The U.S. Air Force awarded Tampa-based Genesis Systems a $1.2 million contract for its technology that creates water.
The U.S. Air Force — through its innovation arm AFWERX — contracted Genesis Systems for a water creation device. The water-generating device can be carried by two people and powered by a vehicle, and the U.S. Air Force intends to deploy the device to disaster environments, according to a release.
"We look forward to building a new line of portable systems to support deployed U.S. troops and others in challenging areas where reliable fresh water is required,” said Genesis Systems co-founder and CEO Shannon Stuckenberg in a statement. “Historically, water has been one of the central constraints to military operations."
The phase two contract comes from the Small Business Innovation Research program, a federal collaboration between the government and research startups. The process is competitive, and only phase one awardees are typically eligible for phase two. The funding of the phase two contract is based on the results of phase one and the project's merit, according to the SBIR website.
Genesis Systems' was awarded a $50,000 SBIR phase one contract in 2019 in an open call for innovative defense-related dual-purpose technologies.
Other startups in the Tampa Bay area ecosystem have also engaged the federal program, like Tampa software firm Certus Core's phase one award for an AI project; Tampa-based Rise8 $95 million contract modification and phase three award; and Tampa-based defense tech startup Tesseract Ventures' $1.3 million contract with the Space Force. Each of these startups works with AFWERX.
Testing the waters
Genesis Systems migrated to Tampa in 2021 from Kansas City after being founded by married couple Shannon and David Stuckenberg in 2017. The startup employs less than 25 employees and is headquartered in a 25,000-square-foot space in South Tampa, David Stuckenberg, the co-founder, COO, and president of Genesis Systems, said.
David Stuckenberg describes the research and development operations at the space as the "skunkworks" — slang for an exploratory project based on defense company Lockheed Martin's secret weapons facility — of water and food technologies.
The startup is building a portfolio of more than a dozen technologies related to water management and generation, David Stuckenberg said. The Watercube 100, a consumer-grade iteration of the water generator, is currently listed at $25,000 and is available for a reservation fee of $500, and the large box converts air into 120 gallons of water per day, according to its website.
The SBIR phase two contract serves to work on a portable, military-ready version of the technology, David Stuckenberg said.
Genesis Systems has raised more than $10 million in seed funding. In 2022, the company pulled in $10 million from 35 investors, including investor Paresh Ghelani, Texas-based construction firm Southland Holdings, California venture capitalist Jordan Noone, former chief scientist at Lockheed Martin Ned Allen, former CIA director Robert James Woolsey, and former NFL player Chad Hennings, according to Tampa Bay Inno reporting. Before that, the company raised more than $5 million across investments, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company is hoping to raise more capital in the coming year, David Stuckenberg said.
David Stuckenberg worked for the U.S. Air Force for over a decade, he said. He also spent two years as a director of a Pentagon initiative called the Electromagnetic Defense Task Force, according to his LinkedIn. In total, he has flown more than 150 combat missions, he said.
In November of 2023, David Stuckenberg launched a campaign for president. He remains in the race, he said.
"It was a long shot to try to really move the conversation back to where things could be reasonable again," David Stuckenberg said.
Stuckenberg's presidential bid did not compete with his business interests, he said. He has "been busier" at other times in his life, he said.
"I'm fairly high bandwidth, so I typically work the equivalent of three jobs at once," he said.
