Burlingame startup Reveal Technology Inc., which makes automated 3D map software for combat infantry, recently received strategic investment of an undisclosed sum from defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH).
The partnership will allow Reveal to leverage Booz’s network of customers and contracts, along with risk capital from Booz’s VC arm.
Reveal’s flagship product, the Farsight software platform, allows infantry troops in combat areas to create 2D and 3D maps of surrounding areas by flying small drones overhead.
The software connects with smartphones and tablets, and uses machine learning and AI to automatically generate maps from the drone imagery, while marking locations of buildings, vehicles and people. It even suggests routes for the users to take based on lines of sight from surrounding buildings, minimizing the risk of drawing fire.
The firm’s founder and CEO Garrett Smith drew on personal experiences serving in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marines to develop the technology.
“My unit was executing a raid on a border town in Helmand province and made numerous intel requests from HQ to get up to date imagery, safest routes, etc,” he said. “But given that we were average infantry, low on the totem pole, all we got was 7- or 8-year-old low res imagery of the area, and had to go ahead with the mission with basically just a topographical map.”
He said most infantry squads in the U.S. military these days carry a small simple drone, but Reveal’s software can also be used on the larger more technical ones deployed for special forces operations.
Smith said Reveal’s map software is already being used by U.S. military infantry in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, as well as in Eastern Europe (though he said he can’t go into more details about that).
The company was founded late 2020 and has 25 employees. Smith expects the team to grow about 30% thanks to the cash injection. The firm gave up its Burlingame office thanks to the pandemic, but may consider leasing office space sometime soon.
