Salesforce is acquiring defence tech startup Rune Technologies for $375 million in a combination of shares and cash, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
It’s a sign of Salesforce’s increased appetite for more, and more valuable, military contracts: the company’s military-facing AI enterprise software Missionforce has grown 80% year-over-year, since its launch in 2025. Rune, which builds AI tools to streamline frontline supply chains, will be complementary to Missionforce’s enterprise work, according to a Salesforce blogpost.
“The acquisition of Rune Technologies reflects our long-term commitment to offer the leading commercial AI platform for national security, from the enterprise to the tactical edge,” Missionforce CEO Kendall Collins said in an X post.
Rune Technologies and Salesforces did not respond to a request for comment.
The deal is a boon for the Rune team. The Washington, DC-based startup only raised $30 million from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Point72 Ventures and the CIA-affiliated IQT (formerly called In-Q-Tel). It was last valued at $134 million, according to a source.
Founders David Tuttle and Peter Goldsborough launched the company in 2024, at the same time that a wave of other American defence tech companies were emerging. But while many of those startups focused on drones, weapons or battle-focused AI, Tuttle saw an opportunity to do something different.
“I saw a gap in the market, in our national security, and decided to found Rune Technologies to focus that same innovation on one thing only: logistics in the military,” he told Resilience Media earlier this year.
Or, as Collins put it in his post, logistics is one of the problems in the military “that modern technology has yet to fully address.”
So Tuttle and Goldsborough created TyrOS, which collects data on inventory and helps soldiers figure out what they need, when they need it, and the best way to transport it. The company notched some major wins, like landing a $99 million Army contract over the summer.
Salesforce has already scored major contracts — namely, a $5.6 billion Army contract last January — but, thus far, the company says its work has centered around back-office administrative record keeping and strategic planning.
Rune will bring Salesforce closer to the battlefield, so to speak, “where frontline units make decisions under time and connectivity pressure,” the company’s blogpost said.
The acquisition is the continuation of a buying spree for the software company, which bought AI marketing firm Braze for $5.99 billion last week and AI agent platform Fin $3.6 billion over the summer.
It’s also potentially a signal of more M&A in the defence space. There are players with very deep pockets – both legacy prime contractors and large, very well capitalised “neo-primes” like Anduril and Helsing. As waves of early-stage defence startups struggle to raise growth rounds waiting for contracts to come in, these bigger players will be looking for more bolt-on acquisitions to strengthen their businesses.
Updated with a more accurate valuation prior to the acquisition.
