Watchtower Labs, a US-based defense technology startup developing AI-powered military decision-support software, announced $35 million in seed funding on October 21, 2026. The round was co-led by Shield Capital and Conviction, with participation from Founders Fund. The announcement also marked the company’s emergence from stealth.
Founded in 2024, Watchtower Labs was co-founded by Akhil Iyer, Souren Aghajanyan and John Morman. Iyer, the company’s CEO, previously served as a Marine special operations officer and worked as an investor at Shield Capital. Aghajanyan and Morman previously held engineering roles at Microsoft, where they worked on large-scale distributed systems. The startup was incubated within Shield Capital.
Watchtower Labs develops software that combines artificial intelligence, simulation and mathematical optimization to support military planning and operational decision-making. Its platform allows planners to evaluate potential scenarios, assess operational constraints and compare different courses of action before making decisions.
The company is initially focused on military logistics and sustainment planning, including the movement and allocation of fuel, munitions, spare parts and other critical resources. Its software models hundreds of potential scenarios and presents the assumptions, risks and trade-offs associated with different operational plans. Users can interact with the system through natural-language queries while retaining control over final decisions.
In 2025, Watchtower Labs partnered with the Naval Postgraduate School to support the development of its technology through operations research and collaboration with defense practitioners.
In January 2026, the company received a prototype contract through the Defense Innovation Unit’s Joint Sustainment Decision Tool program. The initiative focuses on developing advanced logistics planning systems capable of forecasting resource requirements and supporting military operations under changing conditions.
Watchtower Labs plans to use the seed financing to expand its team, develop additional applications on its core platform and continue testing and deployment. The company also intends to extend its technology beyond logistics into broader military operational planning.
