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Philong Duong
Philong Duong is CEO and co-founder of NODA AI, an Austin-based defense technology company building an AI-native orchestration platform (Urza) that acts as the 'chess player' coordinating heterogeneous unmanned and manned assets across vendors. A Marine Corps veteran, former CH-46E and MV-22B pilot, and JTAC on multiple Middle East deployments, he was C3.ai's first Federal Product Manager, helping scale its federal ARR from under $1M to nearly $100M. NODA closed a $25M Series A in February 2026 led by Bessemer at a $125M valuation.
Garrett Smith
Garrett Smith is the founder and CEO of Reveal Technology, a Bozeman, Montana defense-tech company that turns drone video into offline 3D maps and runs mobile biometrics on a phone at the tactical edge. A former U.S. Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer who still serves in the reserves, Smith built the company he wished he had in combat, where he was making high-stakes decisions off pen-and-paper maps in a digital war. Reveal's Farsight and Identifi platforms are used by U.S. Special Operations, the Army, the Marines, and allied forces in Ukraine, the UK, and Israel. In July 2025 the company closed a $30 million Series B led by Ballistic Ventures.
Lamine Zarrad
Lamine Zarrad is the founder and CEO of StellarFi, an Austin-based fintech that reports everyday bill payments to the three major credit bureaus so Americans with thin or no credit files can build a score without taking on debt. A refugee from Soviet-era Azerbaijan who sold pirated VHS tapes in a Moscow chemical lab as a teenager, he went on to serve in the Marine Corps, work as a National Bank Examiner at the OCC, and build three fintech startups in a decade. StellarFi raised a $15M Series A in March 2023 led by Acrew Capital, and its members average a 26-point credit-score jump in their first month.