The U.S. Federal Government is the world’s largest single IT market, spending over $100 billion annually on Information Technology. This spending level exceeds that of any other single entity. Furthermore, the Federal Government acts as a “market maker,” a role demonstrated when the Amazon Web Services CIA contract in 2015 legitimized cloud computing and validated...
As software systems increasingly rely on machine learning, AI, and automated decision making, organizations often hear two terms used interchangeably: observability and explainability. While closely related, they serve distinct purposes: observability helps system owners see what a system is doing, while explainability helps them understand why a system reached a particular outcome. Observability is about...
As business environments become more dynamic, companies are discovering that their carefully engineered deterministic systems are constraining growth and innovation. The backbone of today’s enterprise operations consists of deterministic data workflows, i.e., extensively tested, static sequences of predefined rules and logic that process and analyze data. For example, a simple workflow might be: if inventory...
Today, third party cybersecurity assessments and certifications programs for products and services are designed with good intentions – to provide assurances that products and services are implementing security practices and meeting recognized security standards. However, as valuable as these efforts are, they suffer from a critical flaw: they offer only a snapshot in time, not...
Developing advanced technologies such as confidential computing, 5G, and multimodal artificial intelligence can transform enterprises by enabling secure data processing in uncertain or compromised environments, enhancing operational efficiency, and automating complex tasks. Overall, advanced technologies can help build trust in digital transactions, support intelligent decision making, and drive innovation. However, creating these technologies is only...
At SineWave, we invest in transformative technologies that have the potential to either disrupt existing markets or create entirely new categories. So – especially when we invest at the earliest of stages – we look to partner with companies that can capitalize on the emergence of a future market trend. Businesses addressing a future market...
A guiding principle of SineWave’s cybersecurity thesis is to invest in technologies that can help enterprises understand and protect their systems and data rather than focus on remediation after a breach or address vulnerabilities reactively. This proactive approach underpins zero trust solutions and data-centric architectures. Within this framework, identity management and access control (IdM) serve...
So you’re contemplating running the gauntlet to land a contract with the US government (USG). What do those vehicles look like and what should you target? First, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) is the overarching federal rulebook that governs all federal contracting. It is comprehensive AND intimidating for the uninitiated! (Check out the link and...
Au courant, there are a lot of conversations about the state of government acquisition, particularly with respect to tech. There also seems to be a great divide in terms of understanding: startup founders are either familiar with commercial sales or government sales. Very few have experience with both. Too often, that leads to unrealistic expectations...
The seminal paper for modern AI, “Attention Is All You Need” (2017) by Vaswani et al., introduced the Transformer model as an industry standard for processing enormous quantities of data. The paper demonstrated how “attention,” coupled with efficient use of memory and parallelization techniques, could enable machine translation and text generation. Any of us who...
Examples of AI use cases on ai.gov point to a federal government that has been reticent in its AI adoption. AI technology and the products and services being offered today mean different things to different federal departments and agencies. Some civil servants within the government interpret AI products as dubious and risky, particularly when coupled...
One of the opportunities many start-ups can miss is that of leveraging government interest in a particular technology that is still more R than D. Many of these interests are satisfied with non-dilutive constructs, always of interest to investors and founders. More importantly, they can help bring together real users with real challenges that help...
The recent release of DeepSeek, an open-source reasoning model, has set off another artificial intelligence-induced shockwave. DeepSeek is reported to be up to thirty times cheaper to train than comparable large language models. This has resulted in people questioning prior assumptions about how to improve upon prior performance, and asking how such a large reduction...
Data has become the lifeblood of modern corporations. Organizations are no longer dealing with neat, centralized data repositories but rather fragmented, diverse, and constantly evolving data ecosystems. Controlling data against unauthorized access, modification, and redistribution is paramount. The best way to control data and secure an organization is with a zero-trust security model, which assumes...
