John Conafay, a veteran of the US Air Force, spent most of his career leading business development at aerospace companies like Spire, Astranis, and ABL Space Systems. At each company, he encountered the same software hurdle. Collaborating on government contracts was a logistical mess, forcing teams and their federal counterparts to rely on a tedious back-and-forth of PDFs and Excel files. The bottleneck was consistent—standard project management tools like Jira and Asana were not secure enough to meet the government’s strict security standards.
In early 2022, Conafay launched Integrate, a collaboration platform designed specifically for private companies, the US Department of Defense, and other government agencies to work jointly on classified, multi-entity projects. Last year, the Seattle-based startup won a five-year, $25 million contract from the US Space Force.
That validation from a major agency was a key reason Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner at FPV Ventures, recently led Integrate’s $17 million Series A funding round. Chan, known for early investments in companies like Canva and Robinhood, invested because Integrate solves a significant problem for both the government and the private companies that serve it.
For years, the tech sector often shunned selling to the US Department of Defense, with many feeling it was immoral to create products for the military. However, that sentiment shifted after Russia invaded Ukraine and China came to be viewed as an adversary.
This change means other project management companies may now want to sell to the government. But Conafay claims it will be technically difficult for them to catch up to Integrate. He explains that if software is not built from the ground up for government requirements, you cannot simply re-architect existing software for government purposes.
According to Conafay, what sets Integrate apart is its ability to let different organizations simultaneously and securely collaborate on massive project schedules while keeping sensitive details hidden from other participants. The platform is designed to handle the coordination of mammoth, multi-year mega-projects, such as the F-35 program or the James Webb Space Telescope, where thousands of partners must stay in sync.
While careful not to reveal too many customers beyond the Space Force, Conafay shared that some of the startup’s work for that branch involves deployments of large rockets. This requires coordinating tens of satellites on a single launch across dozens of missions, a process of extreme complexity that Integrate is used to manage.
Looking ahead, Integrate intends to grow by selling its software to other branches of the US military, including the Navy, the Army, and the intelligence community, as well as to the private companies that serve them.