AI company training U.S. Air Force robots wins venture capital competition

An advanced artificial intelligence software company that is working with the U.S. Air Force on training robots to repair fighter jets won a key U.S. defense technology industry competition for startups in Washington, D.C., Tuesday.

The Brooklyn, New York-based company Evercoast, which boasts unique advances in creating platforms for so-called “physical AI,” was named the winner of the “DataTribe Challenge Competition” at Cyber Innovation Day 2025 on Tuesday. It’s part of a growing landscape of startups and company investment on data science and managing sensor-input datasets.

“The U.S Air Force is speeding robotic training using Evercoast by capturing humans performing repair tasks on F-16s, bringing that into a simulation and then using that simulated AI to actuate robots that then go perform those tasks,” Ben Nunez, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said during his presentation to the judges.

The competition has become a flagship annual event of DataTribe, the influential venture capital incubator and investment firm based in Maryland that has for years been quietly channeling funding toward “deep-tech” early-stage cybersecurity and data science startups. 

Evercoast is focused on data science and managing large-scale dataset work with sensors. Judges at the DataTribe competition liked the company for its work helping AI, robotics, and other teams that need simulations to develop and improve their real-world accuracy.

Evercoast presented what it calls a “training ground for physical AI,” according to Mr. Nunez. The software combines data to develop models of the real world. Mr. Nunez said being able to share with a crowd of venture capitalists along with the expert and experienced judging panel at the competition was its own success.

“To be able to win them over, it’s very validating for what we’re doing,” Mr. Nunez said. “To have your business, your ideas, the pursuits that we’re going after really be validated by such an incredible group of people.”

It brings Evercoast into the fold of DataTribe, giving them access to a mix of Silicon Valley technologists and prior members of the intelligence community focused on developing new cybersecurity and data science businesses — along with the lion’s share of $25,000 in cash prizes.

Mr. Nunez presented to a room full of investors, including both co-founders of DataTribe, Bob Ackerman and Mike Janke. The reach of companies that DataTribe has invested in has grown since 2015. They started their portfolio with more cloak-and-dagger intelligence community technology.

A who’s-who judging panel listened to 25-minute presentations from five startup finalists, grilling them with questions about the viability of their product after, all while on stage in front of an audience of investors.

Along with Mr. Ackerman, the judging panel included big names in the AI and cybersecurity space. Jason Clinton, the chief information security officer at Anthropic, joined the panel, as did Harry Coker, the current secretary of Commerce for the state of Maryland and former national cyber director under the Biden administration. 

CEOs Martin Roesch of Netography and John Bruns of the Cyber Ready Clinic also joined the panel as judges. It gives venture capital firms like DataTribe an opportunity to hear from the bleeding edge in tech development.

“Our [government’s] bureaucratic structures, no matter how much money we throw at it, can’t do what fast-moving genius technologists can do,” Mr. Janke said. 

He sees the companies he works with, and that DataTribe has undisclosed stakes in, as being the future of not only AI but major aspects of government and intelligence collection as well.

“I’ve actually sat in rooms with Western intelligence agencies that said, ‘You guys are our competitor. We don’t have any of this,’” he said.

Evercoast is part of that growth as a company more focused on data science and managing large-scale dataset work with sensors.

Evercoast’s success is in “an incredibly small field of technical achievement that is hard to replicate,” Mr. Nunez, a serial entrepreneur with Evercoast being his sixth startup, told The Washington Times. 

The software uses fewer points of view to capture real-world data and is able to combine streams of information — what Nunez calls “spatially calibrating, temporally synchronizing multimodal data” — from a variety of sensors into a usable output. 

The Evercoast software is able “unify that data into a single system and software,” no small feat for the myriad of different cameras, thermal sensors and devices used to capture information. His company makes much of that data actually useful to industry, including defense. Licensing that software to customers is their main business.

Evercoast’s challenge win is just the most recent in an eight-year run of annual competitions.

“DataTribe challenge originally started as just a pitch competition,” Rob Ackerman, a managing director at DataTribe said. “An opportunity for us to bring startups together, bring the investing and cyber world together and, you know, see what’s next.”

He sees the competition and the Cyber Innovation Day as a major community-building event between investors and technology startups.

“So much of what venture [capital] is, or at least to me, the part that I enjoy is the ability to bring the community together,” Mr. Ackerman said. “As much as it’s driven by tech, it is about people. It’s about relationships, and anytime you have the ability to meaningfully add to that and grow that, bring it together — hopefully add a unique thought or two — you know, it’s a really great opportunity.”

The venture capital firm’s efforts to bring people together are paying dividends. Last year’s event had just over 100 attendees, but this year more than four times that planned to attend. The event gives tech startups access not just to capital, but to a network of expertise and business leaders to learn from and build relationships with.

“When we invest with our startups, we’re making essentially a 10-year commitment. It’s longer than a lot of marriages,” Mr. Ackerman said. “You’re going to go through the ups and downs and so, you need to spend the time. You also need to spend the time when it’s not about the investment. When it’s just about the people.”