DantiAn artificial intelligence company developing a super-powerful Earth data search engine has hired prominent defensive tech investor Shield Capital to scale its technology for government customers.
Founded in early 2023 by Jesse Kallman, Danti has developed a natural language search engine for data that has historically been highly siled, such as satellite imagery, and merged it with other commercial and government sources to report across multiple sources and domains create.
For example, an analyst can ask a complex question in simple language, such as “What are the recent tank movements in eastern Ukraine?”, and in turn receive straightforward answers compiled across different data sources.
The idea is to empower a single analyst to do more, Kallman said in a recent interview. As American adversaries deploy manpower to analyze massive amounts of data, Danti wants to “help one analyst do the work of 10 or 15,” he said. This means that a relatively simple question – for example, where a particular ship is off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria – may be able to be answered in seconds rather than hours.
“We are not replacing the analysts,” Kallman clarified. “We’re helping them do their work a lot quicker so they can get to the part that humans are much better at, which is synthesizing and deciding, ‘Now what do I do with this information?'” How do I want to report on this ?’ “
Among the startup’s first customers is the US Space Force, which uses Danti’s product to help officials easily search and share data. Using natural language models in the search engine means an intuitive, straightforward user experience; Undoubtedly, this is paramount in high-pressure situations where analysts need to make complex decisions but have little time to sift through reams of satellite or drone data.
Currently Danti is clearly focused on government, but in the longer term it plans to launch a version of its product for the commercial industry. This version would focus on property records, package information and risk data to serve markets such as utilities and insurance, Kallman said. Customers can also integrate their own information into Danti’s engine to use its natural language processing to query their own data.
The $5 million round was led by Shield Capital and includes participation from the startup’s existing investors Tech Square Ventures, Humba Ventures and Leo Polovets, Space.VC and Radius Capital. Kallman said the startup deliberately sought a defense-focused fund to lead its next round, particularly as the company looks to implement its government go-to-market plan and grow its engineering team.
Since last summer, when The company announced its $2.75 million pre-seedThe team has grown to over twenty people, and Kallman said the engineering team will grow even further with the new cash infusion.