National security and the U.S. military continue to represent a significant opportunity for digital transformation, as legacy processes and decades-old tooling are often misaligned with the realities of modern conflict. In recent years, we’ve seen a new wave of defense technology companies emerge, helping to address these challenges and upgrade U.S. national security.
At Sapphire Ventures, we leaned into the opportunity early on, backing companies like Defense Unicorns and Ask Sage with founders who understand how to combine the operational resilience of the defense ecosystem with the power of world-class software execution.
We believe Onebrief represents the next evolution of this shift. Onebrief empowers commanders to make better decisions faster, coordinate at modern tempo, and transform how their command operates—across planning, synchronization, and execution.
For this reason, Sapphire Ventures is thrilled to co-lead Onebrief’s $200M Series D alongside Battery Ventures, reinforcing our commitment to modernizing defense and supporting Onebrief’s continued momentum, including its acquisition of Battle Road to expand its AI-driven simulation capabilities.
The Command Operating System for the Modern Military Staff
Historically, military staff has been forced to plan high-stakes operations using presentation tools, spreadsheets and email. This status quo results in slow decision-making and version-control chaos that is simply inadequate for the speed of modern warfare–especially for a country widely considered as the number one military power globally.
Onebrief has built a collaborative, cloud-native operating system for the military. Its mission is to enable military commands to “become superhuman,” turning processes that once took months into hours. It’s about more than just efficiency. It’s about decision superiority, providing the U.S. and its allies with a decisive advantage by allowing commanders to adapt quickly and act with precision in dynamic environments. The platform is already mission-critical, currently supporting 3 of the 4 largest U.S. operational plans in the world.
Onebrief is dramatically faster, more intuitive and more reliable than many legacy or incumbent tools. The groundswell of overwhelming praise is responsible for the rare organic virality fueling Onebrief growth across the U.S. military today. Onebrief’s hybrid GTM model – bottoms-up product adoption reinforced by top-down relationships within the U.S. military – has proven uniquely effective in penetrating one of the most bureaucratic and resistant buyer ecosystems in the world.
Onebrief Platform “Cards”
Accelerating the AI Roadmap by Acquiring Battle Road
A key component of this Series D is Onebrief’s acquisition of Battle Road, a premier AI mission simulation and wargaming platform, and a foundational step in the company’s long-term vision to build an AI-first operating system for military planning.
By integrating Battle Road’s “whole-world” simulation engine, Onebrief offers a unified environment to design, test and optimize operational plans in real time, expanding the platform’s ability to apply AI across a broader set of decision-support workflows; a critical step toward Onebrief’s vision of AI-generated Courses of Action (COAs) that can outperform human-developed plans.
An All-Star Team: Credibility Forged in the Field
Grant Demaree, Founder & CEO, Onebrief
When backing category-defining companies, nothing matters more than the founder and the culture they create. Founder and CEO Grant Demaree has built Onebrief with a deeply mission-driven culture shaped by his experience as a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army officer. Grant founded the company after firsthand exposure to the frustrations of fragmented staff planning during several campaigns.
Under his leadership, that operator-first ethos has translated into a product that is trusted by the U.S. military’s most consequential commands. Over the past year, Sapphire has developed a close relationship with Grant and his team, watching them consistently execute against an ambitious product roadmap with discipline, urgency, and a clear long-term vision for a platform that touches the world’s most critical systems.
Grant also leads a deep executive bench that is complemented by commercial leaders from Stripe, Palantir and Amazon, bringing the technical rigor required to build resilient, enterprise-grade infrastructure. The company’s board includes former Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller and retired Marine Lt. Gen. Lewis Craparotta, ensuring the product remains deeply aligned with the needs of the military operators.
Backing Mission-Critical Innovation
Onebrief’s growth trajectory is among the most impressive we have seen in the defense sector, and we are excited to partner with Grant and his world-class team as they modernize the way the U.S. and its allies protect national security.
To learn more about how Onebrief is transforming military operations, visit onebrief.com.
Legal disclaimer
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Nothing presented within this article is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire. Information provided reflects Sapphires’ views as of a time, whereby such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. Companies mentioned in this article are a representative sample of portfolio companies in which Sapphire has invested in which the author believes such companies fit the objective criteria stated in commentary, which do not reflect all investments made by Sapphire. A complete alphabetical list of investments made by Sapphire’s Growth strategy is available here. No assumptions should be made that investments listed above were or will be profitable. Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the actual experience may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in these statements. Nothing contained in this article may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular company. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
