Company exits stealth after multi-year enterprise build-out; new capital fuels expansion of ACRA platform usage into public-sector and national defence-related projects
Backers include Scout Ventures, Artis Ventures, and angel investor Gokul Rajaram
Valarian Defence aims to meet rising global demand for secure, compartmentalized systems
LONDON, May 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Valarian, the company behind ACRA - a platform for enforced isolation and compartmentalized infrastructure - today emerged from stealth, announcing $7 million in new strategic funding, bringing its total seed to $20 million.
With rising demand for control-first security postures, this latest capital injection will fund the public launch of Valarian Defence, an offering built specifically for governments and institutions operating in high-risk, mission-critical environments.
The round was co-led by defence-focused Scout Ventures and Artis Ventures, both making rare investments outside the United States, with participation from angel investor Gokul Rajaram. Previous investors have included Molten Ventures, IQ Capital, and MD One.
"Our conviction in Valarian isn't just about the technology - it's about what it represents: a next generation of dual-purpose software. Seeing innovation like this coming out of the UK shows how geographically global this problem set is," said Cody Huggins, partner at Scout Ventures.
Founded by operators with frontline experience, Valarian brings together expertise from military, finance, and systems domains. Max Buchan, a former international finance operator, and Josh McLaughlin, a former U.S. Army officer and Palantir executive, created Valarian's ACRA platform based on their experiences in environments where trust routinely fails.
After a few years of building and hardening ACRA to accommodate the needs of regulated enterprises, Valarian is now scaling its platform into national security and critical coordination environments where traditional security approaches have proven inadequate.
"We built ACRA because the environments we came from didn't trust shared infrastructure - and now that skepticism is becoming standard," said Max Buchan, Valarian's Co-Founder and CEO. "The more sophisticated the threat landscape becomes, the less room there is for improvisation in how institutions protect communications, data, and operational continuity."
To date, the company has developed two core product lines: Privileged Communication and External Comms Capture for regulated enterprises, while Valarian Defence extends these capabilities to government-grade deployments requiring enforced compartmentalization and secure coordination infrastructure.
"Breaches don't just leak sensitive data anymore - they disrupt discretion, decision-making, and the ability to respond," said Josh McLaughlin, Co-Founder and COO of Valarian. "Valarian Defence is about helping governments and institutions retain control even when everything else is under stress."
The company will use the new capital to expand its government partnerships, develop additional deployment pathways, and bring platform-level containment to environments previously reliant on retrofitted security measures.
To learn more, visit: www.valarian.com
About Valarian
Valarian delivers infrastructure for institutions operating at the front lines of risk. Its platform, ACRA, enforces isolation, auditability, and control-designed to contain threats and preserve operational integrity when assumptions about trust fail.
Valarian serves both regulated enterprises and national security programs with compartmentalized systems for secure communication, compliance, and continuity. Its core offerings include Privileged Communication, a tightly permissioned collaboration suite, and External Comms Capture, a tool for monitoring and archiving messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram. For government and defence contexts, Valarian Defence extends ACRA's architecture to environments where discretion, coordination, and jurisdictional control are non-negotiable.
Founded by leaders from the military, financial, and technical domains, Valarian builds with the belief that critical systems deserve architecture-not improvisation.
To learn more, visit: www.valarian.com
Press Contact
Luca Sesti
Luca.Sesti@lcscomms.co
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