HEARD AROUND VIRGINIA: December 2025

McLean government tech contractor BigBear.ai announced in early November it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Warren County startup Ask Sage for $250 million. Ask Sage is a fast-growing, secure generative artificial intelligence platform tailored for defense and national security. BigBear.ai expects the acquisition to close in the late fourth quarter of 2025 or early in the first quarter of 2026. Founded in 2023, Ask Sage supports more than 100,000 users on 16,000 government teams across hundreds of commercial companies. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Arlington County AI cloud computing company Corvex said in early November it is merging with California-based Movano Health in an all-stock deal that will create a public company. Movano is best known as the maker of the Evie Ring, a wearable health care device. As part of the deal, Movano is allowed to market its current assets, including the Evie Ring, for sale, as well as its cuffless blood pressure and noninvasive glucose monitoring technologies. The combined company, which will operate under the Corvex name and be based in Arlington, will solely focus on AI infrastructure. (DC Inno)

New York-based artificial intelligence software company Dataminr plans to acquire Arlington County-based cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect in a deal valued at $290 million, the former announced Oct. 21. Founded in 2009, Dataminr uses AI to detect and classify cyber threats. ThreatConnect, founded in 2011, is also focused on helping clients analyze and respond to cybersecurity threats. With 170 employees, ThreatConnect has about 250 major enterprise and government organizations as clients, including one-third of the Fortune 50, according to the company. Dataminr says that its clients include more than 100 U.S. government agencies, over 20 international governments and half of the Fortune 100. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Istari Digital, an Arlington County developer of infrastructure enabling AI-directed workflows across teams, tools and classification levels, announced in late October it had acquired Dgraph from San Francisco-based owner Hypermode. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Dgraph is a graph database most commonly used for building knowledge graphs. Founded in 2022, Istari said it plans to continue supporting Dgraph’s open-source community while integrating its graph capabilities into the company’s data fabric. (Potomac Tech Wire)

Lightshift Energy, an Arlington County battery energy storage project developer founded in 2019, landed a new $75 million credit facility from Ohio-based KeyBanc Capital Markets, it said in mid-October. The company will use the funds to support its pipeline of energy storage projects across the East Coast, at a time when the U.S. is experiencing increased demand for energy storage. The flexible credit facility, which includes a term loan, construction-to-term loan and tax equity bridge loan, will back six of Lightshift’s operational projects and advance another 10 that are under or nearing construction. (Potomac Tech Wire)

Sixteen University of Richmond students will work to bring Korra, a protein coffee containing electrolytes from coconut water and sea salt, to market. The product won the demo and pitch competition of the Robins School of Business’ Bench Top Innovations course, according to an early November news release. Four teams pitched canned coffee and tea beverages to a panel of judges in the fifth annual competition, dubbed the Great Bake Off, and all students in the course will work on launching Korra. The canned coffee will be available for sale in retail stores around Richmond and online in early 2026. (News release)