Onebrief Raised $50 Million To iImprove Military Planning, And The Pentagon Is Taking Notice

For decades, military operational planning has been a tedious process, with teams sifting through interminable PowerPoint presentations, manually updating plans, and straining to stay up with changing scenarios. It was not only inefficient, but also hazardous. Critical choices were based on obsolete documents, resulting in delays and confusion in instances where every second counts.

Grant Demaree witnessed this truth firsthand while serving as a captain in the United States Army. Grant's first exposure to large-scale planning occurred as a young lieutenant in Liberia during the Ebola epidemic. Later, when serving with SOJTF-OIR in Iraq, he learnt how difficult it was to change advanced operational plans on the fly. Frustrated by the inefficiencies he saw, he started sketching out the idea for Onebrief. In 2019, he co-founded Onebrief with Rafa Pereira, a software platform that aims to minimise inefficiencies and modernise military decision-making. Initially, it was difficult to persuade senior officials that software could replace old workflows. But persistence paid off. In 2021, the firm participated in Y Combinator, raised early funding through LinkedIn cold messages to majors and colonels, and gradually established itself within the Pentagon.

Fast forward to now, and Onebrief is no longer an unknown startup. The company just raised a $50 million Series C investment headed by General Catalyst and Insight Partners, with Caffeinated Capital, 9Yards Capital, and Human Capital joining. With a total of $103 million raised and a current worth of $650 million, Onebrief demonstrates that military planning is long ready for change.

Demaree doesn’t mince words about what’s at stake. “Simply put, changing operational planning will win the war,” he says. “This funding and our new partnerships enable us to drive meaningful change across our institutions.”