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§ Private Profile · Virginia Beach, VA, USA
Enterprise AI software company developing solutions for skilled trades and maintenance, focused on tribal knowledge preservation.
Kilsar, headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States, develops enterprise software leveraging AI to preserve tribal knowledge within skilled trades and maintenance operations. The platform provides real-time intelligence, remote troubleshooting capabilities, digital tooling, critical communication features, and predictive maintenance workflows specifically designed for operators and frontline personnel. Kilsar primarily serves companies in the aerospace, aviation, heavy equipment, and broader maintenance sectors that require robust solutions for capturing and training on operational knowledge. The company's business model involves software sales and federal contracts, having successfully raised over $3 million in funding to date. With reported revenue under $5 million and an employee count below 500, Kilsar received its most recent federal award in January 2025. The organization was established on December 13, 2021.
Kilsar has raised $4.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Kilsar has raised $4.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Kilsar has raised $4.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $4.0M Seed in July 2025.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 1, 2025 | $4M Seed | Cotulla Capital, Lightbank | Altari Ventures, Techstars, Xstarpartners, Maia Bittner, Scalewolf VC | Announced |
| Sep 1, 2023 | $20K Seed | — | Altari Ventures, Techstars, Xstarpartners, Maia Bittner | Announced |
Kilsar has raised $4.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Kilsar's investors include Cotulla Capital, Lightbank, Altari Ventures, Techstars, XStarPartners, Maia Bittner, ScaleWolf VC.
Kilsar is a technology company specializing in AI-based predictive maintenance for the aviation and aerospace sectors. It builds the Orion Platform, a SaaS solution that captures legacy technician knowledge through AI-assisted interviews, integrates data sources like sensors and workflows, and delivers real-time insights, troubleshooting, and multimedia guidance to frontline workers.[1][2][3] Serving operators, technicians, and maintenance teams, Kilsar solves critical pain points: 40% of legacy knowledge is undigitized, and 70% of maintenance time is wasted searching for information, leading to inefficiencies like unplanned downtime.[2][3] Reported outcomes include 40% less unplanned downtime, 6× faster task completion, 60% faster mean time to repair, 25% higher equipment availability, and 50% fewer backlogged jobs, signaling strong growth momentum with a 10+ person remote-friendly team.[2]
Founded in January 2022 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Kilsar emerged from founders Brendan Lawlor (CEO), who built reliable SaaS systems, and Justin Carpenter (CTO), an expert in secure coding.[2] Zach Casey (CPO) joined in February 2024, adding product precision.[2] The idea stemmed from a "recovery mission" for tribal knowledge lost as veteran technicians retire, turning it into operational intelligence via AI, NLP, knowledge graphs, and retrieval-augmented generation.[1][2] Early traction built on real-world needs in aviation maintenance, with the Orion Platform evolving to include hands-free AR for real-time data and extended reality use cases, supported by grants like CCF for medical applications.[1]
Kilsar's edge lies in encoding blue-collar expertise into AI-driven tools, distinct from generic solutions:
Kilsar rides the AI-for-industrial-expertise wave, targeting aviation/aerospace where aging workforces lose irreplaceable knowledge amid rising operational demands.[2][3] Timing aligns with post-pandemic supply chain pressures and defense needs for reliable systems, amplified by market forces like sensor proliferation and AR adoption.[1] Competitors like Athenx (flight ops AI) or Revela (defense monitoring) focus narrower, but Kilsar's frontline augmentation influences the ecosystem by digitizing 40% untapped legacy data, boosting efficiency in high-stakes sectors and enabling cross-industry extensions like medical XR.[1][2] This positions it as a key player in predictive maintenance, reducing global aviation downtime costs (estimated billions annually).
Kilsar is primed for expansion, leveraging deployment data to refine Orion into a self-improving platform for critical infrastructure beyond aviation, like manufacturing or defense.[2] Trends in agentic AI, multimodal data fusion, and workforce upskilling will accelerate its trajectory, with network effects from user-contributed knowledge widening its lead. Influence may evolve toward ecosystem partnerships, defining how expertise scales as the next generation inherits AI-encoded craft—transforming maintenance from reactive to predictive precision.[2][3]