Integrate raises $17M to move defense project management into the 21st century | TechCrunch

"John Conafay, a veteran of the US Air Force, has spent most of his career leading business development at public and private aerospace companies, including Spire, Astranis, and ABL Space Systems. At each company, Conafay ran into the same software hurdle: collaborating on government contracts was a logistical mess that forced his teams and their federal counterparts to rely on a tedious back-and-forth of PDFs and Excel files."

"So, in early 2022, Conafay launched Integrate, a collaboration platform designed specifically to allow private companies, the US Department of Defense, and other government agencies to work jointly on classified, multi-entity projects. Last year, the Seattle-based startup won a $25 million, five-year contract from the US Space Force. That validation from a major agency was one of the reasons Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner at FPV Ventures, just led Integrate's $17 million Series A."

""If you don't build something from the ground up with government requirements, you can't really go back and re-architect software that exists for government purposes," he told TechCrunch."

John Conafay, a US Air Force veteran, led business development at aerospace firms including Spire, Astranis, and ABL Space Systems before founding Integrate in early 2022. Integrate provides a collaboration platform built to meet strict government security standards so private companies, the Department of Defense, and other agencies can jointly manage classified, multi-entity projects without relying on insecure PDFs and Excel workflows. The Seattle-based startup won a $25 million, five-year Space Force contract and raised a $17 million Series A led by FPV Ventures. The platform targets gaps left by mainstream tools like Jira and Asana that lack required security architecture.

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