critical-infrastructure
(30)
AICE
AICE is a San Francisco defense-tech startup building autonomous swarms of modular underwater drones to monitor and protect naval assets and coastal infrastructure. Backed by Y Combinator (P26), the company was founded by ex-NASA MIT aerospace engineer Gregoire Chomette and European robotics champion Remi Bouteiller, who pivoted from commercial-building energy sensors to subsea defense after talking to submariners about the gaps in current underwater robotics.
Neara
Neara is a Sydney-founded software company that builds physics-enabled digital twins of utility networks. By combining LiDAR, satellite imagery, sensor data, AI and engineering-grade physics simulation, it creates geometrically accurate 3D replicas of power grids so utilities can model how their assets behave under real-world stress - wildfires, floods, storms, heat and rising demand. The platform lets operators find spare grid capacity, mitigate risk, plan maintenance and connect renewables faster, often replacing months of manual field inspection with analysis that runs in minutes. In February 2026 Neara raised an AUD $90 million Series D, reaching a roughly AUD $1.1 billion valuation to become one of Australia's newest unicorns.
Trendspek
Trendspek is a Sydney-based software company that turns drone and reality-capture imagery into exact 3D digital models of buildings and infrastructure. Its Structural Lifecycle Management System (SLMS), built on the Precision Asset Intelligence (PAI) platform, lets asset owners, engineers and contractors inspect, measure, report on, remediate and monitor structures from a single living record - replacing scattered PDFs and site visits with traceable, measurable digital evidence used across 45+ countries.
Vault Cloud
Vault Cloud is a 100% Australian-owned and operated hyperscale cloud provider built exclusively for security. Founded in 2012 by Rupert Taylor-Price, it was the first cloud certified by the Australian Signals Directorate for classified government workloads. Running on an OpenStack architecture across sovereign data centres in Sydney and Canberra, Vault serves federal and state government, defence, and critical-infrastructure customers with PROTECTED, SECRET and TOP SECRET-grade cloud services, all staffed by security-cleared personnel under Australian jurisdiction.
DeNexus
DeNexus is a Boston-based cyber risk company that quantifies the financial impact of cyber threats to industrial and operational technology (OT) environments. Its DeRISK platform uses AI, machine learning and simulation to predict where breaches are likely in OT/ICS networks, express that risk in dollar terms, and prioritize mitigation by ROI. The company serves CISOs, boards, risk managers and cyber insurers across data centers, energy, manufacturing and transportation, and has expanded into agentic-AI underwriting automation for the industrial cyber insurance market.
Intellicene
Intellicene is a Melville, New York-based security software company that builds Symphia, a unified, video-centric platform for physical security operations. Spun out of Verint and Cognyte's Situational Intelligence Solutions business and acquired by Canada's Volaris Group in December 2022, the company connects and correlates data from cameras, access control, intrusion detection and other networked devices so security teams can detect threats and respond to mission-critical events in real time. With roughly 25 years of heritage, it serves retail, airports, transportation, healthcare, safe cities, higher education and industrial customers worldwide.
Meriton
Meriton is an Irving, Texas-based national alliance of independent commercial HVAC manufacturer representatives. Founded in 2019 and led by Chairman & CEO Jerry Braun, it unites market-leading rep firms under a shared-services model - giving local businesses access to national scale, engineering depth, and corporate support in finance, HR, IT, safety, training, and marketing while letting them keep their names and local autonomy. Through more than two dozen acquisitions, Meriton now spans 19 operating brands, 44 locations, roughly 26 states, and 2,100+ employees serving manufacturers, contractors, engineers, and building owners across commercial, industrial, and institutional markets.
watchTowr
watchTowr is a Singapore-based cybersecurity company that builds a real-time attacker's view of an organization's external attack surface, then continuously discovers and validates exploitable vulnerabilities before adversaries can use them. Founded in 2021 by offensive-security specialist Benjamin Harris, its platform blends external attack surface management, continuous automated red teaming, AI-driven rapid reaction to emerging threats, and autonomous edge mitigation. watchTowr is also known for watchTowr Labs, a research team whose public disclosures on Citrix, Fortinet, Ivanti, SonicWall and other enterprise software regularly make headlines. The company serves Fortune 500 firms and critical-infrastructure operators and has raised roughly $29-30 million, including a $19M Series A led by Peak XV.
