Smack Technologies, an El Segundo, CA-based frontier AI lab for national security, has raised $32M in Series A funding led by Geodesic Capital and Costanoa Ventures. The company develops domain-specific AI models powered by deep reinforcement learning trained in proprietary synthetic warfare environments. These models fuse multimodal data streams into real-time, campaign-informed decisions across the kill chain for the U.S. DoD and allies. The funding will scale development of its Omega command-level stack and Alpha edge AI platform.
Defense AI Funding Accelerates in 2026
The raise follows a wave of defense tech investments, with NODA AI securing $25M in Series A funding in February 2026 and TurbineOne raising $36M Series B in 2025. Rebellion Defense has amassed $224M in total funding. Smack differentiates through warfighter-led deep RL models grounded in adversary tactics and multi-domain physics, targeting gaps in LLM-based tools for high-stakes peer conflicts.
Kill Chains Fail Peer Conflict Speed
Traditional military decision loops take up to 96 hours in contested environments, hampered by siloed sensors and incomplete data. Peer adversaries like China and Russia demand decisions in seconds across air, sea, land, and cyber domains. Current solutions rely on static models ill-suited for dynamic warfare, leaving DoD vulnerable in joint fires and autonomous operations.
Deep RL Simulates Realistic Warfare
Smack's Omega stack converts commander intent into executable plans in minutes using multi-agent RL algorithms like MADDPG and proprietary knowledge graphs. Alpha delivers lightweight LoRA agents on tactical edge hardware for resilient, campaign-aware actions despite degraded communications. This end-to-end approach outperforms sensor-focused rivals like TurbineOne by optimizing the full kill chain.
As Andrew Markoff, Co-Founder and CEO, stated:
"In the short term, Decision Dominance will be the deciding factor in preventing WWIII."
Investors Back Frontier AI Lab
Geodesic Capital and Costanoa Ventures co-led the round, joined by Felicis Ventures, Point72 Ventures, and others including Bloomberg Beta. These growth-stage VCs signal conviction in Smack's scaling potential amid DoD's AI-First strategy. The investor mix provides strategic access to defense networks, accelerating from prototyping to production deployments.
$14B Defense AI Market Expands Rapidly
The AI and analytics defense market stands at $13.95B in 2026, projected to reach $23.49B by 2030 at 13.9% CAGR. DoD allocated a record $13.4B for AI and autonomy in FY2026. Competitors like Shield AI scale autonomous aircraft while Anduril advances its Lattice platform, but few match Smack's reinforcement learning focus for decision superiority.
MARSOC Veterans Anchor Team Expertise
Co-founders Andy Markoff (ex-MARSOC officer, Palantir operations) and Clint Alanis (20+ years Marine special operations) bring direct combat domain knowledge. CTO Dan Gould (ex-Tinder VP Technology, Brown computational science) leads engineering, complemented by Yale PhD Head of Decision Sciences Eli Levin. This blend of warfighter insight and tech scaling positions Smack to embed military realities into AI models.
Scaling DoD Prototypes to Production
With seven-figure contracts from Joint Fires Network and Marine Corps Warfighting Lab already secured, Smack plans team expansion including ML engineers like recent hire John Coogan, ex-USMC Fires Officer. The funding enables nationwide DoD branch growth directors to pursue coalition integrations and high-fidelity simulations generating 10,000+ courses of action per minute.