Watchtower Labs has emerged from stealth with $35 million in seed financing to build AI-native software designed to help military leaders and planners evaluate operational scenarios, anticipate changing conditions, and make decisions under time pressure. The financing was led by Shield Capital and Conviction, with participation from Founders Fund.
Watchtower plans to use the capital to expand its team, develop additional applications on top of its core platform, and continue testing and deploying the technology across military planning environments.
The company is initially focused on logistics and sustainment planning, where variables such as transportation, fuel, spare parts, munitions, routes, and timing can determine whether a mission can be executed.
Watchtower combines artificial intelligence, simulation, and optimization to model hundreds of possible operational futures while accounting for real-world constraints. The platform generates executable options and surfaces the assumptions and tradeoffs behind each scenario. Planners can interact with the system using plain-language questions while human decision-makers retain control over final actions.
The company began working with the Naval Postgraduate School in 2025 to support platform development using operations research, operationally relevant data, and input from defense practitioners.
In January 2026, the Defense Innovation Unit selected Watchtower Labs under the Joint Sustainment Decision Tool program, which is intended to provide operational and joint commands with advanced decision-support capabilities.
Watchtower Labs was incubated within Shield Capital and co-founded by Akhil Iyer, Souren Aghajanyan, and John Morman. Iyer previously served as a Marine special operations officer and worked as an investor at Shield Capital, while Aghajanyan and Morman are former Microsoft engineering leaders with experience building large-scale distributed systems.
The company is positioning its platform for broader operational planning beyond sustainment. Watchtower said its technology is intended for environments where conditions shift quickly, resources are constrained, and plans must be repeatedly adjusted as new information becomes available.
The new financing will support that expansion as Watchtower develops additional applications around its core decision environment and increases deployment with operational users.
KEY QUOTES:
“We started this company on the vision of leaders who understood what AI could bring to our most consequential decisions. These conditions can change faster than traditional planning processes can keep pace, forcing staff to continually reassess plans under increasing time pressure.”
Akhil Iyer, Co-Founder And Chief Executive Officer Of Watchtower Labs
“An entire generation of companies is being built from scratch on what AI can now do, against the most challenging geopolitical environment in decades. Shield Capital sits at that intersection, bringing frontier technology together with teams that understand the mission.”
Raj Shah, Founder And Managing Partner At Shield Capital And Chairman Of Watchtower Labs
“AI is accelerating the pace, quality and communication of decision-making across the commercial realm. Its impact is still nascent in the realm of national security, but it will be decisive. Logistics is the backbone of our military’s power, and yet we’re stuck in the Stone Age. Our ability to simulate our capabilities, our adversaries, and our options remains painfully inadequate. The Watchtower team uniquely understands this problem, and is prepared to solve it for decisive advantage.”
Sarah Guo, Founder Of Conviction
