John Serafini, founder and Chief Executive Officer of HawkEye 360, joins theCUBE's host, John Furrier, at NYSE's CUBE Studios to discuss the intersection of technology and defense, focusing on space-enabled signals intelligence. This conversation, part of theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Physical AI & Robotics series, delves into the innovative strategies HawkEye 360 employs to enhance defense technology capabilities.
In this episode, Serafini provides insights into HawkEye 360's mission-driven operations, which emphasize enhancing defense intelligence through signals intelligence generated by their satellite constellation. These capabilities allow for the geolocation and analysis of various signals, delivering actionable intelligence for military and international government agencies. Insights from Furrier and analysts from theCUBE Research further illuminate the company's impact on the technology landscape.
Key takeaways from the discussion include HawkEye 360's competitive edge in the defense technology sector, achieved through its unique three-satellite geolocation method. Serafini attributes the company's success to its ability to adapt mission-based intelligence technology and sustain a dedicated workforce focused on client success. The conversation also highlights the strategic importance of defense technology in national security and HawkEye 360's vision for expansion within commercial markets.
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John Serafini, HawkEye 360
TheCUBE Research’s John Furrier sits down with Amy Luca, CMO of Tensor, at the NYSE as a part of the Robotics & AI Leaders series, diving into the evolving world of personal autonomous vehicles. Luca shares Tensor’s vision of ownership-based robocars, positioning them beyond robotaxis and redefining independence by making autonomy a personal, private experience.
Tensor’s Level 4 autonomous design, built to prioritize safety and privacy together, Luca explains. Powered by Nvidia, the vehicles operate with self-contained systems that keep all data within the car. This approach eliminates external exposure, ensuring confidence for owners while setting Tensor apart in a crowded and competitive autonomous marketplace.
The discussion also emphasizes tangible benefits for everyday commuters. Autonomous control reduces accidents, eliminates distractions and creates a more efficient commuting experience, Luca highlights. Furrier underscores how ownership shifts the model, giving drivers the freedom to reclaim time, build trust and experience autonomy without compromising safety or privacy.
John Serafini, founder and Chief Executive Officer of HawkEye 360, joins theCUBE's host, John Furrier, at NYSE's CUBE Studios to discuss the intersection of technology and defense, focusing on space-enabled signals intelligence. This conversation, part of theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Physical AI & Robotics series, delves into the innovative strategies HawkEye 360 employs to enhance defense technology capabilities.
In this episode, Serafini provides insights into HawkEye 360's mission-driven operations, which emphasize enhancing defense intelligence through ...Read more
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What is the primary function and capability of the defense technology company described in the text?add
What are the key priorities and values emphasized at HawkEye?add
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>> Welcome back around to theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, the host here in our NYSE CUBE Studios. Of course, we have our studio in Palo Alto, California, connecting the West Coast and the East Coast, connecting tech with money, and we're talking about tech AI, physical AI, all the cool things happening, and one of the largest sectors is defense tech, space tech. It's booming. We had a great guest here, John Serafini, HawkEye 360 CEO. Welcome to theCUBE. Dave DeWalt is here as well, watching from the corner. Also, CUBE Alumni. Thanks for coming on.
John Serafini
>> Thank you, John.
John Furrier
>> All right. First, let's get into what you guys do because we've been covering defense tech from a cloud perspective and look at some of the technology, not so much on some of the programs, but the tech space has been hot for years. It's one of the most congested and contested areas. Talk about what you guys do.
John Serafini
>> We're a defense technology company. We produce signals intelligence that's enabled by space. We own and operate a constellation of 30 some odd satellites. They fly uniquely in clusters of three. So you have a satellite out in front, satellite behind, separated by hundreds of kilometers up and lower earth orbit, and then a third that oscillates back and forth, and that unique architecture allows us to geolocate signals. Generally a signal above a watt and power between 30 megahertz on the low end up to 18 gigahertz, we can detect it from space. We can geolocate it, process, analyze it, and then convert that into actionable intelligence that we produce for the warfighter and the intelligence analyst
John Furrier
>> The use case there, what kind of data are you guys grab and what kind of signals?
