Editor’s Brief¹

Last week we looked at Saildrone and their take on a multi-mission platform supporting maritime domain awareness, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and deep-ocean mapping. In case you missed the new executive orders: Supersonic flight and Drone Dominance

This week, we return to software.

The U.S. isn’t going to out scale China any time soon, but it can outmaneuver it with AI deployed where it matters most.

Special thanks to Legion Intelligence CEO Ben Van Roo for taking some time to chat about all things AI and the company.

Signal Brief: Legion Intelligence - Finding the Next Asymmetric Advantage

Legion Intelligence is a key player in military AI, building software that helps multiple AI systems work together securely on classified networks. A true dual use play, the company has utilized commercial innovations to bring enterprise level software to the DoD.

Origins & Vision

Founded in 2022 as Yurts Technologies, the company emerged from direct collaboration with the Department of Defense to solve the challenge of deploying advanced AI capabilities within the security requirements of the military. CEO Ben Van Roo partnered with former Meta production engineer Jason Schnitzer and Caltech computational neuroscientist Dr. Guruprasad Raghavan.

In late 2023, Yurts secured a multi-year contract with the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to integrate large language models and help enhance workflows.  The partnership remains strong today as Legion and USSOCOM continue to evaluate and implement dozens of use cases, ranging from back-office and administrative efficiencies to mission-critical operational applications.

In April 2025, Yurts rebranded as Legion Intelligence to better define its vision of “a disciplined ecosystem of intelligent agents working collaboratively behind every decision-maker and every mission.” Legion’s current approach emphasizes human oversight and agent coordination to provide generative AI and information without sacrificing control or security.

Key Takeaways

• Data Sovereignty: Data isn’t used to train models, and nothing leaves the secure environment.

• Deploy Anywhere: On-premises, air-gapped networks, hybrid cloud, private VPC, edge deployments, or bare metal

• Security Barrier Success: Legion is the first AI platform on DoD secret networks (IL-6)

Tech Radar:

Agentic AI for Mission Critical Systems

Legion’s platform transforms how defense as well as commercial organizations deploy AI by enabling multiple specialized agents to collaborate within secure, controlled environments.

Key Capabilities

• Secure, Natural Language Search: Instantly search across all document types using plain language

• High-Security Document Writing: Generate reports, briefs, and operational documents using protected data.

• Embedded Digital Assistants: Streamline repetitive tasks and automate workflows by integrating AI assistants

• Proprietary Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG): Provides trustworthy, source-cited answers and highlights when AI-generated responses may require human verification

• Enterprise Data Integration: Connect with existing military systems including SharePoint, classified databases, and communications platforms

Deployment Flexibility and Security

Legion’s platform was designed for secure environments from the start:

• Deploy Anywhere: On-premises, air-gapped networks, hybrid cloud, private VPC, edge deployments, or bare metal

• Use Any LLM: Compatible with proprietary, open-source, and custom models, avoiding vendor lock-in.

• Granular Controls: Manage how data is ingested, which models are used, and who has access

• Data Sovereignty: Data isn’t used to train models, and nothing leaves the secure environment.

“The agentic app builder, tools suite, collaboration and access controls, and embedding options allow teams to quickly deploy tailored solutions, share critical context, and efficiently leverage AI for high-impact outcomes.”

Market Signals

Funding & Growth

• Total Funding: $56M across two rounds

• Latest Round: $40M Series B (Dec 2024)

• Notable Investors: XYZ Ventures, Nava Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Mango Capital, Essence VC

• Valuation: Undisclosed

• Contract Growth: Undisclosed

Contracts & Government Traction ²

Select Legion Intelligence contracts and partnerships include:

• USSOCOM Extended Contract: Multi-year agreement worth up to $16.3 million for GenAI deployment across Special Operations enterprise, extended May 2025.

• AFRL SBIR Phase 1 (May 2024): ~$73k contract with the Air Force 57th intelligence squadron to search all types of intelligence data.

• Department of Energy Deployment: Multi-year contract for GenAI deployments

• US Army: Multi-year contract to improve knowledge management and enhance training

• Palantir Technologies Partnership: Integrate with Palantir’s Apollo Mission Manager

Looking Ahead

The U.S. won’t be able to match China in raw numbers any time soon. Not in troops, factories, or UAVs flying off the line. Sure, it sounds defeatist, but it’s just math.

18-24 months of Series G-Z raises isn’t going to magically fix the problem either. So we need an asymmetric bet.

Historically, the Department of Defense created asymmetry through hardware. Stealth aircraft, precision munitions, GPS. But that model required massive investment, long development timelines, and decades of industrial lead.

Today, the edge must come from software. From AI that removes friction inside workflows, enhances planning, and compresses timelines without compromising control.

Yes, the tools are flawed. LLMs hallucinate. They can’t “think.” Apple’s recent Illusion of Thinking paper spells it out quite clearly. And yet, it’s irrelevant to the pace of global adoption.

We can either keep complaining about hallucinations or we can train models on better data, embed human judgment at the edge, and move forward.

As Legion CEO Ben Van Roo recently put it: “Adversarial nations are making the AI Cold War a national priority. We must do the same...”

AI won’t replace people, at least not yet. But it can enable faster planning. Faster targeting. Faster red-teaming. Smarter pattern recognition across siloed data.

If we spend $10 million on a model and it fails, fine. That’s less than 0.001% of the defense budget.

But if we miss the chance to back a platform that could compress decisions from days to minutes, unlocks buried institutional knowledge or break a kill chain before it forms?

That's an asymmetric risk.

So whether it’s Legion Intelligence in classified workflows or Vannevar Labs in intelligence work, we need to start taking actual bets and find our next asymmetric advantage.

Challenges

• Translating SOCOM Success to Conventional Forces - Scaling to broader force structures will test the platform’s usability, training models, and ability to integrate into more rigid command hierarchies.

• Navigating the New Procurement Landscape - Competing with established vendors means Legion must continually prove it’s the connective tissue between many tools.

• Recruiting and Retaining Cleared Talent - Classified deployments demand engineers fluent in both security protocols and advanced AI.

Bottom Line:

Efforts like AFRL’s NIPRGPT and the Navy’s DoNGPT show a growing appetite for AI-enabled capabilities across the force. But let’s be clear: software development is not and never will be a core competency of the military.

The mission is, and must remain, deterring aggression and, if necessary, winning wars.

Our force needs tools that make existing units faster, smarter, and better aligned. But the highest-value data lives on classified systems, where it’s siloed and largely unsearchable due to security constraints.

The real unlock is deploying AI tools into those environments. Yes, there are national security concerns if that data leaks.  But solving those challenges is exactly what companies like Legion Intelligence are designed to do.

AI is here. It’s not magic. It’s not sentient. But it is fast. And speed, in warfare, is everything.

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1  The views expressed in this newsletter are my own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, or any government agency. Mention of companies, technologies, or products is not an endorsement or recommendation. The content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

2  These insights are based on data organized on Pryzm, a defense market intelligence platform and CRM.