Certus Core

AI platform transforming complex data into actionable decisions for defense and enterprise.

Website: https://www.certuscore.com/

Cover Block

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Field Value
Name Certus Core
Tagline AI platform transforming complex data into actionable decisions for defense and enterprise
Headquarters Tampa, FL, United States
Founded 2021
Stage Seed
Business Model SaaS
Industry Defense / Govtech
Technology Type AI / Machine Learning, Semantic Knowledge Graphs
Geography North America
Growth Profile Venture Scale
Funding Label Seed
Total Disclosed ~$1.62M [Tracxn]

Links

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Executive Summary

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Certus Core is a Tampa-based, veteran-founded software company building IBIS, an agentic AI platform that uses semantic knowledge graphs to let defense and enterprise users query disparate sensor, signals, and operational data in natural language [Crunchbase] [Certus Core Website]. The company was incorporated in 2021 and has spent the intervening period accumulating government traction rather than raising large amounts of private capital, a sequencing pattern common to defense-tech startups that prefer non-dilutive contracts as proof points before institutional rounds [PitchBook] [SBIR.gov]. Its differentiation rests on the knowledge-graph layer: rather than competing as a generic LLM application, IBIS positions itself as a context and lineage layer that connects heterogeneous data sources for downstream AI reasoning [Certus Core Website]. The founding team's veteran background appears to have translated into early access to Department of the Air Force programs, including a January 2024 AFWERX SBIR Phase I award and inclusion on eight contract vehicles via Carahsoft, among them GSA MAS, ITES-SW2, and Tradewinds Awardable [EIN Presswire, January 2024] [Carahsoft]. On the funding side, Certus Core has disclosed roughly $1.62M in seed capital from Tampa Bay Ventures and Capital Q Ventures, regional investors active in Florida's emerging defense ecosystem [Tampa Bay Business Journal, February 2025] [Tampa Bay Business Journal, April 2026]. The most concrete near-term proof point is an $900K NASA contract awarded in August 2025 in partnership with SkyTL to develop AI-driven wildfire prediction tooling, which extends the company's footprint beyond pure defense into civil federal use cases [Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 2025]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the watch items are whether SBIR Phase I converts to Phase II or III, whether the Carahsoft channel produces commercial-scale task orders, and whether the company can syndicate a priced Series A beyond regional Florida investors.

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Tampa Bay Business Journal, EIN Presswire, Crunchbase, PitchBook, and Carahsoft.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis Value
Stage Seed
Business Model SaaS, with federal contract revenue
Industry / Vertical Defense / Govtech, expanding into civil federal
Technology Type Agentic AI, Semantic Knowledge Graphs, Natural Language Interfaces
Geography North America (Tampa, FL)
Growth Profile Venture Scale
Funding ~$1.62M disclosed seed [Tracxn]

Company Overview

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Certus Core was founded in 2021 in Tampa, Florida by a team of military veterans who, by their own account, encountered the same operational data integration problem repeatedly across deployments and analytic environments [PitchBook] [ZoomInfo, September 2024]. The company describes its origin as a response to how defense and enterprise organizations think about data engineering, integration, and processing, with a thesis that the binding constraint is not raw data volume but the absence of a connective semantic layer [Certus Core Website]. The corporate entity operates as Certus Core, Inc., with a parallel LLC structure (Certus Core LLC) used for SBIR program participation [Inknowvation] [SBIR.gov].

The company's milestone arc is dominated by federal contracting rather than private fundraising. In January 2024, Certus Core was awarded an AFWERX SBIR Phase I contract to apply Semantic Knowledge Graph techniques to Department of the Air Force data challenges, the first widely reported government engagement [EIN Presswire, January 2024]. In February 2025, Tampa Bay Ventures disclosed an investment as part of a broader push into govtech, and in April 2026 the Tampa Bay Business Journal reported that Capital Q Ventures had joined the round alongside Tampa Bay Ventures [Tampa Bay Business Journal, February 2025] [Tampa Bay Business Journal, April 2026]. In August 2025, Certus Core was named on a $900K NASA award in partnership with SkyTL focused on AI-powered wildfire prediction, which marked the company's first publicly disclosed civil-agency contract [Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 2025].

