Defense Unicorns builds open source and platform software, including UDS, Zarf, Pepr and Lula, to deploy and manage applications on military systems in air-gapped and classified environments.
Defense Unicorns builds software that allows modern applications to run on military systems, including air-gapped and classified environments. Its central proposition is a platform that bundles software once and deploys it anywhere: from cloud to edge, and, in the company's phrasing, from satellites to submarines. The technical work spans Kubernetes, edge computing, cloud-to-edge deployment, disconnected operations and compliance automation, with a strong emphasis on open source.
The company's products include UDS (Unicorn Delivery Service), its platform for bundling and deploying software across military systems. Alongside it sit three open source tools: Zarf, for delivering software into disconnected and air-gapped environments; Pepr, which addresses software delivery and Kubernetes management problems in the Department of Defense; and Lula, which automates compliance in DoD software environments.
The team is veteran-founded and largely composed of former Department of Defense personnel, including engineers who worked on Kessel Run and Platform One, and former service members who have encountered the problems first-hand. The company treats open source as a strategic advantage rather than merely a development philosophy, and describes its mission as supporting people protecting the country and making software a strategic deterrent.
Defense Unicorns operates in the United States and works across defence, military, government and national security verticals.
