Arlington defense tech firm reaches unicorn status

An Arlington County defense tech contractor has joined the unicorn ranks with a $1.25 billion valuation.

Govini announced in mid-October that Bain Capital is investing $150 million in the company, raising its valuation above the $1 billion threshold.

Govini’s flagship product, Ark, is a software suite of different applications “purpose-built for the day jobs” of people managing the U.S. defense acquisition process, said Govini CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty, referring to the lifecycle management — from design to disposal — of weapon systems and other materiel and services. Ark automates tasks, provides relevant data for problem-solving and becomes a workflow system.

The platform is important because the U.S. military has historically low operational availability and readiness rates, Doughtery said. U.S. Air Force fleets had a mission-capable rate of 67.15% in fiscal 2024, continuing a downward trend, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“What we’re finding is that people who are adopting Ark and are managing these programs in a much more modern way are not just doing it more efficiently, not just enjoying their lives better … but ultimately are increasing those availability rates and driving up military readiness,” she said. “That’s the outcome we really care about. That’s the change that we’re trying to affect by bringing our software to the world.”

Founded on the West Coast in 2011, Govini moved to Arlington in early 2016. Prior to the Bain investment, the company had raised $30 million. It currently has more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue, coming entirely from U.S. federal government customers. The company’s largest contract is a $919 million government-wide contract in which Ark is being used to identify risks in federal supply chains.

With Bain’s growth equity investment, Govini plans to accelerate its product development, grow its workforce and look at corporate development.

Govini is “basically pulling forward the product roadmap, so we have visibilities, probably two years’ worth, of things that we want to do from an AI perspective and from a feature set and functionality development perspective in Ark,” Dougherty said, “and we’re going to be able to build more of that faster and sooner with this investment.”

Govini doubled its workforce this past year to about 300 employees and expects to come close to doubling its headcount again this year.

The company is also looking at potential acquisition targets, Dougherty said, “that bring us great, unique, differentiated datasets to add to Govini’s own proprietary dataset that exists in Ark or that add great talent into the business.”

“This is really just the beginning for Govini,” Dougherty said, “and I think it’s a billion-dollar valuation today but I think it will be a $10 billion valuation in the future and beyond.”