Northern Virginia AI startups raise millions

This summer, investors poured money into Northern Virginia-based AI startups offering solutions for data centers, the military and bias in AI.

In July, Emerald AI — incorporated in Washington, D.C., but with primary offices in Clarendon — launched with $24.5 million in seed funding, and Rosslyn-based Rune Technologies raised $24 million in a Series A round for its military logistics software. Seekr Technologies, based in Reston, said in June that it completed the first closing of a planned $100 million raise.

Founded last year, Emerald AI offers a solution to a percolating problem in Virginia — energy consumption by data centers. Its Emerald Conductor software platform enables data centers to adjust and reduce their energy consumption during periods of peak grid demand, supporting grid stability while maintaining acceptable AI computing performance.

The company’s ultimate goal, says founder and CEO Varun Sivaram, is to help America win the AI race by freeing up the power needed to support innovation and also keeping energy sustainable and affordable for customers.

“Virginia is known as ‘Data Center Alley,’ and the state’s role in the future of AI in America will continue to grow,” Sivaram says.

Rune, which was founded in 2024, has raised more than $30 million in total since last year, says co-founder and CEO David Tuttle. Its TyrOS technology helps military logisticians keep track of resources to better predict future needs.

“Battlefield logistics are being tracked on laminated sheets of paper, or whiteboards or Excel spreadsheets in the best case. It’s very human-centric how these things are done,” he explains. “You can have the best fighting force in the world, but if we can’t get things in the right place at the right time in the right quantities that we need, that becomes the most useless military in the world.”

Funds will be used to add more staff. Rune currently has 26 employees and expects to double that within six months, Tuttle says.

Founded in 2021, Seekr, which said it generated more than $18 million in revenue last year, is in the middle of a $100 million funding round. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in June, the startup had raised $17.3 million in the round. Its SeekrFlow technology is designed to help enterprise and government customers create, tweak, deploy and keep track of trustworthy AI models in protected environments.