The power law, which describes the phenomenon whereby a small amount of inputs generate a disproportionately large number of outputs, is just as relevant in explaining venture capital success as it is in explaining numerous phenomena in the real world – like earthquakes, professional athlete success, and drug discovery. Applied to venture, if you’re building...
As an early-stage company, your team is juggling numerous responsibilities, and the workload seems endless. You are focused on developing your platform, acquiring customers, securing funding, and building a reputation in your market. So why prioritize cybersecurity, especially if your products or services aren’t directly related to the field? And who should take charge of...
Reducing data protection to data loss prevention not only obscures the real problem but also hampers the search for systemic solutions rather than Band-Aids dictated by attacker behavior. At SineWave, we look for data protection technologies that not only prevent intended recipients (a.k.a bad guys) from accessing or corrupting your data, but that also prevent...
In today’s business world, organizations rely on data to inform their decisions. However, for data to be truly valuable, decision makers need to have access to the right data, in the right place, at the right time, in the right format. Yet, managing data is no easy task. Constructing complex dataflows reliably and efficiently, securely,...
Who do we think we are? (Technology) Based on our expertise and market potentials, we focus on four investment areas: computing, cybersecurity, networking, and data and analytics. Here’s a short sampler of investments we’ve made in these areas. It’s been oft repeated that data is the new oil for enterprises. But if you can’t access...
As a recent addition to the SineWave team, I (Dawn M) thought I’d share my early impressions of how we work and why I so enjoy working with this team. In the process, I hope to give a flavor of how we differentiate ourselves and what we uniquely bring to all of our stakeholders. Here...
We often discuss the concept of data provenance—the frameworks and records that establish the origin of data and track/validate its entire history. This includes identifying who or what created the data and documenting every instance of access, modification, or alteration, along with the context surrounding these changes. Data provenance provides a comprehensive audit trail of...
In days gone by, the CEO and her team could concentrate exclusively on delivering shareholder value, including good returns. That drove a real emphasis on efficiency and customer satisfaction. But in an age of eroded trust in institutions and employer/employee/customer relationships, many more considerations drive ultimate shareholder value. The C Suite “worry bead” list now also includes IP...
You have built a stellar product and feel it is time to sell to the government. You have set your sights on the federal behemoth, United States Government. You are aware of its cultural impediments and may have even hired a leadership member who has internalized its procedural nuisances and structural deficiencies. What’s next? Your...
Multimodal AI For more than a decade, we’ve used AI-powered voice assistants as a convenient and user-friendly way to interface with machines. This AI technology ingests human speech and responds in synthetic voice, giving us the ability to prompt machines to perform relatively simple tasks on our behalf. We interact with our voice assistants to...
Selling your solution to the Federal Government is akin to climbing Mt. Everest. Here’s why: It’s a long, arduous effort with unexpected obstacles that must be overcome before reaching the summit. There are many regulations and permits that you need to comply with before succeeding. Timing is crucial, especially regarding weather windows. A great support...
SineWave is excited to share our Series B investment in Stacklet. Stacklet is the enterprise managed version of the open-source platform Cloud Custodian, which enables developers to enforce and automate cloud security and governance policy at scale via simple YAML. In addition to ensuring at-scale governance and security, Stacklet enables customers to manage permissions within their cloud...
It’s widely recognized that data is the fundamental building block of modern artificial intelligence. It’s data that helps AI algorithms learn, adapt, and make predictions. As a result, a popular refrain often uttered in the context of AI is “there’s no data like more data.” The approach that sometimes derives from this statement is to...
Incorporating insights from multiple perspectives has always been a hallmark of SineWave Ventures’ investment decision-making. At a recent Women’s Leadership Summit at the New York Stock Exchange, organized by Supermomos, I was surprised to find valuable insights from a very unexpected perspective: the world of luxury goods. Pauline Brown (former Chairman of LVMH USA &...
