The most secure place on Earth used to be a locked room at the Pentagon. Now, it might be in your pocket, if you're carrying Adyton PBC.
Founded in 2018 by James Boyd and JJ Wilson, two former US Army Special Forces operators who swapped camo for code, Adyton didn’t show up to play defense. They showed up to disrupt it. These are not your typical founders, they didn’t come from a startup incubator or an HBS case study. They came from deployments and briefings, where seconds matter and good tech can mean the difference between chaos and control.
James, who went from running ops in the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) U.S Army to business development at Palantir Technologies, knows how to weaponize data. JJ took his operational experience and sharpened it at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Together, they launched Adyton, a venture-backed public benefit corp that doesn’t just build software, it builds digital firepower for the United States Department of Defense and beyond.
And now, backed by $11 million in fresh capital led by Venrock, with repeat conviction from Khosla Ventures, Initialized Capital, Kindred Ventures, and Palumni VC, Adyton’s total raise just cleared $27 million. That’s not just a funding round, it’s a battle cry. A green light to go faster, deeper, and wider across the defense stack.
Their flagship? AOK. The Adyton Operations Kit. It sounds chill, but it’s not here to make life easy, it’s here to make it secure, synced, and unbreakable. Think mobile-first command and control, from Mustr for personnel accountability to Log-E for gear, and Skeds for tight scheduling. All built with zero trust architecture, 140+ APIs, and encryption so tight it makes Fort Knox look like a middle school locker.
This isn't just software. It's the operating system for a modern military, real-time, modular, built for edge environments where Wi-Fi is a myth and latency gets people hurt. Already deployed across the Army, US Navy, Air Force, and Army National Guard, Adyton doesn’t need to pitch its value. The results speak fluently, 3,000+ soldiers coordinated with response times slashed by 8x. NIST 800-53 compliant. U.S. Air Force Certificate to Field locked in. Basic Ordering Agreement with the Navy secured.
Adyton isn’t another defense startup chasing contracts. It’s a warfighter-built movement solving for mission-critical chaos with cold, clean code. From Dallas to the frontlines, they’re turning mobile devices into mission control hubs.
Let’s connect and keep the momentum going across the tech ecosystem. Whether you’re a founder shaping the future, a leader driving change, a VC backing bold ideas, or an investor spotting the next big thing—together, we’re pushing boundaries. Proud to be building the future with you.
Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter (X), and keep the conversation going.
If engineering peace of mind is what you crave, Vention is your zen.