DoD Selects Obviant's Data Platform
The Department of Defense's Acquisition and Sustainment Office has selected Obviant’s Data Visibility Platform. The software is designed to provide enterprise-grade data tools to improve program tracking, compliance, and decision-making within the defense procurement lifecycle.
- This contract is an expansion of a $99 million prototype Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) awarded to Obviant by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) in late 2025, signaling a successful transition from a pilot program to a broader, enterprise-level implementation. - Obviant's AI-powered platform ingests and structures data from thousands of disparate sources, including defense budget justification books, program documentation, and Congressional reports, to create a unified "single source of truth" for the acquisition lifecycle. - The initiative directly supports the 2020 DoD Data Strategy, which aims to make the department a data-centric enterprise by making data more visible, accessible, and understandable for decision-making. - Founded in 2021 by Brendan Karp and Dylan Taylor, the Arlington, VA-based startup raised $7.1 million in a June 2025 seed round led by Shield Capital to develop its platform. - Obviant's platform may complement or potentially compete with the Pentagon's own internal data analytics platform, Advana, which is managed by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO). - To deepen its defense sector expertise, Obviant recently appointed Mike Madsen as its Vice President for National Security. Madsen previously served as the acting director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and led a Congressionally-mandated panel to modernize the defense acquisition system.
