Ex-DOGE engineers Gavin Kliger, Luke Farritor, Marko Elez and Jack Stein formed Cathedral, a company that plans to harness AI to bolster the cyber capabilities of the US military.
While the company itself has not announced exactly how it’s going to achieve its goals, it’s currently targeting US government contracts according to reports, and looking to secure either a data centre deal with a provider to lock down dedicated computing power for classified work.
Cathedral has already earned itself a US$1.4 billion valuation, having raised roughly US$160 million, according to Reuters.
Andreesen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital led the funding, and the two took seats on the board as part of the deal with Cathedral.
The entire engineering team has had close ties to Trump. Alongside their stint in Elon Musk’s DOGE, Kliger was formerly the Pentagon’s chief data officer until earlier this year.
Other members had spent time at the GSA and other government agencies, something that some say is why investors were so interested in the new venture.
However, Cathedral will need to navigate its operations carefully for the time being. The US Department of Defense said that certain former senior officials must abide by a year-long cooling-off period that limits lobbying towards their former agencies for contracts.
Any push for defence contracts through the Pentagon could raise eyebrows within Congress, leading to more severe supervision over its activity.
That being said, the heavy early investment shows that there is major interest in the company and what it says it will do. Its success will lie in keeping interest, proving its actions and careful steps around contract acquisition and ethical and legal arguments around backing defence-related AI firms.
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