Dan Wright, CEO Armada | Trae Stephens Next Big Bet

$100M For The New Edge

Bridging the Digital Divide

Today Molly O'Shea speaks with ⁠Dan Wright⁠ (follow on X), CEO of ⁠Armada⁠, backed with $100M to date from notable investors like Trae Stephens from Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Lux, Dragon Global, Microsoft’s M12, 8VC, Shield Capital, Felicis, Commodity Capital, Contrary, among others.

Trae Stephens and the 137 Ventures team helped Dan found Armada in the early innings, noting Trae’s “Choose Good Quests” was a meaningful influence to go big.

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Armada is a leading full-stack edge computing company deploying servers for advanced AI applications in remote locations. More impressively, this company barely started two years ago and has been out of stealth for less than a year, while achieving critical milestones like partnerships with Starlink, Skydio, Halliburton, reaching almost 50 countries, and more.

“Around 10% of enterprise-generated data is created and processed outside a traditional centralized data center or cloud. By 2025, Gartner predicts this figure will reach 75%”

Dan is a remarkable figure in the world of data coming from key executive positions at DataRobot and AppDynamics, while Armada’s COO ⁠Jon Runyan⁠ led Okta through its IPO, and CTO ⁠Pradeep Nair⁠ was VP of MSFT Azure. This is a great sneak peek into the early innings of one of the next most important rocket ship companies in technology.

“In terms of milestones, we don't think of them in terms of months or years out. Every day we need a new milestone. We move insanely fast at Armada, which I think is a by product of the quality of the team that we have, but also total clarity about what we're building. Also why we can afford to be really ambitious.” - Dan Wright

Highlights, News, Fundraising Info, & Memo below.

Highlights:

• (00:00) Introduction & Founding of Armada w/ Trae Stephens & 137 Ventures

• (02:52) Recruiting Top 1% Talent 

• (04:34) Armada's Product Suite: Connect, Edge, and OpsAI 

• (14:20) GTM Strategy & Rapid Global Expansion to ~50 Countries

• (21:01) White Space: Why No One Has Solved This

• (22:42) Key Partnerships & Building a Moat 

• (24:02) Sourcing GPUs & Scaling Production 

• (25:51) Growth Strategies From DataRobot to AppDynamics

• (27:52) $100M in VC Funding: Capital Allocation & Milestones 

• (30:39) Crazy Edge Cases, Team Expansion, and Hiring Priorities

Armada in the News

• NVIDIA Inception Member: Armada | Edge AI and High-Performance Computing in Remote Areas

• Satya Nadella recognizes Armada at Microsoft Ignite, noting how Armada is utilizing Starlink connectivity and their partnership with MSFT Azure to bring cutting-edge AI and local data insights to the most remote and challenging environments worldwide [more slides]

Choosing Good Quests

The idea for Armada started as a friendly conversation between Dan Wright and Trae Stephens, of Anduril and Founders Fund. They discussed Dan’s next big move to change the world after executive roles leading data teams at DataRobot and AppDynamics. Specifically, they focused on a few macro trends:

1. Starlink rapidly bringing connectivity to remote locations around the world (Starlink is now 2/3 of all Satellites in orbit, bringing connectivity to 100 countries with 7,000 satellites)

2. The explosion of IoT with the cost of cameras, sensors, drones, and robots decreasing significantly in the last five years

3. The rise of large language models and advanced AI applications in operations following the wake of ChatGPT

At the time of their conversation, Trae was writing an article titled 'Choose Good Quests'. This article influenced their decision to think bigger, create impact, and pursue Armada as their next venture. Alongside Trae, Armada was founded with strategic input from Christian Garrett, Justin Fishner-Wolson and Alex Jacobson of 137 Ventures. They saw Armada as a 'good quest' worth spending a lot of time on and they believed that if the company succeeded, the world would be a better place for it.

Trae led the first round of capital for Armada’s $55M in financing with Lux, Shield, and 8090 Industries. This marked the beginning of Armada's journey.

Huge Opportunity

The edge computing market is expanding rapidly, driven by the need for real-time data processing in remote locations for legacy industries left in the dark, often with stale data, a critical need to address billions of dollars in commercial decision making, and safety response.

Armada's focus on the "remote edge," which constitutes about 70% of the world, positions it to capture a significant share of this burgeoning market. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 75% of all data will be generated at the edge, underscoring the vast potential for Armada's growth.

Going “Full-Stack” First

Armada provides technology to remote areas where connectivity and cloud infrastructure is limited, and where deep analytics and AI are needed to transform operations at the edge. Armada offers a comprehensive full-stack edge computing platform which integrates three key products: Connect, Edge, and OpsAI.