Distribution into the federal buyer has been built through Carahsoft, which lists Certus Core across eight procurement vehicles including GSA Multiple Award Schedule, ITES-SW2, and Tradewinds Awardable [Carahsoft]. The company also lists USSOCOM and USAF as customer references on its reseller page, although the dollar value and scope of those engagements have not been publicly disclosed [Carahsoft].

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by EIN Presswire, Tampa Bay Business Journal, PitchBook, and Carahsoft.

Product and Technology

MIXED

The core product is IBIS, described by the company as user-driven edge software that enables decentralized sensor and robotics data integration with a natural-language query interface [Crunchbase]. The pitch is that mission operators (rather than data scientists) can pose plain-English questions across fused sensor feeds, signals intelligence, human reporting, and historical archives, and receive context-aware responses grounded in a Semantic Knowledge Graph [Certus Core Blog]. The Semantic Knowledge Graph component is positioned as the differentiator: rather than passing raw documents to a language model, IBIS constructs a graph of entities and relationships that the model reasons over, which the company argues produces more auditable and context-preserving outputs [Certus Core Website].

A published case study describes IBIS being applied to anti-money-laundering and supply-chain risk analysis, specifically the detection of sanctioned components from Chinese state-owned enterprises such as Huawei and ZTE within commercial supply chains [Certus Core Case Study]. On the defense side, blog content emphasizes use cases in unmanned maritime systems and border-security command centers, where multi-source sensor fusion is the operational challenge [Certus Core Blog]. The pilot offering on the company website is structured as a fixed three-named-user package with full platform access, suggesting a deliberately low-friction entry motion sized to a team rather than an enterprise-wide rollout [Certus Core Website].

Deeper architectural detail (specific model providers, vector store choices, on-prem versus cloud deployment posture, accreditation status such as FedRAMP or IL levels) is not disclosed in the public sources reviewed. Given the USSOCOM and USAF references, the deployment posture is plausibly air-gap-capable or operates within accredited government cloud environments, but the company has not published the specific authorization status.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Product surface confirmed by company website and Crunchbase, underlying stack and accreditation status not publicly disclosed.

Market Research and Opportunity

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The defense AI and data-integration market is being reshaped by a procurement environment that, for the first time in a generation, is actively rewarding software-first vendors over traditional primes. The Department of Defense's pivot toward Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), the rapid scaling of AFWERX and SpaceWERX SBIR programs, and the growth of Tradewinds and OTA-style vehicles have all compressed the time between a software demo and a funded contract for credentialed small businesses [EIN Presswire, January 2024] [Carahsoft].

Direct TAM figures from a named third-party report are not present in the captured research for the specific niche Certus Core occupies (defense knowledge-graph software). The closest cited demand-side anchor is the company's own observation, drawn from a sourced industry statistic, that nearly 67% of organizations struggle to integrate new sensor data with existing information sources, a figure the company uses to frame the addressable pain rather than the addressable dollar market [Certus Core Blog]. As an analogous reference, the broader U.S. federal AI contracting market and decision-support software category have been growing materially faster than overall federal IT spending, although precise sizing varies widely across analyst houses and is not cited in the captured sources for this report.

Demand drivers visible in the cited evidence include: (a) the AFWERX SBIR pipeline as a structured on-ramp for AI software into the Air Force [EIN Presswire, January 2024], (b) cross-agency pull, evidenced by the NASA-SkyTL wildfire prediction contract that extends the same underlying platform into civil federal use [Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 2025], and (c) channel availability through Carahsoft's eight contract vehicles, which lower the procurement friction for any agency already buying through GSA MAS or ITES-SW2 [Carahsoft]. Adjacent and substitute markets include general-purpose enterprise data fabric vendors, defense-specific data platforms, and large-language-model application layers being rebuilt for classified environments.

Cited Demand Indicator Value Source
Organizations struggling with sensor data integration ~67% [Certus Core Blog]
NASA / SkyTL wildfire prediction contract $900K [Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 2025]
Carahsoft contract vehicles available 8 [Carahsoft]

Analyst takeaway: the cited indicators describe pain and procurement access, not market size. The investment case rests on Certus Core converting access (Carahsoft vehicles, SBIR relationships) into recurring task orders, and the August 2025 NASA award is the first public data point that the cross-agency expansion thesis is beginning to materialize.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Demand signals confirmed by named sources, formal TAM/SAM/SOM not present in cited research.