Giuseppe Incitti
Giuseppe Incitti is the CEO of Sitetracker, the Montclair, New Jersey enterprise software company whose platform helps utilities, telecom operators, and EV charging companies manage the deployment and lifecycle of high-volume infrastructure assets. Since taking over in 2016 he has grown the company from about 30 employees to roughly 400 and raised more than $200M in equity and debt, including a $66M Series D in 2022. A Stevens Institute engineer who started in investment banking at Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan before operating roles at TIBCO and MongoDB, Incitti is a vocal advocate that digital transformation is no longer optional for the companies building the grid, the network, and the charging stations of the next decade.
Jose Seara
Jose Seara is the founder and CEO of DeNexus, a Boston-based company that quantifies cyber risk for operational technology and industrial control systems. A naval and marine engineer by training, he spent nearly two decades building critical infrastructure and renewable energy companies across Europe and North America before pivoting to cybersecurity. He started DeNexus after discovering, as an energy operator, that he could not measure his own company's cyber risk or insure against it. His DeRISK platform turns technical threat data into financial metrics that boards and insurers can act on.
Forescout Technologies Inc.
Forescout Technologies is a San Jose-based cybersecurity company that gives organizations agentless visibility and control over every connected device on their networks - from laptops and phones to industrial controllers, medical equipment and IoT sensors that cannot run traditional security agents. Its platform, now branded Forescout Vistaro, spans IT, OT, IoT and IoMT environments and combines asset discovery, network access control, segmentation, threat detection and exposure management, backed by the Vedere Labs threat-research team. Serving roughly 3,200 customers including one in five Fortune 500 companies and numerous government agencies, Forescout competes in the fast-growing market for securing the sprawling, mixed device estates of modern enterprises and critical infrastructure.
Ingenium LA
Ingenium is an independent engineering, consulting and operations firm specializing in mission-critical data centers across Latin America. Founded in Costa Rica in 2008, it acts as a vendor-agnostic trusted advisor that plans, designs, builds, certifies and operates high-availability digital infrastructure. The firm has worked on more than 150 data center projects in over 20 countries and holds one of the region's largest rosters of engineers accredited by the Uptime Institute, BICSI, LEED, PMI and ISO - including work on Latin America's first Tier IV design certification.
Airspace Defense
Airspace Defense (formerly Airspace Systems) is a Silicon Valley company that secures the low-altitude airspace where drones increasingly operate. Its patented Airspace Spatial platform fuses Remote ID, RF and electronic sensing, radar and AI analytics to detect, identify and track unauthorized drones and their operators at city scale. Founded in 2015 by a team from Apple, Google and Cisco, the company serves public safety agencies, national defense and major enterprises, and its autonomous Interceptor drone is held in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Sunflower Labs
Sunflower Labs builds the Beehive - a fully autonomous, AI-powered drone security system for large outdoor properties. Its 'Bee' drone lives inside a weatherproof 'Hive' base station, launches within seconds of a triggered sensor, patrols a property while avoiding obstacles in nearly any weather, streams HD and thermal video, then returns to recharge on its own. Founded in 2016 and based in Zurich and San Francisco, the company pitches drones as a lower-cost, faster-responding alternative to human security patrols for industrial sites, commercial campuses, and high-value residential properties.
Guardian RF
Guardian RF builds low-cost, passive radiofrequency sensors that make low-altitude airspace observable in real time. Founded in 2024 by three Georgetown physics majors, the company deploys palm-sized 'Scout' sensors that detect the control signals drones and their operators emit, triangulating both across a mesh network. Its systems have been battle-tested on the front lines in Ukraine and are now fielded at Vandenberg Space Force Base and across U.S. airports and event venues, turning drone detections into structured, shareable intelligence.
