Sean Lane is back: The entrepreneur registered a new startup in Central Ohio the same day erstwhile unicorn Olive AI Inc., the company he founded and led as CEO, announced it was being sold for parts and shuttered.
Ghostdog Inc. in recent weeks released promotional videos on YouTube for software aimed at military and national security information – with some functions sounding very similar to what Olive tried to do for hospitals.
"We’re not the people on the front lines. ... We are their geek squad," Lane wrote in a LinkedIn post over the weekend. "We are the ones that put everything we’ve got into building tools for them so they can do their jobs better."
Ghostdog was incorporated in Delaware on July 24, overlapping with the final months of Olive. Its Oct. 31 registration with the Ohio Secretary of State lists Lane as CEO and an address in a condo suite of the Worthington Inn.
Lane's co-founder is Carlton "Bubba" Fox, a former Olive COO and like Lane a military intelligence veteran, according to the company's first LinkedIn newsletter, which describes the startup as "the modern, mission browser for the classified web."
Lane did not respond to a LinkedIn message seeking comment.
Ghostdog has not filed any notice of fundraising with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Representatives of Drive Capital LLC, the Columbus VC firm that was the first and a repeat investor in Olive, formerly CrossChx, were not immediately available for comment.
Olive had raised more than $850 million in venture capital over the past decade, the vast majority since 2020. The company peaked at some 1,400 employees nationwide before a series of cutbacks and selling of product lines. The final pieces were sold off for undisclosed amounts and the company liquidated. Lane has not granted interviews about the shutdown.
Lane also spun another company Circulo Health, out of Olive, at first to use its software to power a Medicaid managed care plan. That plan was abandoned, and this year the company merged with an agency owned by Lane's father in Southeast Ohio that provides home and community-based care for those with developmental disabilities.
Fox left Olive in February 2020 after more than four years, before its statewide record-setting streak of VC raises.
Lane and Fox are U.S. Air Force veterans, and Lane's first startup, in Baltimore, arose from a battlefield communications system he designed. Ghostdog marks a return to that world.
Military intelligence and national security operations use an integrated information platform called the "classified web," but it's currently accessed through everyday internet browsers, according to Ghostdog's newsletter.
Ghostdog is meant as a purpose-built browser with additional security measures – so within its confines, it allows for precise searching and sharing of information, guided by AI.
The technology now is at the readiness level of a lab prototype, according to the newsletter, and the goal is to run pilots with a working prototype in an operational setting early next year.
One Ghostdog promo video depicts a fictional collaboration among multiple agencies and sites to pinpoint information on movement of Russian weapons. The narrator of the product videos describes the platform's "many powerful capabilities," including searching for keywords such as names, places and concepts; forming networks of information and analyzing them for hidden insights; and countermeasures to block unauthorized access.
"This can free up your time to focus on more important tasks," the narrator said.
Each video ends with a signoff: "Ghostdog out."
The search and analysis functions sound very similar to the Olive robotic process that worked alongside hospital administrative staff to search medical records and insurance verification, flagging coverage lapses or other errors. Olive marketed itself as freeing workers for higher-level thinking.
A spokeswoman for the National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency was unfamiliar with the company and could not comment on it.
"There are certainly numerous companies developing AI, machine learning, and computer vision tools to help automate searches and establish pattern recognition," she said via email. "Any company that works with the government has to ensure their products are aligned with the appropriate security requirements."
Lane's LinkedIn post for Ghostdog's debut cited the motto for his first company:
"Hic Sumus Pro Bellator. 'We are here for the warrior,'" he wrote. "It’s been the mission that has driven every day since."
