Washington Harbour Partners LP (“Washington Harbour”), a leading private investment firm specializing in partnering with founders and management teams on unlocking their next phase of growth, announced today that it has made an over $60 million strategic growth investment in Raft LLC (“Raft”). Raft is a leading modern technology and data-focused, advanced software engineering firm, pioneering new, innovative solutions for the most critical mission sets across the Department of Defense and our nation.
“Our partnership with Washington Harbour will accelerate Raft’s mission of ushering in a new paradigm for the modern warfighter, across all domains of air, land, sea, space and cyber,” said Shubhi Mishra, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Raft. “Next generation, advanced technologies are transforming how wars are initiated, fought, resolved, won, and deterred. Washington Harbour’s deep knowledge of our industry, shared vision, and expansive strategic relationships all give me great confidence and excitement in continuing to serve our customers and our country, especially at the mission’s edge.”
The growth capital will empower Raft to intensify its research and development efforts, significantly enhancing its Command and Control (C2) product offerings for the tactical edge. This comprehensive suite, the majority of which includes Government Purpose Data Rights, is operational across multiple classifications and includes:
R[ABMS]: An AI-driven automated battle management system (ABMS) reshaping battlefield decision-making by freeing up the workload and training air battle managers.
R[Data Platform]: An intelligent, bi-directional, COP-agnostic, low-latency data platform that integrates any data type and modalities, enhancing situational awareness and decision-making processes.
R[UxS]: A software platform for onboarding and fusing unmanned systems (UxS) data, seamlessly integrating with existing data platforms to address the data silos.
R[DDIL]: A robust platform running edge-first architected applications, ensuring reliable operation in environments characterized by denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited bandwidth (DDIL).
These key investments are set to revolutionize command and control systems at the tactical edge, providing unparalleled operational flexibility and intelligence in all classifications.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with Shubhi and her team at Raft to help continue their incredible growth journey,” said Mina Faltas, Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Washington Harbour. “Raft’s world-class capabilities, cutting-edge products, outstanding reputation and qualifications, widely celebrated culture, and singular commitment to the national mission have fostered intensely intimate customer relationships – ones we take great responsibility in continuing to promote and nurture at the highest level.”
“This partnership will further enable us to build collective set of modern data capabilities across offensive & defensive cyber and C2 across the battle network”, said Bhaarat Sharma, Chief Technology Officer at Raft. “Multilevel Security (MLS) on a need-to-know basis, Human-Machine and Manned-Unmanned teaming at the tactical edge, refining ML models on limited datasets, and real-time analytics – are just some common requirements needed across the disparate battle network that Raft is operationalizing at multiple classification levels”.
Founded in 2018, Raft is acutely focused on solving the hardest, most complex problems facing the United States and its allies. The modern digital battlefield is continuously evolving and the problems facing the US and its allies are fundamentally software problems. Raft is harnessing the power of advanced technologies like AI & ML, through its custom full stack, data-focused architectural approach, to address the urgent need for more efficient and effective decision-making across all domains, providing modern solutions to modern problems.
“We have great respect and admiration for the culture of excellence that Raft has built and their relentless commitment as a trusted partner to their deep customer relationships,” said Jerad Speigel, Operating Partner at Washington Harbour. “Washington Harbour invests in and builds the next generation of blue chip, dominant companies in Federal – market leaders ushering in whole new eras of technological use cases – and we are incredibly excited to continue to support Raft’s vital role in national security.”
The investment in Raft is a natural fit for Washington Harbour’s operational and domain expertise in high-growth companies in non-cyclical industries, including government services, defense technology, cyber security, software, and tech-enabled business and consumer services.
Raft will serve as Washington Harbour’s platform for advanced software development for the Department of Defense, Intelligence Communities, and select Federal-Civilian Agencies, crafting innovative data-driven solutions and products for the most urgent challenges facing our nation and its military. As a market leader and innovator, Raft stands out as a powerhouse of deep engineering, data science, and machine learning innovation – pioneering revolutionary, AI-powered software to deliver operational advantages at speed, harnessing the power of data at scale. Raft will continue to be led by Founder & CEO, Shubhi Mishra, who remains a significant shareholder in the Company.
Washington Harbour was advised by Morrison & Foerster on legal matters and PwC on financial. Holland & Knight served as the legal advisor to Raft.
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