Competitive Landscape

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Certus Core is positioned in a crowded but stratified field where the competitive question is less "who builds knowledge graphs" and more "who can deliver a natural-language data layer that a federal contracting officer is comfortable buying." The lack of named head-to-head comparables in the cited sources is itself informative: it suggests the company is not yet large enough to be ranked against specific incumbents in analyst coverage, which is typical for a sub-$2M seed-stage defense software vendor.

The segment-by-segment competitive map breaks roughly into three groups. The first is large-scale defense data platforms, where well-capitalized incumbents have years of accreditation and forward-deployed engineering muscle and dominate enterprise-wide programs of record. The second is the wave of defense-tech startups funded over the last three years building mission software, command-and-control overlays, and autonomy stacks, many of these companies need a data integration layer and could either build, buy, or partner for it. The third is the horizontal enterprise data fabric and graph database category, whose products are technically capable but are not optimized for the classified, edge, and disconnected environments that defense buyers require.

Certus Core's defensible edge today, based on cited evidence, is procurement access plus founder-credential fit. The Carahsoft listing on eight vehicles and the documented AFWERX SBIR Phase I award shorten the path from interest to contract for federal customers in a way that horizontal enterprise vendors cannot easily replicate without standing up a federal subsidiary [Carahsoft] [EIN Presswire, January 2024]. The veteran-founded posture, while not a moat in itself, is a credibility signal that matters in early defense sales cycles [ZoomInfo, September 2024]. The perishable side of that edge is that procurement access is necessary but not sufficient: the same Carahsoft and SBIR doors are open to dozens of other small AI vendors.

Where Certus Core is most exposed is at the upper end of the deal-size distribution. Multi-million-dollar enterprise programs of record tend to be won by vendors with deployed reference architectures at scale, dedicated capture teams, and existing FedRAMP or IL-level authorizations, none of which are publicly documented for Certus Core in the captured sources. The most plausible 18-month competitive scenario is bifurcated: Certus Core wins if SBIR Phase I converts to Phase II and at least one Carahsoft-channel agency expands a pilot into a recurring task order in the high six or low seven figures, validating IBIS as a budget line rather than a discretionary experiment. Certus Core loses ground if a better-capitalized defense-AI peer bundles knowledge-graph functionality into an existing platform that is already deployed at the same end customers, compressing the window in which Certus Core can establish itself as the default semantic layer.

Data Accuracy: ORANGE -- Category sized via Tracxn, specific named competitors not present in captured sources, so segment analysis is qualitative.

Opportunity

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If Certus Core executes, the prize is to become the default semantic and natural-language data layer that sits underneath the next generation of defense and civil-federal AI applications. That outcome is plausible (rather than aspirational) because the cited evidence shows the company has already cleared the two hardest gates for a defense software startup: a named program office award (AFWERX SBIR Phase I) and live presence on multiple government-wide procurement vehicles through Carahsoft [EIN Presswire, January 2024] [Carahsoft]. Most companies in this category never reach either milestone. The headline opportunity is therefore to convert that procurement-side access, plus the cross-agency proof point of the NASA-SkyTL wildfire contract, into a multi-agency footprint where IBIS becomes the connective tissue between sensor data, mission data, and downstream model output [Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 2025].

Scenario What happens Catalyst Why it's plausible
Air Force standardization IBIS becomes a referenced semantic layer inside one or more DAF data programs SBIR Phase I converts to Phase II / III with a sponsoring program office AFWERX Phase I already awarded [EIN Presswire, January 2024]
Cross-agency civil expansion Wildfire prediction work with SkyTL becomes a template that extends to other NASA, NOAA, or DHS use cases Successful delivery of the $900K NASA contract published August 2025 Award already in place [Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 2025]
Channel-led commercial scale Carahsoft task orders compound across GSA MAS, ITES-SW2, and Tradewinds Awardable A flagship USSOCOM or USAF reference deal expands across services 8 vehicles already live, USSOCOM and USAF cited as customers [Carahsoft]

What compounding looks like for Certus Core is a function of two flywheels. The first is data and ontology accumulation: each new federal customer effectively pays Certus Core to map another mission domain into the semantic graph, and those ontologies become reusable assets that lower the marginal cost of the next deployment. The second is procurement compounding: every additional contract vehicle and every successful task order makes Certus Core easier for the next contracting officer to buy from, because past performance is the single most heavily weighted criterion in federal source-selection. There is early evidence both flywheels are turning, with NASA work extending the platform into a civil agency and Carahsoft holding a growing menu of vehicles [Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 2025] [Carahsoft].

