You know what’s better than being on one prototyping team for the Army’s big modernization mega-project? Being on all of ‘em.
Right on the heels of joining Lockheed Martin’s Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) prototype team in December, logistics and sustainment software startup Rune announced today that it joined Anduril’s NGC2 team, making them the only company on both prototype contracts.
Contested logistics…so hot right now.
Race to integrate: We’ve droned on about this before, so we’ll spare you too many deets, but put simply: The US military’s C2 is a hot mess. Basically, it’s a patchwork of different programs that don’t always work together—the Army alone has used a cobbled-together C2 system comprising 17 programs of record.
The Army officially launched its search for a replacement (dubbed NGC2) in 2024. Last year, Anduril and Lockheed Martin were tapped to lead prototype teams for the program.
- NGC2 aims to create a data-centric system that integrates warfighting functions like transport, intel, fires, and comms onto a single, agile software backbone to speed up how the Army communicates, makes decisions, and processes data.
- Anduril was first off the mark in the NGC2 push, winning a $99M, 11-month OTA contract and teaming up with Palantir, Govini, Microsoft, and others to prototype a full-stack NGC2 for the Army’s 4th Infantry Division last July.
- The Army followed that up in September with a $26M, 16-month OTA to a Lockheed-led team, including Raft, Hypergiant, and, after a late addition in December, Rune. Team Lockheed will deliver its prototype to the 25th Infantry Division.
Unsexy is the new sexy: Contested logistics, long the unsexy domain of spreadsheets and pen-and-paper planning, is a big part of the NGC2 picture, especially as one of the Pentagon’s new Critical Technology Areas.
That’s where Rune and their flagship TyrOS logistics and sustainment software fit in.
- TyrOS uses predictive AI and tons of data to track and move gear, fuel, food, and parts around more quickly across domains than legacy sustainment systems.
- It’s built to operate on low-connectivity edge devices down to “the crappiest Dell laptop,” as CEO David Tuttle told Tectonic last year, and runs “down to the lowest tactical levels so that we can feed consumption, expenditure, and personnel data up echelon.”
On Team Anduril (and Team Lockheed), Rune’s software ingests and processes sensor data and logistics information generated in offline and contested environments at the edge before feeding it back into the broader NGC2 picture.
Feeling the sting: Rune’s tech was put to the test with Team Lockheed during the Lightning Surge 1 exercise with the Army’s 25th ID in Hawaii last month.
According to Tuttle, they also kicked off work with Anduril’s team at last week’s Ivy Sting exercise with the 4th ID in Colorado, where they “did some really cool mission workflows across the medical side of sustainment, and another one across ammunition expenditures.”
Monogamy is so 2025.
Need for speed: Given that the Army is hosting both Lightning Surge and Ivy Sting NGC2 testing exercises on a monthly basis, Rune better start stocking its fridge with energy drinks.
“The 4th ID has set up a very quick, iterative pace, which we’re all in on. We love that,” Tuttle told Tectonic. “That’s core to our DNA as a company—we’ll do an Ivy Sting, come back with a few short weeks, rapidly iterate, move on to the next, and do that over and over again. Rapid cycle is how we’re going to actually build great capabilities.”
Homecoming: As a cherry on top, joining Team Anduril is a bit of a homecoming for Tuttle and his co-founder, Peter Goldsborough, who met working together at Anduril before launching Rune.
“Partnering with other great technology companies is great—we keep moving each other forward, they’re going to move quickly, we’re going to move quickly,” Tuttle said. “That’s only to the benefit of us as taxpayers and the military to be able to do that, but it is definitely fun to have our name announced alongside Anduril on their contract.”