Adam Aerospace wins big at SXSW

Milwaukee-based data verification and data tracking startup Adam Aerospace wowed the judges during the Space and Defense Innovation Showcase at South by Southwest on March 9. The SaaS company won two of the seven categories in the competition, taking home prizes for Best Startup Innovation and Integrated Sensing and Cyber.

Launched in 2020 by CEO and founder Michael Adam, nine-person advanced cryptography company has found success protecting the data of the U.S. government and military.

Adam recalls how his curiosity led to the creation of his award-winning company.

“In 2016, before the ‘blockchain hype cycle’ I was intrigued by the technology and really started to research and try to understand how the world can use this outside of the financial space …in 2018, just when it hit the pinnacle of the hype-cycle, I had some ideas,” he said.

Adam became an authority on the emerging technology, teaching blockchain classes at Marquette University and speaking on technical conferences through the Midwest.

Eventually, Adam took his ideas from the classroom to the boardroom and founded Adam Aerospace. While developing the innovative data protection software, he saw the synergistic potential of serving the government with the technology.

“The federal government has probably more resources than anybody else in the United States as far as funding opportunities to help small businesses, you know a lot of that’s in conjunction with the Small Business Administration, but that is little known to most startups. I would say 90% of startups don’t know what an SBIR is or what these different funding vehicles are. We were fortunate enough to work our way through that. Working a little bit with the Center for Technology Commercialization was great as well,” Adam said.

Historically, Milwaukee is not a place where the government does a great deal of business. Without a ready-made path into the government marketplace, Adam Aerospace successfully entered the market through targeted efforts.

“It was really a matter of getting a group of champions around you, either current military or ex-military, and then being able and willing to humble yourself, listen, understand and then learn the pathways,” he explained. “It was a combination of doing our research, a little bit of trial and error and meeting and gaining champions within the DoD, especially locally, the Wisconsin Air Guard and then finding local resources.”

“We have now gotten to a point where we can be sole source contractors. We can skip the line as far as the bidding process goes… since we’ve proven ourselves with these advanced technology contracts with the DoD, we can go the sole source contract route,” he said.

Adam Aerospace is in growth mode and has plans to reach 15 employees by the close of 2024; however, the company does not have plans to do any fundraising to meet its goals.

“We’re 100% customer funded. We do it the way we think most startups should. Companies should not be forced to raise the seed round,” Adam said.

“While we will always look at SBIRs as a great business development strategy for newer projects, our focus now will shift a little bit from that contract vehicle mechanism and go more towards the sole source contracts,” he said.

To follow the progress of this award-winning company, connect with Adam Aerospace here.