John Serafini
>> There's a lot, because with that amount of aperture, we can see an area about the size of Australia with one single pass of our clusters. We pick up a lot of signals and we're able to be able to analyze that, to pull out very specific signals that we care about, like X-band radars and S-band radars, which are useful for being able to track navigational systems like for vessels. GPS interference, so GPS jamming, particularly a phenomenon in Eastern Europe as you would imagine. There's a host of other signals like push-to-talk radio systems, L-band communication devices, all those we can detect track and analyze from space.
John Furrier
>> It's a nice observability platform as they say in space. Just a couple of questions and that formation, is that by design for security reasons or signal acquisition?
John Serafini
>> There's a couple of different ways in which you can do geolocation from space. We think the three-ball geolocation with a cluster of three satellites is the most accurate and allows us to have the largest aperture to see the most amount of signal areas as possible. There's also ways in which you can do it with one ball, not as accurate, some other trade-offs, et cetera, but we're big believers in the three-ball geolocation.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. The size of the company. Give some stats on numbers. How many people, customers, obviously military, US?
John Serafini
>> Sure. We have about 200 phenomenal employees in Herndon, Virginia, just outside DC. We've been growing like a weed. About 50% of our business is associated with US government and about 50% is international governments.
John Furrier
>> The product use case, are these programmable devices? I can just send a request, look for these signals or is it always on? Are they programmable? How's the data flows? Take me through how it works.
John Serafini
>> All of our satellites are equipped with an antenna configuration and then software-defined radios that are fully configurable. When we're over a certain area of the world, say over Eastern Europe, we can be looking for very specific signals and we're over a different area of the world, say the South China Sea, we can be configured that software-defined radio to look for other signals that are more aligned with the mission at that point in time, transition over to the southern border, different mission, different signals.
John Furrier
>> You're mission-driven?
John Serafini
>> Absolutely.
John Furrier
>> Any commercial activity, commercial customers or mostly military governments?
John Serafini
>> Yeah. My personal philosophy is selling to defense intelligence is a really difficult thing to do, and these are extremely challenging customers doing really challenging things and you need to be able to sell to them uniquely. I like to say that you can't minor in US government sales, you have to be all in, otherwise you're shortchanging the war fighters. We're pretty exclusively focused on making sure that the war fighter and the intelligence analyst and the decision maker has the capabilities that they need to be successful. But we'll move into the commercial markets over time.
John Furrier
>> You're going to nail this so-called beach that's really space, but you're going to nail this sector then reevaluate based upon-
John Serafini
>> That's correct. Ultimately, John, we're not selling widgets. This isn't like a social media thing. This is mission-critical technologies that lives depend upon, so we got to get it right first time and every time, and that's a different type of mentality than someone building a different type of company.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. That's a great mission. Talk about your background, West Point, your military background, share what you've done.
John Serafini
>> I'm a proud member of the class of 1998 at West Point. I was a US Army infantry officer for a number of years, and I've been honored to be a national security-oriented investor and company operator for about 25 years.
John Furrier
>> Well, I really appreciate what you do and I think as the world it gets more complex, these intentional strategies and solutions are certainly needed. What's the tailwind in headwind for you? Obviously you're highly focused, which is cool. What's some of the things you're evaluating? What's the tailwind for you and your business and what's a headwind?
John Serafini
>> Tailwinds are easy to talk about. The Trump administration's been phenomenal. The Department of War's focus on buying commercial first and then buying commercial again. That resonates and it provides what I would say is a revolution in procurement in the US government. That's fantastic for defense technology companies. There's also a very good set of tailwinds out of Europe. Obviously they need to rearm and have access to the most critical technologies, whether that's coming from US companies or European is ambivalent that they need the best and we're going to deliver it to them. The tailwinds are definitely there. Headwinds, it's about focus and it's about having 24 hours in the day and making best use of it and not allowing yourself to get distracted by things that aren't critical.
John Furrier
>> As you guys grow, every culture has its own DNA. We just always talk about Intel Moore's law, the Cadence arrow. Cadence of Moore's Law and the employees reflect that. In your company, what's the culture like? You gave a little teaser about mission. What kind of people are you hiring? Who's a good fit to work for you at HawkEye 360?
