Full-Time
Federal Account Executive
Istari Digital
51-200 employees
Model-based engineering platform and digital twins
Compensation Overview
$98k - $170k/yr
Remote in USA
Remote
 Sales & Account Management (1) |
|---|
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- The candidate must have 5–10+ years of quota-carrying enterprise or federal sales experience.
- The candidate must have experience selling into the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, or federal civilian agencies.
- The candidate must have experience navigating federal acquisition processes, including SBIR, OTA, IDIQ, and BPA.
- The candidate must have a track record of closing complex, multi-stakeholder federal deals.
- The candidate must demonstrate discovery, qualification, and consultative selling capabilities.
- The candidate must be able to translate technical workflows into compelling business value for engineering-centric organizations.
- The candidate must have strong written and verbal communication skills and be an effective presenter and storyteller.
- The candidate must demonstrate ownership, persistence, and comfort operating in a dynamic, early-stage environment.
- The candidate must have strong outbound prospecting skills and be able to build a territory from the ground up using existing use cases and connections.
- The candidate must be a team player.
- Build and execute account and capture strategies across the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and federal civilian agencies.
- Identify and engage key stakeholders across program offices, engineering leadership, and contracting teams.
- Drive outbound prospecting aligned with mission priorities, budget cycles, and funded programs.
- Partner with Government Relations and Demand Generation to shape early demand and position Istari in emerging opportunities.
- Qualify opportunities based on mission alignment, technical feasibility, funding availability, and acquisition pathway.
- Own the full federal sales cycle from initial engagement through contract award.
- Conduct discovery to understand mission objectives, engineering challenges, and program constraints.
- Partner with Solution Architects to design compliant architectures and execute proofs of value.
- Develop deal strategies aligned to federal acquisition pathways, including SBIR, OTA, IDIQ, and BPA.
- Build business cases tied to mission effectiveness, engineering velocity, and cost efficiency.
- Navigate complex stakeholder environments across program, engineering, and contracting.
- Lead pricing strategy, proposal development, and negotiations.
- Partner with Solution Architects to win technical validation.
- Work with Government Relations to align opportunities with funding and policy priorities.
- Collaborate with Contracts, Legal, and Finance on proposals and compliance.
- Provide insights to Product and Engineering on federal requirements.
- Contribute to federal go-to-market strategy and capture plans.
- Build trusted relationships with program managers, engineering leaders, and contracting stakeholders.
- Drive expansion from pilot to program of record and enterprise adoption.
- Align account growth with mission priorities and budget cycles.
- Position Istari as foundational infrastructure for secure digital engineering.
- Experience with major Department of Defense branches or Intelligence Community agencies.
- Experience transitioning programs from pilot to program of record.
- Familiarity with IL2–IL6 environments, FedRAMP, or ATO processes.
- Familiarity with engineering software ecosystems, including product lifecycle management tools such as Teamcenter, Windchill, and 3DEXPERIENCE; CAD/CAE tools; model-based systems engineering workflows; and engineering data integration platforms.
Istari Digital builds a platform to create an engineering metaverse for design, testing, and certification of physical systems entirely through modeling and simulation. It enables digital twins and digital threads—integrated models that trace a system’s lifecycle—so assets can go from concept to certifiable hardware without physical prototyping. The platform supports model-based engineering and cross-team collaboration to validate assets in a virtual environment before building them, with leadership from defense and government-experienced founders. The goal is to speed hardware development to software-like pace while enabling verifiable virtual testing and airworthiness certification across aerospace, defense, and related industries, reducing time, cost, and environmental impact.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Early VC
Total Funding
$35.6M
Headquarters
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Founded
2022
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Mark Ryland joined May 26, 2026, adding AWS security credibility for agentic AI.
- July 2026 financing reached $22.6 million toward $40 million, extending runway.
- Air Force contracts totaled $28.1 million on Flyer Øne and $8.6 million on Industry Øne.
What critics are saying
- Istari still depends on U.S. Air Force procurement; any 2026 stop-work crushes revenue.
- Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and others can internalize digital-thread tooling before Istari scales.
- If the August 2026 round stalls, Istari faces a cash squeeze by 2027.
What makes Istari Digital unique
- Will Roper and Chris Benson built Istari around Air Force-grade digital certification workflows.
- Industry Øne links 15 defense contractors without centralizing data, launched May 20, 2026.