Hirsch Group (fka Vitaprotech)
Hirsch Group (formerly Vitaprotech Group) is a France-based provider of premium, integrated physical-security systems for sensitive and high-security sites. Built by rolling up specialist companies - perimeter-intrusion pioneer Sorhea, access-control firm TIL Technologies, video-analytics maker Foxstream, UK detection specialist Harper Chalice, and others - it made its biggest leap in 2024 by acquiring the security business of U.S. firm Identiv for about $145 million, which brought the iconic Hirsch access-control brand into the fold. In 2026 the whole group unified under a single name, Hirsch, spanning command-and-control (PSIM), access control, video intelligence, credentials, door readers, and perimeter protection, with roughly $185M in revenue and 700+ employees.
ControlRooms.ai
ControlRooms.ai is an Austin-based industrial AI company that builds an AI-assisted troubleshooting platform for heavy industry - chemical, energy, and materials producers. Instead of relying on static, pre-programmed rules, its software learns a plant's normal behavior on its own and flags anomalies in real time across thousands of sensor parameters, helping operators catch small problems before they become unplanned trips, flaring events, or costly downtime. Founded in 2021 by serial AI entrepreneur Monte Zweben and Omar Talib, the company raised an oversubscribed $10M Series A in 2023 led by Origin Ventures and is live at industrial leaders including OCI Global and Ardagh Group.
Dispel
Dispel is an Austin, Texas-based operational technology (OT) cybersecurity company that builds a Zero Trust Engine for industrial control systems. Its platform combines secure remote access, real-time industrial data streaming, unified OT connectivity (OTFusion), and 24/7 threat monitoring, all built around Moving Target Defense - a technique that constantly shifts network paths so attackers never get a stable target. Dispel lets manufacturers, utilities, energy operators, and government agencies give vendors and engineers fast, audited access to plant equipment without the friction of legacy VPNs and jump boxes.
Daniel Bardenstein
Daniel Bardenstein is the CEO and co-founder of Manifest, a cybersecurity company building the platform that tells organizations what is actually inside their software and AI systems. He started Manifest in the wake of the Log4Shell crisis, when the world's biggest institutions discovered they could not answer a simple question: what code are we running? Before Manifest, he was chief of technology strategy at CISA, ran cybersecurity programs at the Pentagon's Defense Digital Service including Hack the Pentagon, co-led cyber protection for Operation Warp Speed's COVID-19 vaccine effort, and built products at Palantir and Exabeam. He treats software like an ingredients list the public has a right to read.
QuSecure
QuSecure is a San Mateo, California cybersecurity company that helps organizations defend against the threat that quantum computers pose to today's encryption. Its flagship platform, QuProtect, is a crypto-agility layer that discovers an organization's cryptographic assets and lets them migrate to NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptography without ripping out existing infrastructure or rewriting code. Founded in 2019 and led by CEO Rebecca Krauthamer, QuSecure has demonstrated quantum-resilient communications over live satellite links, won U.S. Army and Air Force contracts, and was named a 2026 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer.
Ian Schmertzler
Ian Schmertzler is co-CEO and co-founder of Dispel, an operational-technology cybersecurity company he started in 2015 with his brother Ethan. A Yale-trained industrial engineer and former crew coxswain, Ian helped build Dispel's zero trust platform around Moving Target Defense - a system that keeps shifting network access points so attackers never find a static target. He serves as a principal investigator on three NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence projects and as vice president of the National Defense Industrial Association's NY-CT chapter, working to keep factories, water utilities, and power grids running quietly and safely.
VIA
VIA (VIA Science, Inc.) is a Somerville, Massachusetts Web3 company building a decentralized, quantum-resistant, passwordless platform that lets governments and enterprises share and analyze sensitive data without exposing it. Backed by 18 issued patents, VIA is the first blockchain application to earn U.S. Department of Defense-wide cybersecurity accreditation, and its tools protect data and identities for the DoD, Fortune 100 firms, and energy utilities worldwide.