John Serafini
>> There's two words that really matter at HawkEye, mission execution. Ultimately that's the most important priority, is making sure that the war fighter and the intelligence analyst and all the people who depend upon our capabilities are successful. That is priority number one. We're looking for more mature, thoughtful individuals who come in with a set of expertise and a set of skill sets that enable them to be immediately of value to the organization. Whole organization culture is on making that customer successful. There's no beer pong and stupid stuff that HawkEye. It's people there who are mature and understand the importance of what we do.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. On the investor side, I know David's here, what's that look like? Investors also set the agenda for the company too. What's your investor makeup look like?
John Serafini
>> We've been blessed with phenomenal investors. We've raised just under $400 million over 7 institutional rounds. Great investors like BlackRock and NightDragon, Insight and Razor's Edge, Advance, as well as phenomenal strategics like Raytheon, Lockheed, Airbus, Leidos, Jacobs, and then great sovereigns, like GIC and the UAE. We haven't wanted for capital. We've been very fortunate.
John Furrier
>> One of the things I discovered during my work with the Jedi contract, then the DoD was going back to 2016 through 2018, that got shelved and repackaged, but Amazon was involved that the war fighters, the biggest problem was friendly fire. Those technical solutions evolving. Now, the tactical edge is out there, now you've got space. There's really no edge in space. The question for you is, how has the battlefield changed? All those investors, a lot of industrial, aeronautics, space, data, you give a lot of disciplines coming together in this new realm. How would you describe the new playing field, the arena, the battlefield? You got more drones, you got more technology. Even for 100 grand, you can put a VSAT in space. Maybe I take out constellation, your formation. There's a lot of threats. It's becoming very complex. What's your vision and thoughts around that? Because the game is still the same. Save lives, prevent wars, peace. What's your take on the battlefield and the elements around it?
John Serafini
>> It's dynamic marketplace. Ultimately, our Lodestar is that young second lieutenant or first lieutenant or captain on the battlefield who needs access to high quality intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance so that he or she can do their job and keep their people alive and achieve the objective. If HawkEye can deliver the best signals intelligence that allows them to be successful and the intelligence analyst and the decision maker, then we've done our job.
John Furrier
>> When you started the company, what was the origination? Was it the commitment to service? Did you have the ID, you saw a gap? Take me through the origination story. You wake up one day and say, "Hey, you know what? I could do this." What was the motivation? What was the origination?
John Serafini
>> My passion in my career is building national security technology companies. This is the 10th company I've had the privilege of founding and scaling. This is a lot of fun, but at the same time, frankly, there's an easier way to make a buck. My dad asked me all the time, "How are things going?" I'm like-
John Furrier
>> It's hard.
John Serafini
>> "... Pushing this rock up a hill for a long time. That could have made money another way," but ultimately, if you care about having purpose in what you do and ensuring that there's greater value than just making a buck, but contributing to the national security of the United States and their allies, this is the work I want to be doing.
John Furrier
>> Again, it's so different now and again, I really appreciate what you do. Share your thoughts with folks that aren't inside the ropes. There's been a lot of people who look at national security and be like, "Well, we're safe." There's a lot of people who come to this country, "Hey, if you want to see safe, because you think we're not safe, go live there." Then they flip their tune, but there's a lot of confusion around what national security actually means. We also have some challenges. Here in the US our grid is electricity a big threat in terms of scarce resource. You're seeing that on the AI conversations we're involved in, but now you've got access to space. You're seeing advancements in networking, even industrial solutions. You got to go to space and you've got to go back down to earth. It's also technology shifts. You've got technology shifts, infrastructure, I won't say reset or reboot, replatforming. Data. Okay. Now, you've got more data than ever before. That's a throughput problem. You solved the space physics problem. Great. Now what? How you get the data backed into the right area? It's a technical challenge. What does national security mean with all that kind as a backdrop for the average person saying, "Hey, I wake up every day in America and we're safe and we have people fighting on our behalf?"
John Serafini
>> Well, it's not just about defense intelligence applications, but it's also about statecraft and being a part of the ability to project American ideals and capabilities forward to our allies. As HawkEye has grown and matured, I think the US government looks at our functionality as an element of states craft that they can assist with our allies having access to. From our perspective, we care about really two things. One is dominating signal collection from all the way up at 27,000 kilometers all the way down to the ground and being the very best in the world at collecting RF data. Then secondly, being the very best in the world at converting that into actionable intelligence through unique processing and geolocation and analysis technologies. That's what gives us our edge. It makes us valuable to the US government and international government.
