Rune Technologies, co-founded by David Tuttle, have just raised a whopping $24 million in a Series A funding round led by Verizon. This funding has the potential to transform military logistics with cutting-edge artificial intelligence. The funding will propel the use of generative AI into their flagship platform, TyrOS. This platform is uniquely oriented toward creating lines of effort in complex operating environments.
The Series A round received a lot of attention from big name backers — including former executives from tech behemoths Palantir and Anduril. Tuttle, who co-founded Rune with partner Carla Pugh, told us that he was excited about finding collaboration opportunities with these titans of industry.
Rune Technologies’ team is made up of about two-thirds military veterans, lending tremendous discipline and focus to the new venture. This diverse makeup provides the company with a deep appreciation and understanding of the military’s needs, challenges, and operating environment. TyrOS aims to automate the link between tactical-level intelligence and strategic decision-making. This new approach is designed to make all your military operations dynamic, adaptive and able to shift on the fly as needed.
In his written testimony, Tuttle underscored the urgent need to rethink military logistics. He pointed out that current operations heavily rely on outdated methods, stating, “The U.S. military runs on Excel spreadsheets and white boards and manual processes right now to execute logistics operations.” TyrOS’ singular mission is to cut out inefficiencies. Rune Technologies utilizes AI capabilities to chīk through complex, large-scale datasets, allowing military operational forces to make informed decisions in real-time on the battlefield.
To date, the company has deployed pilot deployments successfully with the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps. These deployments help illustrate the real-world applications of their technology. Tuttle highlighted the importance of sustainability in supply chains during prolonged operations, noting, “I’m not just worried about sustaining this for the next 30 or 60 days.” His vision reaches past today’s needs to focus on a long-term solution that will guarantee ongoing operational success in unforgiving environments for the future.
In creating TyrOS, Rune Technologies takes on tough logistical problems for operating forces. Tuttle remarked, “Logistics is never the sexiest part of the military. The technology industry emphasis is on how do we make things go boom? How do we build great weapons systems?” This view reinforces the realignment of emphasis that we’ve seen over the past several years on improving logistical capabilities as a key area of military lethality.
With each of these global conflicts, Tuttle urges, can be viewed through the lens of real-world situations that are screaming for improving and modernizing military logistics. He cited Ukraine as a blatant example. She said that it illustrates the devastating consequences of mismanaged supply chains on the front lines of combat. “Ukraine is a sad example of the expenditures of munitions, the consumption of supplies, and those types of things in a near-peer adversary conflict – they will break human-centric and analog-centric processes,” he explained.
The long-term vision for Rune Technologies is ambitious yet clear: to create a seamless integration of tactical intelligence with strategic decision-making through automated solutions. This comprehensive integration will equip military leaders with real-time, data-driven insights, digitizing logistics operations and ultimately improving the effectiveness of all missions executed.
Constructing software for military applications has challenges fundamentally different from non-military commercial environments. Tuttle noted, “Building software today from a cloud environment standpoint is very different architecturally than if I’m building software to run literally on this laptop in the jungle in the Philippines with Marines or soldiers.” This insight is what informs Rune’s mission powering our commitment to creating resilient solutions specifically designed for the challenges of military operations.