Simplesense Awarded $15M Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) Contract to Improve Operational Efficiency for the U.S. Air Force

Brooklyn. NY – January 14, 2026 – Simplesense, Inc, a company committed to ensuring mission operators can trust and rely on critical infrastructure data, today announced a new $15M contract funded by the Air Force’s prestigious Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs.

AFWERX, the innovation arm of the Department of Air Force (DAF), designed the STRATFI program to bridge the gap, known as the “valley of death,” between early-stage research and large-scale implementation, ensuring that cutting-edge private-sector innovations can transition into operational capabilities and selecting 23 companies in 2025.

This contract will support the continued development and scaling of Simplesense’s Installation Resilience Platform™ by integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered  analytics to detect faults in critical equipment before they impact the mission and to save the Air Force money by lowering energy consumption.

"One of the key steps we've taken is recognizing that if you're in the Small Business Innovation Research program and can demonstrate progress on your technology to prepare it for transition, AFWERX wants to invest more funding in that idea and help it cross the valley," said Col. Elliott Leigh, former AFWERX director and chief commercialization officer for the Department of the Air Force. "If you're a STRATFI recipient and you're performing well, that signals a high likelihood of successful transition."

Simplesense’s Installation Resilience Platform™ secures and unlocks data from mission support operations across entire military installations and is currently deployed at Tyndall Air Force Base with a contract underway to expand to five additional Air Force, Space Force, and Army installations. Simplesense’s Platform unlocks the power of data to achieve significant energy savings; improve operational efficiency, security, and threat detection; reduce downtime; and ultimately improve mission resilience.

"Our adversaries can out maneuver U.S. warfighters simply by more quickly adapting the latest commercial technology. The Air Force’s investment in companies like Simplesense keeps the Department at the cutting edge of technology, instead of a decade plus behind." said Eric Kanagy, CEO of Simplesense. "This partnership with the Air Force enables us to accelerate the deployment of Artificial Intelligence tools into our Installation Resilience Platform, delivering transformative solutions that strengthen defense critical infrastructure and enhance operational readiness."

Simplesense will leverage this funding to further develop and deploy Fault Detection and Diagnostics (FDD) tools and best practices into its Platform, with the potential to further  improve uptime and reliability of defense critical infrastructure while at the same time driving significant cost savings and operational efficiencies.

The Department of War is the largest consumer of energy in the world and spends over $2 billion dollars annually on electricity: an efficiency improvement of several percent can drive hundreds of millions of dollars in savings, if deployed at scale.

About Simplesense

Simplesense is a non-traditional defense contractor that rapidly deploys proven commercial cybersecurity solutions for Operational Technology/Control Systems (OT/CS). Simplesense’s Installation Resilience Platform ensures mission operators can trust and rely on critical infrastructure data, protecting from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed data to enable rapid adaptation and response. Formed in 2017, Simplesense is a success story of the defense technology ecosystem, graduating from industry accelerators to a prototype contract at the Air Force’s Installation of the Future in 2020 followed by a production contract with the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center in 2024.

About AFRL

The Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, is the primary scientific research and development center for the Department of the Air Force. AFRL plays an integral role in leading the discovery, development and integration of affordable warfighting technologies for our air, space and cyberspace forces. With a workforce spanning across nine technology areas and 40 other operations around the globe, AFRL provides a diverse portfolio of science and technology ranging from fundamental to advanced research and technology development. For more information, visit afresearchlab.com.  

About AFWERX 

As the innovation arm of the DAF and a directorate within the Air Force Research Laboratory, AFWERX brings cutting-edge American ingenuity from small businesses and start-ups to address the most pressing challenges of the DAF. Headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, AFWERX employs military, civilian and contractor personnel executing an annual $1.4 billion annual budget. Since 2019, AFWERX has awarded over 10,400 contracts worth more than $7.24 billion to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base and drive faster technology transition to operational capability. For more information, visit: afwerx.com.  

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