John Furrier
>> Your mode or advantage is simply focused on being the best signal acquisition and distribution capability?
John Serafini
>> That and being profitable. You can't be trusted by the US government or by international governments if you're not sustainable. If they don't know that you're going to be there in six months or two years, you have to be an enduring company, and that comes with profitability, great cost structure, diversification of revenue sources and the capital that you raise in your capital base.
John Furrier
>> Talk about of the business. You guys are profitable?
John Serafini
>> We are.
John Furrier
>> Okay. You're looking good right now. Got some good funders. Business is good. Obviously market wants better intelligence. Are you looking at signaling as a service? You mentioned collaboration. Is that going to be open for business? Are you doing that now?
John Serafini
>> Well, our revenue base is to sell software products on a subscription basis at very high gross margins. We have a hardware component in that we're space enabled. We have a constellation of sensors that allow us to have access to proprietary RF data that HILA24 has never been available outside of the classified environment. That's a feedstock for us into our RF data processing platform to convert these data analytics and data products that we sell on a subscription basis. From that perspective, we're ultimately a tech company, almost like a software company.
John Furrier
>> The customer testimonials, obviously they're military, you can't name names, but what are some of the love letters you get from happy customers? What's some of the feedback on the momentum?
John Serafini
>> I think the best letters we get are from folks who tell us that we're a trusted asset in very, very difficult environments where there's no margin of error. I won't say dependent upon our capabilities, but-
John Furrier
>> Your input to them.
John Serafini
>> We're engaged in some of the most difficult environments in the world, and we're extremely proud of the value that we're creating on the battlefield.
John Furrier
>> What's the plan going forward? What are you optimizing for? You get signal collection, that's great. What's your focus now?
John Serafini
>> Our architecture goals are to disrupt ourselves every day by building new functionality. We're creating new satellite technologies that we'll be putting into space, new processing functionality, new data science driven by AI and machine learning, such that we can deliver to our customers the most valuable data products.
John Furrier
>> John, I have to ask because this has gone, I won't say mainstream, but defense tech, I won't say it's frothy, but there's a lot of in-migration of investors and entrepreneurs. Entrepreneur's great. We want them to experiment and apply their capabilities to building new technologies, but there's been a lot of, I won't say hype, but defense tech is a new category. What's your advice to entrepreneurs and investors as new money enters the sector, new entrepreneurs come into the game, what's your advice in terms of the playbook, given your experience? How should an entrepreneur think about an investor and how should investors think about entrepreneurs?
John Serafini
>> I'll give you the same advice that my chairman at HawkEye gave me years ago when we were just starting the company. I came to them and I said, "What kind of KPIs do you want me to report out to you, ARR and bookings and all these other different metrics?" Some of which were popular at the time in the venture capital community. He looked at me dead in the eye and just said, "John, just build a serious business." For me, being a serious business, A means that you're valued by your customers. B, it means that you're scaling your revenue at high growth rates, revenue, all in the whole gap revenue. Lastly, that you're profitable and you're delivering value to your shareholders. You do those three things consistently, you'll be successful.
John Furrier
>> Yeah. You guys are focused on the product. Final question for you. On the deployments of the constellations and some of the tech, where are you on the strategy there? You plan to do more? How much is deployed? Can you share your thinking around what does steady state look like?
John Serafini
>> Yeah, absolutely. Today, we're meaningfully under an hour of revisit rate for our premium customers. We're able to deliver that data well under an hour. We will expect to deliver more capabilities on orbit to improve the revisit rate and the latency and the functionality, and making sure that our processing capabilities are the very best in the world.
John Furrier
>> Can you explain what revisit rate means?
John Serafini
>> Sure. Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Note what that means.
John Serafini
>> A spot on the earth, the time in which it takes for another cluster or asset of HawkEye to be overhead. At one point it is time X, and then another point, it's time Y, same location. We like that to be meaningfully under an hour.
John Furrier
>> Well, I appreciate you coming on theCUBE. Thanks for coming on our physical AI series. Again, defense Tech is about the missions... Mission driven is a whole nother definition. National security and saving lives is a very key mission for this tech, and of course, there's technology involved and it's rapidly changing. Of course, we're doing our job to bring that to you. I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. Thanks for watching.
John Furrier