The company
Arkenstone Defense
Arkenstone Defense launched from stealth in July 2026 with a $35M seed round led by J2 Ventures, joined by Susa Ventures, Granite Hill Capital Partners, and Artis Ventures. Founded by CEO Peter Dixon (co-founder of Second Front Systems, a former U.S. Marine Corps major) and COO William Treseder, the company builds the operating layer, cleared workforce, payroll, personnel security, accreditation, and compliance, that lets commercial technology companies sell to the federal government.
Before SamSearch
Building opportunity and capture data in-house is a distraction from the core product
Arkenstone's business is the compliance and workforce operating layer for companies entering the federal market, not opportunity-data plumbing. Federal notices alone span SAM.gov, DIBBS, and GSA eBuy, and SLED work is spread across thousands of state and local portals with no shared format. Building and maintaining that ingestion pipeline in-house is exactly the kind of infrastructure work that delays a startup's actual product.
How they use SamSearch
The capture workflow
Arkenstone integrates SamSearch's API directly into Foundation, the free tool it uses to drive volume into its core compliance business, pulling federal and SLED opportunity data straight into its own platform. Last month that pairing produced Arkenstone's first full circle customer: a company came in for a CMMC assessment, Arkenstone showed them Foundation and its opportunity discovery, and the assessment surfaced that the customer actually needed FedRAMP. That customer converted into a FedRAMP engagement worth roughly $500,000, exactly the outcome Foundation was built to create: a free, high-volume front door that surfaces Arkenstone's higher-value core business.
By the numbers
Arkenstone Defense in SamSearch
Capabilities in play
What they run in the platform
Integrations
Federal and SLED opportunity data delivered through SamSearch's API directly into Arkenstone's own product, so its customers never need a separate tool to log into.
Capture
The underlying opportunity discovery and fit-scoring engine Foundation runs on, surfaced to Arkenstone's customers as their own feature.
Old way vs. SamSearch
What changed in the pursuit process
| Before | With SamSearch | |
|---|---|---|
| Opportunity data pipeline | Build and maintain ingestion across federal and thousands of SLED portals in-house. | One API integration into SamSearch's existing federal and SLED coverage. |
| Time to a working feature | Months of engineering before Foundation's opportunity discovery even works. | Capture-ready intelligence available inside Foundation from day one. |
| Spotting the upsell | No systematic way to know when a CMMC customer actually needs FedRAMP. | Foundation's opportunity discovery surfaced the FedRAMP need directly, converting into a roughly $500K engagement. |
“I think you guys are doing awesome work. We've seen a ton of value already.”
Alex, Arkenstone
FAQ
What does Arkenstone Defense use SamSearch for?
Arkenstone integrates SamSearch's API directly into Foundation, the free tool it uses to drive volume into its core compliance business, pulling federal and SLED opportunity data straight into its own platform. Last month that pairing produced Arkenstone's first full circle customer: a company came in for a CMMC assessment, Arkenstone showed them Foundation and its opportunity discovery, and the assessment surfaced that the customer actually needed FedRAMP. That customer converted into a FedRAMP engagement worth roughly $500,000, exactly the outcome Foundation was built to create: a free, high-volume front door that surfaces Arkenstone's higher-value core business.
What results are documented here?
$500K FedRAMP engagement converted from a CMMC lead, Arkenstone's first full circle customer; $35M seed round led by J2 Ventures, announced July 2026; API-integrated capture and opportunity data delivered directly into Arkenstone's Foundation product.
How were the results verified?
Platform activity comes from SamSearch production data. No award dollars are claimed where a matching public record is unavailable.