McDonald’s suffered a global technology outage last week which left many customers jonesing for french fries – some were even driven to the extreme of trying to pay with cash. While this didn’t reach the level of a global health crisis, it was nonetheless painful for McDonald’s customers and franchisees and left a blot on...
A Pendulum Shift Recent news coverage of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives suggests that we are in the early stages of a pendulum swing away from such programs. In 2023, both investors and tech companies significantly reduced ESG funding and programs, and by association, DEI initiatives. Recent public rhetoric is awash with calls that...
This is part two of a two-part series. In the first installment of this two-part series, I unpacked the nuances and complications of FedRAMP and navigating the federal marketplace. To conclude, I will explore the implications of this system for both the private and public sectors, as well as solutions for startups hoping to break...
This blog is part one of a two-part series. Software as a Service (SaaS) offers many advantages compared to on premise software for the commercial industry and the Federal Government. SaaS software can be deployed rapidly, you only pay for what you consume, and it typically requires less maintenance than on-premise software. It has become...
It’s no secret. We’re in the midst of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom! Technical innovations in AI are occurring at a rate we’ve rarely seen. Companies are embracing and rapidly deploying newly developed AI solutions to automate business processes, improve customer experiences, and drive decision-making. Individuals are interacting directly with AI systems in hopes...
An AI model reflects the bias present in the data sets on which it was trained. Historical datasets reflect the bias present in the historical processes on which they were built. How do we build an AI model that reflects our current values and does not condemn us to repeat the decisions of the past?...
Unlike software development, sales is more of an art form than a rote skill, and hiring salespeople is the least objective thing that most startup executives do. There is also an adage, at least in Federal sales, that the first salesperson hired will be fired for lack of production, and the second person will succeed,...
Venture firms are notorious for jumping on bandwagons. Sometimes they are right to do so, sometimes they are just naïve, and sometimes they are trying to distract from their poor performance elsewhere. At SineWave, we built our own wagon almost a decade ago, and built the first private sector venture fund to focus on bridging...
The recently released “Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy” is a sound statement in favor of the use of common sense and good judgment in applying AI to a particularly dangerous military use case. Certainly, no one would argue to the contrary, suggesting that AI be irresponsible, biased, or unmanaged....
Every good government program manager or acquisition officer knows that every large mission application purchase should be preceded by an analysis of alternatives that includes build vs. buy analysis. Traditionally, this has meant the acquirer had a choice between a purpose-built technology, developed by either in-house or by contract personnel, or a general off-the-shelf commercial...
The startup world has been on a tear recently, driven by the explosion of interest in AI…and for good reason. AI has the potential to transform the technological landscape for a generation. There is a long way to go, but there is reason to be excited. The venture world, recognizing this excitement, has joined the...
The first section of the executive order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence includes the evocative sentence “AI reflects the principles of the people who build it, the people who use it, and the data upon which it is built.” This single sentence nicely clarifies the solution space for...
In the gold rushes of the 19th century, a popular adage emerged: “When everyone is digging for gold, it’s good to be in the shovel business.” Just as miners needed picks and shovels, today’s AI-driven enterprises require certain foundational tools and infrastructure to power them. For an enterprise tech VC, there’s a compelling case to...
One of the root causes of the current meteoric advances in AI has been the free and open disclosure of machine learning (ML) concepts and results through mechanisms such as the arXiv technical paper repository. Another critical but often overlooked driver has been, however, the sharing of machine learning software tools and libraries between AI...
On September 8th, the IRS announced it will start leveraging AI to uncover potential tax fraud, part of their new plan to grow tax revenue through increased compliance. For us at SineWave, the IRS announcement reinforces a trend central to our reason for being: cutting-edge technology can – and will – continue to solve pressing...
Mention ‘multimodal transformer’ to any 6-year-old and you might just trigger impassioned comments about devious Decepticons. But there is another kind of multimodal transformer. And this kind of transformer is of keen interest to SineWave because it creates AI functions that are changing the way we process and add value to information – whether in...
