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Rownd

Fully autonomous defense solutions for the global edge.

Rownd AI builds fully autonomous drones that use local edge intelligence and global LTE/5G/SatCom failover to eliminate the 1:1 pilot bottleneck anywhere on earth or space. We are currently field-deployed with active customers across U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) via our defense business line, ArcEdge AI. Operating out of Raleigh, NC and Wisconsin, we leveraged our team's background in mobile hardware optimization and zero-trust architectures to build true cognitive autonomy directly onto physical aircraft. While we are heavily focused on defense technology today, our ultimate mission is scaling this physical autonomous infrastructure across commercial enterprise edge applications.
Active Founders
Robert Thelen
Robert Thelen
Founder
Rob Thelen is the CEO and co-founder of Rownd. Prior to Rownd, he was a Product-lead for IBM's API Connect, a $200M a year API management platform where he was responsible for all aspects of the product, dev prioritization to sales strategy. Robert is an Air Force veteran, where he led hundreds on the flight line, led a diverse combat advisor team in Afghanistan for a year, and was responsible for $1.2B in gov acquisitions. He received an MBA from Dartmouth and calls Durham, NC home.
Matt Hamann
Matt Hamann
Founder
Matt is a co-founder and the CTO of LlamaFarm. He has over a decade of experience building enterprise-scale cloud applications at IBM. Matt earned a bachelor's degree in Information Systems Management from Bob Jones University and a master's degree in the same field from Carnegie Mellon University. He loves solving challenging, painful problems for customers large and small. In his spare time, he contributes to open-source and is the primary maintainer for https://www.npmjs.com/package/nconf.
Rachel Orrino
Rachel Orrino
Founder
Rachel (Radulovich) Orrino is a Co-founder and the Head of Design at Rownd. While at IBM, Rachel was responsible for user experience and design for Blockchain for Identity and other SaaS products. Her unique perspective and a blend of B2B SaaS and B2C design experiences allow her to create highly interactive and intuitive designs. She loves collecting and analyzing user feedback to create inform product enhancements and features.
Rownd
Founded:2022
Batch:Winter 2022
Team Size:7
Status:
Active
Location:Raleigh, NC
Primary Partner:Brad Flora