Armada is a company that provides an edge computing platform for data centers. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Armada co-founder and CEO Dan Wright to learn more about the company.
Dan Wright’s Background
What is Dan Wright’s background? Wright said:
“I am the co-founder and CEO of Armada, where I lead our mission to bridge the digital divide. This not my first journey bringing AI to critical operations – prior to Armada, I served as DataRobot’s CEO as the company hit hypergrowth, and before that I was the COO of AppDynamics through the company’s last-minute $3.7 billion Cisco acquisition. I’m also an active angel investor, advisor and board member, working with companies like Abnormal Security, Avi Networks and Embrace.”
Formation Of Armada
How did the idea for the company come together? Wright shared:
“Every role I’ve had, I’ve been immersed in data, but it’s been in a very cloud-centric context. The past few years we’ve seen huge volumes of data coming out of the edge – costs have shrunk 10x for cameras, sensors, drones and industrial robotics, and innovations on both hardware and software have given us the opportunity to actually do something with the data those devices are creating, in a market that the major cloud providers are ignoring.”
“Take an oil rig – the average rig produces around 2TB of data each day, but right now, virtually nothing is being done with that data. Meanwhile, those same oil rigs are hamstrung by connectivity issues. With the rise of Starlink and other SatComm providers, and some of the innovations in the AI space, we’re now able to bridge all those gaps at once – that’s really what Armada is about. The company itself came out of a number of discussions between myself, my co-founder Jon Runyan, and many of our investors and partners, like Founders Fund and 137 Ventures, as we looked for a company to build that would have a material, positive impact on the world. We believe Armada can be that – we’re giving internet to underserved communities, helping state governments avert and respond to disasters, enabling disparate command units to interact on the battlefield with intelligence, and more.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Wright reflected:
“A memorable moment for me was hearing the feedback from our first major deployment with a government agency. That agency for years has struggled to respond to avalanches and extreme storms with spotty connectivity. They had started to use surveillance video to identify survivors, map the changing radius of impact, and coordinate a response, but it took days to stream and analyze that video. Latency was a killer. When we first booted up the Commander dashboard for them and showed the potential of our Galleons to process this data on-site, on-the-move in real time, it was a lightbulb moment. That’s what Armada’s about. I can’t wait to see how they use our technology in the coming months and continue discovering new use cases.”
Core Products
Screenshot
What are the company’s core products and features? Wright explained:
“Armada is compute and AI at the edge, anywhere. At its core, Armada is a full-stack edge company, deploying across any on-premise or cloud infrastructure to enable better remote capabilities. Along with an end-to-end software platform (Commander Connect) that serves as a single source of truth for all of a company’s edge operations, Armada also offers a complete hardware solution for the ruggedized, mobile edge compute in remote areas: a datacenter in a box (known as the “Galleon”) – the shipping container-like product can be deployed anywhere in the world, processing and transmitting data on-site at the edge using Starlink. Armada’s Edge AI Marketplace brings together their hardware and software via a directory of first- and third-party applications, which can be deployed on-site via the Galleon’s built-in GPUs, or in a centralized data center environment. We also work directly with customers to build custom applications for their specific use cases.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Wright and the team faced in building the company? Wright acknowledged:
“I like to think of our customers’ challenges as our challenges – we’re ultimately in the business of solving customer problems. In that sense, the challenges are endless, and that’s exciting. Picture AI detecting an imminent breach on an oil rig prior to a spill – countless lives and dollars would be saved, and the averted environmental harm would be immense. Or take rail travel – in the US, there’s an average of over three train derailments per day. Those types of catastrophic accidents don’t need to happen in a truly connected world, and it’s those types of challenges that we help our customers overcome.”
Evolution Of Armada’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Wright noted:
“We’ve had the same vision since the very beginning, and we launched from stealth having spent a year preparing – in that sense, not much has changed in the six months since launch. What has grown is our marketplace and ecosystem, which has allowed our technology to get in more places and have more impact. We’ve built out our Edge AI marketplace with dozens of applications designed for all kinds of potential use cases, and we’ve signed key partnerships to bring our tech to new markets. Our partnership with Microsoft is particularly exciting – all of our products are available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, with Azure customers able to use pre-committed Azure spend on Armada products. We’ve already heard incredible feedback from customers on this – in many ways, it’s like getting Armada for free.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Wright cited:
“Since emerging from stealth with $55 million in funding in December 2023, Armada has made significant progress – we recently announced an additional $40M fundraise led by M12, on the back of key partnership agreements with Skydio, Edarat Group and more.”
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Wright highlighted:
“Armada’s technology is live in 43 countries spanning the globe, showcasing Armada’s versatile and impactful solutions. These customers include global oil and gas conglomerates, CPG and entertainment companies, state government agencies and more.”
Funding
When asking Wright about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“Most recently, Armada announced a $40 million funding round in June of 2024, which was led by M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund). This funding followed a December raise of over $55 million and brings total capital to over $100 million.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Wright assessed:
“I don’t want to limit us, because I do think this can be a generational company. What I’ll say is this – cloud computing today is something like a $1T market. Not only have the cloud providers left huge swaths of the world untouched, the workloads they do support are increasingly moving to the edge. That gives us a lot of confidence, and excitement, about our prospects.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Wright affirmed:
“There’s plenty of folks fighting over the cloud computing market, and plenty of companies focused on edge computing as well. But there’s no one that’s doing what we’re doing – we’re creating a new kind of cloud by combining our mobile data centers with truly global connectivity. It’s a huge unlock for our customers, and they’re eager to make that leap with us because we have a one-stop shop for them – we build the hardware and the software, and we provide all the connections and integrations you need to get it up and running and successful.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Wright concluded:
“Our mission is ambitious – we want to bridge the digital divide. We need to expand our offerings to do that – along with our flagship, 40-foot Galleon, we produce a scaled-down, 20-foot version that can be easily transported by truck or helicopter. You’ll see more from us in terms of both form factors and software flexibility going forward, and as our marketplace continues to expand, we’ll be able to solve even larger and more complex problems.”
“Long term, though, our goals go back to our vision – we wanted to start a company that would have a material positive impact on America and the world. Whether that’s supporting our military capabilities or providing free connectivity to underserved communities, I see a ton of ways we can bring about real change.”