Today, remarkable progress in AI and machine learning (ML) has become commonplace. Every week brings headlines in areas ranging from natural language processing to music synthesis. Between the occasionally breathless declarations of breakthroughs, however, it is still worth pausing – just occasionally – to ask how the field of AI can move so quickly. There...
To continue the theme of putting yourself in the customer’s shoes when pursuing enterprise sales, it is useful to consider some (perhaps unexpressed) expectations typical of enterprise buyers that may not be typical of entrepreneurial design practices. To effectively sell a platform as “enterprise ready” startups must understand and address these expectations. Attempts to address...
![Ken Vertically Integrated AI Blog Image[29]](https://sinewave.vc/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Ken-Vertically-Integrated-AI-Blog-Image29-scaled-e1693427992536.jpg "Ken Vertically Integrated AI Blog Image[29]")
Early AI systems tended to be really good at only one thing. They might, for example, be terrific at classification problems, such as distinguishing a cat from a dog or a West Highland Terrier from a Great Dane. Or they might be outstandingly good at translating English to Hindi. Those were the days of long...
Many startups struggle to establish a viable enterprise sales motion. They have built a brilliant technical platform or tool set and they are eager to sell the brilliance of their solution to enterprise customers. They design excellent pitches describing their technology and why it is special. They speak of its capabilities, all the things it...
The largest enterprise customer in the world – Washington, DC – continues to evade the Valley, and it’s the Valley’s fault! The public sector is perhaps the most significant buyer of new commercial technology out there, with purchasing power unrivaled by any private entity. Landing the government as a customer provides a significant competitive advantage...
In the world of technology, AI continues to emerge as a promising but buzzy reality. While the technology holds transformative potential across sectors, stakeholders and customers alike often react with skepticism at the mention of AI. The core of this skepticism is simple: is AI a practical solution for specific business problems, or just a...
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Claire provides administrative support for the firm and General Partners at SineWave. Prior to joining the team at SineWave, Claire spent 11 years as band director for middle and high school in Texas. The band programs she was a part of were recognized at the state and national level for both their musical achievement and for the infrastructure that kept the programs running. Her experiences as a band director have maximized her strengths in communication, systems management, and balancing multiple project timelines. Claire holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Texas Christian University.
Mary Reding is a Partner with over 20 years of experience in government acquisitions, venture capital, and corporate law. She previously served as a Career Senior Executive Service (SES) member and an acquisition expert at the General Services Administration (GSA), Social Security Administration (SSA), and the Department of Transportation (DOT), where she led efforts to modernize federal procurement, financial management, and drive innovation through strategic technology investments.
Mary played a key role in advancing the President’s Management Agenda, overseeing Cross-Agency Executive Councils for CIOs, CISOs, CFOs, CAOs, CHCOs, and Data Executives under the Obama and Trump Administrations to enhance government efficiency and performance. A licensed California corporate attorney, she specializes in SBIR/STTR programs, Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreements, and Small Business sole source/direct awards, helping emerging companies secure non-dilutive funding and scale within federal markets. She earned a BS from Santa Clara University and a JD from the University of San Diego.
Donna F Dodson is a Partner at SineWave Ventures. She has an extensive background in cybersecurity, privacy, standards, risk management and applied cryptography. Donna led the cybersecurity program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and focused the program on the development of standards, best practices and tools to protect and enhance the resiliency of systems and networks. As the Department of Commerce’s cybersecurity advisor, she counseled the Secretary and represented the department at strategic decision-making forums. After retiring from the government, Donna has worked in the private sector collaborating on advanced technologies and driving new innovations in security.
As an independent director and board member, government and commercial technical powerhouse leader, Dawn brings more than 40 years’ experience pioneering new products and services and leading transformation for iconic brands around the world, including CIA, AOL, and DoD. She is a recognized expert in delivering entrepreneurial technical capabilities and processes to international markets, leveraging unparalleled stakeholder acumen into strategy, development, integration, and operations.
