Vienna defense contractor Aeyon is continuing a trajectory of growth and expansion with new work with NASA and hopes to open the door to work with other agencies.
Aeyon’s latest win is through MM Technologies, a joint venture between Aeyon subsidiary Manufacturing Technical Solutions and Tysons-based MDW Associates. It landed a $516.9 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with NASA to provide accounting, quality assurance, travel and conference administrative support, financial management, business information services and special financial analysis and create consistency across multiple space centers when it comes managing financial budget data.
Aeyon will provide these services and staff financial functions in support of NASA’s missions, programs and projects at seven space centers across the country, including Johnson Space Center in Houston and Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
“As we continue to grow, our mission is across the board, across wherever we can to help the government, we want to be there. We don’t have one civic area we’re trying to grow in. We’re trying to grow in almost all areas,” Aeyon CEO Sunny Singh said.
Aeyon, a portfolio company of Chevy Chase investment firm Enlightenment Capital, was formed in 2021 through the merger of Tysons-based Artlin Consulting LLC and Arlington's Sehlke Consulting LLC. The deal put it at 450 employees but, via acquisitions and consistent contract wins — it boasts the NASA contract as its 48th contract win in the last 18 months — it's now home to more than 800 employees with plans to hire more. The company projects annual revenue of $200 million. The bulk of its business is with the Department of Defense.
"There's a lot of time and effort that goes into this. There's a lot of people we're going to need to hire for this contract and that's not always easy," said Singh, a 2022 Diversity in Business Awards honoree from the Washington Business Journal. "Especially when we're based based out of Virginia and Huntsville, Alabama, and we're trying to hire people all across the country."
Singh said he tries to think of the challenges of company growth as an opportunity to get out in front of people and have more face-to-face interaction with those he needs to hire to fulfill new contracts. Aeyon is now mostly a remote company, he said.
To hire for the NASA contract, Aeyon will be doing outreach at schools and hosting events to get a handle on the local labor market for the space centers it'll be staffing.
Aeyon wants to see growth across the board, but the skill set remains the same across sectors. It helps organizations automate core financial management and operational processes through robotic process automation.It wants to provide the same service and help government agencies’ standardize and automate it financial services departments.
“Financial management, I think, is very important for all agencies across the board,” Singh said. “I think that differentiator that we bring is helping automate and helping get everybody consolidated and making everything more efficient is the thing that really sets us apart from others.”
An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the nature of Aeyon's contract with NASA.