Advanced Battery Concepts
Advanced Battery Concepts is a Clare, Michigan battery maker that did something contrarian: instead of chasing lithium, it went back to lead-acid and reinvented it. Its patented GreenSeal bipolar architecture cuts lead content while boosting cycle life, and the company has licensed the design to global battery giants like Clarios, EnerSys, Exide, Crown and Trojan. With its EverGreenSeal line and BatteryBarn utility systems, ABC builds non-flammable, fully recyclable, domestically manufactured energy storage for critical infrastructure and the grid.
Asylon Robotics
Asylon Robotics builds US-made robotic security systems that pair autonomous aerial drones with ground robots (its Spot-based DroneDog) and AI command software to automate perimeter patrols for corporate campuses, logistics hubs, and critical infrastructure. Sold as Robotic Security as a Service and backed by a 24/7 Robotic Security Operations Center, the platform has run more than 250,000 missions across deployments in 15 U.S. states for customers including Ford, Bayer, GXO, Kia, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Alert Enterprise
Alert Enterprise is a Fremont, California-based software company that converges cyber security, physical security and identity management on a single SaaS platform. Its Guardian suite — now extended with AI agents on ServiceNow — automates who gets through which door, server, and substation across airports, utilities, banks, hospitals and Fortune 500 workplaces.
Nathan Hanks
Nathan Hanks is the co-founder of BrightAI, a physical AI platform company that deploys IoT sensors and edge AI to monitor and optimize critical infrastructure for enterprises. Previously, he co-founded ReachLocal, scaling it to $500M in annual revenue and 2,200 employees before its NASDAQ IPO in 2010 and subsequent acquisition by Gannett in 2016. He also founded Music Audience Exchange (MAX), a music sponsorship technology platform. At BrightAI, Hanks and his team bootstrapped the company to $80M in revenue before raising a $15M seed round in November 2024 and a $51M Series A in July 2025, with the company now surpassing $100M in annual revenue and 250,000+ AI endpoints deployed.
Ross Hangebrauck
Ross Hangebrauck is a General Partner at BVVC (Bravo Victor Venture Capital), a seed-stage fund backing mission-first founders building technologies at the intersection of national security and commercial innovation. A former U.S. Navy SEAL turned entrepreneur, he co-founded Hover Inc. in 2011 — a platform that turns smartphone photos into 3D home models — raising $142M and reaching 12 million homes scanned. After six years as a startup CEO and a stint managing international VC operations at Almaz Capital, he joined BVVC to back companies operating across defense, autonomy, robotics, and advanced manufacturing. He brings a rare operator-to-investor arc: from deploying in operational theaters worldwide to architecting portfolio companies that he says must deliver 'integration, interoperability, and scalability.'
Barry Mainz
Barry Mainz is the CEO of Forescout Technologies, a San Jose-based cybersecurity company specializing in device visibility, OT/IoT security, and network access control. With over 30 years of executive leadership across infrastructure software and cybersecurity, he previously served as CEO of MobileIron, COO of Malwarebytes, and President of Wind River Systems (Intel). At Forescout, Mainz has driven the company to record growth, including a 20% increase in new recurring bookings and 38% DoD business expansion in 2024, while positioning the platform as the leading solution for cyber resilience across converging IT, OT, and IoT environments. He also sits on the Board of Directors of BlackBerry.
Manuel Kaver
Manuel Kaver is the CEO of Ingenium LA, Latin America's first independent full-lifecycle critical infrastructure firm, overseeing 150+ data center projects across 17 countries and 250+ MW of managed capacity. With over 20 years in IT services - including a decade as CEO of GBM Corporation where he transformed the company from hardware sales to managed services - Kaver is building the engineering backbone of Latin America's digital future. He is also Chairman of ATTI Cyber, a cybersecurity company, and a sought-after speaker on edge computing, data center sustainability, and regional infrastructure strategy.
Sam Rehman
Sam Rehman is the CEO of Hitachi Cyber (Hitachi Systems Trusted Cyber Management Inc.), appointed in December 2025. A 30+ year cybersecurity and software engineering veteran, he was previously CISO and SVP, Head of Cybersecurity Business at EPAM Systems, CTO of Arxan Technologies, head of Cognizant's Digital Engineering Business, and VP of Engineering at Oracle. He holds patents in software security, cloud, storage and distributed computing.