- Flyer Øne targets first digital airworthiness certification with Lockheed Martin and AFRL.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Life Insurance
Flexible Work Hours
Unlimited Paid Time Off
401k
Company Stock Options
Home Office Stipend
Conferences Attendance Budget
Reimbursement for approved trainings and subscriptions
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 0%1 year growth
↓ -1%2 year growth
↓ -2%Istari Digital has filed a notice of an exempt offering of securities to raise $40,000,001.00 in New Funding. According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Istari Digital is raising up to $40,000,001.00 in new funding. The federal securities law requires the notice to be filed by companies that have sold securities without registration under the Securities Act of 1933 in an offering made under Rule 504 or 506 of Regulation D or Section 4(a)(5) of the Securities Act. A company must file this notice within 15 days after the first sale of securities in the offering. For this purpose, the date of first sale is the date on which the first investor is irrevocably contractually committed to invest. Each issuer of securities that sells its securities in reliance on an exemption provided in Regulation D or Section 4(a)(5) of the Securities Act of 1933 must file this notice containing the information requested with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and with the state(s) requiring it. If more than one issuer has sold its securities in the same transaction, all issuers should be identified in this filing with the SEC. About Istari Digital Istari Digital is a technology company focused on transforming complex engineering into secure, continuous digital workflows. According to its website, Istari connects tools, teams, and environments so that disconnected processes become continuous, auditable workflows, while organizations retain full control over their data. Its platform enables engineering teams to determine whether systems are secure, validated, and compliant in minutes instead of months, streamlining the entire lifecycle from design through operation. Istari particularly serves air, sea, space, energy, and transportation organizations, helping them securely coordinate, validate, and operate complex systems across distributed engineering environments. The company positions itself as building foundational infrastructure for no-fail industries, aiming to make digital engineering ecosystems and an engineering metaverse a practical reality where technologies can be created and tested digitally, free from real-world constraints.
Today's funding activity tells a familiar story: investors are writing fewer big checks, but they're writing them with greater conviction. Rather than spreading capital widely, venture firms concentrated their bets on companies building technologies they believe will shape the next decade. It was concentrated, thematic, and unusually revealing. Applying a strict 12-hour announcement window leaves
Istari Digital, an Arlington-based defence technology startup, has raised $22.6 million towards a $40 million funding goal. The company has already secured millions in Air Force contracts. Previously, Istari Digital worked on a $28 million programme alongside Lockheed Martin. The startup focuses on defence technology solutions.
AWS vet Mark Ryland joins Istari Digital to lead AI push. 5h ago · 0:00 listen · Source: PR Newswire Summary. Mark Ryland has joined Istari Digital as Vice President of Artificial Intelligence. He is a 30-year veteran in cloud security and enterprise software. Ryland previously spent 14 years at Amazon Web Services, where he built AWS Worldwide Public Sector as Chief Solutions Architect. He also served eight years with AWS Security as Founder and Director, Office of the CISO. Earlier in his career, he worked at Microsoft for 13 years in senior roles. Istari Digital focuses on secure AI agent infrastructure for industries where failure is not an option, such as aerospace and defense. The company aims to solve the challenge of making AI agents safe across security boundaries and organizations that cannot easily share data. Will Roper, CEO of Istari Digital, states that Ryland will lead the company's AI work. Ryland believes the next generation of AI will be pioneered in solving hard infrastructure problems to preserve trust, control, and accountability as AI operates in real mission environments. This development matters because it highlights efforts to create secure and trustworthy AI systems for critical sectors. This is an AI-generated audio summary. Always check the original source for complete reporting.
The US Department of the Air Force has awarded an $8.6 million contract to Istari Digital to establish Industry Øne, an initiative aimed at accelerating digital transformation across the Defence Industrial Base. The programme addresses fragmented IT environments and incompatible tools that currently hinder collaboration amongst thousands of defence suppliers. Industry Øne enables secure, policy-enforced access to engineering data without centralising or copying it outside the owner's control. The platform allows organisations to maintain their own firewalls and data sovereignty whilst models interact through controlled interfaces, supporting real-time collaboration and continuous integration. The initiative builds on successful predecessors including Flyer Øne and Model Øne. Istari CEO Will Roper, former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, said the platform provides the infrastructure the defence industry has been missing.