Nikesh Kalra is a 25-year operator, strategy advisor, and investor in Silicon Valley. He works closely with management teams and investors at all stages to accelerate growth, navigate change, and create value. His current portfolio includes a dozen investments in AI, security, and infrastructure. He previously served in senior operating roles at Equinix (EQIX) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW). Nikesh is a grass-roots philanthropist, athlete, and parent. He earned an executive management certificate (MIT), M.B.A (Oxford), and B.S. (USC).
Howard Levenson has over 30 years of experience solving challenging information technology problems for the intelligence community and other federal customers. He started the Databricks Federal business when the company was doing $1M in revenue and ultimately led the business as the General Manager and Regional Vice President of Databricks Federal, LLC. He helped establish Databricks Federal into one of the leading providers of big data and machine learning analytical solutions with over 50 Federal agencies leveraging the platform to find insights in their data. Howard has spent his career solving challenging, big data, and high-performance computing problems for the Federal Government. He’s performed in leadership roles for companies including IBM and Silicon Graphics/Cray, and has extensive experience leveraging open source technology, cloud, and big data to solve the world’s most challenging problems. He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University.
Dave has joined SineWave Ventures after completing a 32-year career at the National Security Agency (NSA). He began his work at NSA as a Cryptologic Mathematician, and was a trailblazer in applying data mining and machine learning techniques to speech and language processing. In 2004, he reached the Senior Executive Service level, as a Defense Intelligence Senior Leader, and from there, he oversaw various projects and organizations within the Research, Capabilities, Operations, and Workforce Support Directorates. Notably, he served as the first Director of the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences, where he led a collaborative effort involving government, academic, and industry partners to develop and implement technology and methods to meet intelligence analysis needs. His distinguished career at NSA earned him numerous awards and commendations, with a notable highlight being the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award. This prestigious award recognized his sustained professional, technical, and scientific accomplishments on behalf of the U.S. Government. Dave recently served as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Human Language Technology Center of Excellence (HLTCOE) at Johns Hopkins University.
Charlie is a Principal at SineWave Ventures. Previously, Charlie was an analyst at Syno Capital, supporting investment research, deal execution, and fund operations across early-stage healthcare and life sciences. He began his career at KPMG in their Economic and Valuation Services group conducting valuation analyses for venture-backed companies and investment funds.
Charlie received his B.S. in Finance and Economics from Boston College, with a minor in environmental studies.
Fostering digital transformation and enabling enterprises to harness the power of their data through machine learning, artificial intelligence, stream processing and other advanced analytics.
We believe data is the driving force of business, and the ability to harness one’s data and to use it in effective decision-making will become the make-or-break success criteria for companies. This means that it must be easy for non-specialists to consume heterogeneous data and to use it in complex decision processes, both human and automatic.
At SineWave, we look for data ingest technologies, developer tooling for AI and ML, understandable AI systems, analytic workflow tools, analytics to control automated processes, and decision analytics. We also believe that data need be useful in a variety of environments in a way that addresses a wide range of latency concerns. We seek technologies that adapt analytic workflows to accommodate processing constraints, and that support the development of just-in-time, just good enough analytic strategies
Improving network adaptivity and assurance and addressing new paradigms like edge computing and 5G.
We believe that a data-driven world requires dynamic network. Data sources and data points of use are proliferating. Operations are becoming distributed, and the network should be able to accommodate changing distribution schemes.
At SineWave, we look for technologies that heighten network adaptivity and that enable the distribution of computation across the network. This includes software-defined networking, edge networks, and 5G technologies. We also believe that adaptive networks need secure network controls, and so we look for technologies that support policy-driven networking and secure network configuration.
Protecting data and systems and enabling new types of secure transactions through improved software, zero-trust solutions, and data-centric technology.
