap package manager; now an OpenSSF project.
- **Pepr** — TypeScript-based Kubernetes middleware for resource automation.
- **Mission-as-a-Service** — Support subscriptions including embedded site reliability and forward deployed engineering options.

## Achievements

- Zarf transitioned from early Air Force research contracts to work across multiple military services, according to Navy SBIR documentation.
- Zarf accepted into OpenSSF in 2024.
- Company reported software installation and upgrades within minutes in an F-22 open mission system compute enclave demonstration in March 2026.
- Company announced a $350 million ceiling single-award IDIQ in September 2026; a ceiling is not booked revenue.

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Launched UDS Fleet for tactical edge software delivery and management.
- **2026-07** — Selected to advance to shipboard deployment evaluation in the Navy CANES modernization effort.
- **2026-09** — Lauren Knausenberger appointed Chief Business Officer.
- **2026-09** — Announced $350 million ceiling procurement vehicle covering UDS Enterprise and Fleet.
- **2026-10** — San Antonio Business Journal reported the headquarters move from Colorado to downtown San Antonio on October 14.

## Links

- Website: https://defenseunicorns.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-unicorns
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/DefenseUnicorns
- GitHub: https://github.com/defenseunicorns
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/DefenceUnicorn/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/defense-unicorns
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-16