The size of the win is best framed against the broader defense-software cohort that has emerged over the last decade. Public and late-stage private comparables in the defense-AI and mission-software category have at various points been valued in the multi-billion-dollar range when they reach scale, although those outcomes require revenue trajectories well beyond Certus Core's currently disclosed footprint. A reasonable scenario (and explicitly a scenario, not a forecast) is that if Certus Core converts its SBIR pipeline and Carahsoft channel into eight-figure annual recurring revenue across two or more services or agencies, it would qualify for the kind of growth-stage defense-tech round that has, for peer companies, historically supported nine-figure post-money valuations. The downside framing of that same scenario lives in the private half of this report.

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Anchored in EIN Presswire, Tampa Bay Business Journal, and Carahsoft, comparables stated explicitly as scenario, not forecast.

Sources

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  1. [Certus Core] Certus Core | IBIS | https://www.certuscore.com/

  2. [Certus Core] Blog | Certus Core | https://www.certuscore.com/blog

  3. [Certus Core] Semantic Knowledge Graphs | https://www.certuscore.com/semantic-knowledge-graph

  4. [Certus Core] Pilot | Certus Core | https://www.certuscore.com/pilot

  5. [Certus Core] About | Certus Core | https://www.certuscore.com/about

  6. [Certus Core] Financial Intelligence Case Study | https://www.certuscore.com/case-study/anti-money-laundering

  7. [ZoomInfo, September 2024] Certus Core Overview | https://www.zoominfo.com/c/certus-core/5000015818

  8. [Crunchbase] Certus Core Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/certus-core

  9. [Tracxn] Certus Core 2026 Company Profile | https://tracxn.com/d/companies/certuscore/__IVO66z1DhhfO7JbjGTFjIq6NsP2N5bvkx_ZIAmRRIsM

  10. [PitchBook] Certus Core 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/494215-48

  11. [Tampa Bay Business Journal, April 2026] Certus Core secures backing from Capital Q, Tampa Bay Ventures | https://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/news/2026/04/09/certus-core-investment.html

  12. [Business Observer, February 2025] Tampa venture capital firm invests in govtech startup | https://www.businessobserverfl.com/news/2025/feb/19/tampa-venture-capital-firm-invests-in-govtech-startup/

  13. [Carahsoft] Certus Core for Government | https://www.carahsoft.com/certus-core

  14. [EIN Presswire, January 2024] Tampa-based Certus Core awarded contract to deploy Generative AI to Air Force data | https://fox59.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/680603333/tampa-based-certus-core-awarded-contract-to-deploy-generative-ai-to-air-force-data/

  15. [SBIR.gov] Certus Core, Inc. | https://www.sbir.gov/portfolio/2090447

  16. [Inknowvation] Certus Core LLC | https://www.inknowvation.com/sbir/companies/certus-core-llc

  17. [Tampa Bay Business Journal, February 2025] Tampa Bay Ventures backs Certus Core, expands into govtech | https://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/news/2025/02/14/tampa-bay-ventures-certus-core-investment.html

  18. [EIN Presswire] Capital Q Ventures invests in Certus Core Alongside Tampa Bay Ventures | https://www.einpresswire.com/article/904713211/capital-q-ventures-invests-in-certus-core-alongside-tampa-bay-ventures-to-advance-florida-s-defense-tech-ecosystem

  19. [PitchBook] Tampa Bay Ventures investment portfolio | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/466087-87

  20. [CB Insights] Certus Core Profile | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/certus-group

  21. [Tampa Bay Business Journal, August 2025] Certus Core / SkyTL NASA wildfire contract coverage | https://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/

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