We believe the language used in the cybersecurity conversation has hindered the development of systemic, threat-agnostic solutions. It is easy to be distracted with looking for tools to combat specific system intruders through deployment of multiple point solutions or after-the-fact orchestration efforts. As a result, the market holds a multitude of point solutions and after-the-fact efforts to orchestrate them. At SineWave, we believe cybersecurity is just one dimension of smart system management. We seek solutions that enable you to know and understand your assets (human or machine, endpoint or network) and their behavior, to recognize deviations from the norm regardless of the cause of the anomaly, to provide fine-grained controls that permit only legitimate behaviors, and to assure the correct behavior of software and systems. This includes endpoint security systems, zero-trust systems, novel access control and isolation mechanisms, application security, code analysis, and software-defined perimeters. We also believe that data protection deserves special attention to address both security and privacy concerns, so we look for novel ways to protect data in motion and at rest.
Democratizing big compute and easing access to heterogenous compute platforms.
We believe in the democratization of big compute. Computers are no longer just for data centers and high performance workflows are no longer just for scientists. Data computation has become the engine that drives business, so powerful and accessible computing needs to be available where and when it is needed.
At SineWave, we look for technologies that enable high performance computing from commodity resources, that enable distributed and edge computing, that support stream processing, and that enable the use of specialized processors. We also believe that compute requirements ebb and flow, and so look for technologies that enable the rapid provisioning and configuration of compute resources.
Maggie is the Chief Operating Officer at SineWave Ventures, Over more than ten years with the firm, she has gained extensive experience in venture operations. Before SineWave, Maggie served as the Chair of the Religion Department at Elizabeth Seton High School, an all-girls school in Bladensburg, Maryland, where she also taught Ethics and coached lacrosse. As a former high school teacher, Maggie’s roles have always demanded attention to detail and the ability to solve problems in complex situations. Maggie holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Fordham University and a Master’s Degree from Yale University. She’s currently pursuing her MBA.
Oliver B. Libby is Managing Director and Co-founder of Hatzimemos / Libby, an impact-focused strategy and venture based in New York City. H/L is dedicated to enhancing and accelerating companies in key growth industries that add value to society. Oliver is also Chair & Co-Founder of The Resolution Project, Inc., a non-profit that helps hundreds of undergraduate students launch new social ventures that help millions of people in nearly 70 countries and across America. Oliver serves as a member of the Advisory Council of the Clinton Global Initiative, a Trustee of the Harvard Club of New York City Foundation, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, a Milken Young Leader, a Concordia Summit Advisor, a GLG Social Impact Fellow, and a NationSwell Councilmember. Mr. Libby graduated from Harvard College.
Brian currently serves as the director of the Naval Postgraduate School’s Remote Sensing Center NCR. He previously served as Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Special Capabilities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). There he managed over $2 Billion in resources and also served as the first Director of the OSD – Special Capabilities Office. Brian has also served as the Chief Scientist and Chief Systems Engineer of Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) at the Intelligence Communities National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). He also served over 23 years as an active duty and reserve officer in the U.S. Air Force, and has been awarded the Air Force Invention Award, an NRO Silver Medal, and a US Patent.
United States Air Force Academy, B.S. in Physics with Honors (1991) and Air Force Institute of Technology, M.S. in Physics Engineering (1992).
Yanev is the Founder of SineWave Ventures. Prior to SineWave, Yanev was an investor at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), where he sourced, managed, and helped advise dozens of early stage investments. Yanev was also a Senior Investment Officer under the Bush and Obama Administrations, and was the first person hired to build the Federal Loan Program, which grew to a ~$150 billion investment vehicle.
Yanev holds degrees from Yale University (B.A., Magna Cum Laude), Harvard Law School (J.D.), Oxford Said School of Business (M.B.A., Christ Church), and Sydney Law School (Masters, Distinction).
