Cathedral, a stealth military cybersecurity startup founded by four former Department of Government Efficiency staffers, has raised $160 million at a $1.4 billion valuation. Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital led the round and both took board seats. The company plans to secure US government contracts for AI-driven offensive and defensive cyber operations against adversaries including China.
The founders are Gavin Kliger, Luke Farritor, Marko Elez, and Jack Stein. Kliger served as chief data officer at the Pentagon, where he was involved in the department’s legal fight with Anthropic over how Claude would be used by the military. The founding team maintains deep ties to the Trump administration and national security officials. Cathedral is also looking to acquire or partner with a data centre provider for dedicated compute power to run its cyber operations.
The funding underscores how DOGE alumni are converting government access into venture capital. More than 250,000 people left the federal workforce during DOGE’s cost-cutting campaign in 2025. The staffers who ran those operations are now building companies that sell services back to the government they reshaped. Anduril raised $5 billion at a $61 billion valuation as the defence tech sector attracts capital at AI-lab pace, and Cathedral enters the same market with the additional advantage of founders who recently held senior positions inside the agencies they plan to sell to.
The $1.4 billion valuation for a company with no disclosed revenue or contracts reflects investor confidence in the team’s government relationships rather than the product’s track record. The White House launched Gold Eagle this month, an AI-powered cyber vulnerability clearinghouse, signalling that the administration sees AI-driven cyber defence as a priority. Cathedral is positioning itself to be one of the companies that benefits from that priority. Whether a startup founded by cost-cutters can build enterprise-grade military software is the question the next round will need to answer with contracts, not connections.
