{"id":3310,"date":"2026-07-13T14:11:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=3310"},"modified":"2026-07-13T14:11:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:11:06","slug":"valarian-raises-50-million-to-help-governments-and-enterprises-escape-americas-cloud-grip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=3310","title":{"rendered":"Valarian raises $50 million to help governments and enterprises escape America\u2019s cloud grip"},"content":{"rendered":"
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He felt that Western governments were quietly handing the keys to their most sensitive operations to American tech giants\u2014and would eventually lose the ability to control what their own intelligence and infrastructure ran on. Most enterprises, before Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had three cloud servers\u2014U.S., Europe, Asia\u2014and nobody called it a vulnerability. Buchan, 24 at the time and fresh off helping take a fintech company from zero to a unicorn (which later listed on the Nasdaq at $1.2 billion), thought it was going to be catastrophic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Exclusive: Google\u2019s former \u2018click fraud czar\u2019 emerges from stealth with an on-device AI shield against AI-powered phishing, deepfakes, and other scams<\/a><\/p>\n

Buchan and co-founder Josh McLaughlin now lead Valarian, a London-based startup that builds the software layer governments and enterprises deploy underneath their AI systems to ensure it controls how that intelligence operates, what data can be accessed, and who can shut it off. McLaughlin comes to Valarian after a career as a managing director at Palantir.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Valarian has raised a $50 million Series A led by NEA, Fortune<\/em> learned exclusively. The round brings total funding to $70 million and marks NEA\u2019s first defense and dual-use investment in Europe.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s software, ACRA, acts as a sealed operating room around AI workloads and sensitive applications. Government departments and businesses can keep using Amazon or Microsoft cloud infrastructure\u2014but Valarian\u2019s layer controls exactly what data leaves, who touches it, and when. That matters because of the U.S. CLOUD Act. American authorities can compel U.S.-based companies to hand over data they hold anywhere in the world. Buchan\u2019s argument is that sovereignty can\u2019t be a settings toggle inside someone else\u2019s infrastructure. It has to be the infrastructure itself.<\/p>\n

Valarian\u2019s rise comes amidst several geopolitical kerfuffles. European defense spending hit $447 billion last year. An incoming U.K. prime minister is moving to cancel a state Palantir contract\u2014part of a broader European pullback from the U.S. data giant. And, when the Trump administration cut off Anthropic\u2019s access abroad this year, Buchan said infrastructure sovereignty shifted from an abstract policy debate to a live emergency. \u201cNo one could use their model anymore, because the president of another country had shut it off,\u201d he told me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NEA\u2019s Mustafa Neemuchwala, who led the round, argues that the case for Valarian is that it sidesteps the classic defense startup trap\u2014no production lines to blow up, no missiles to test. \u201cIf this company fails, it\u2019s not going to be because they overspent on a production facility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more TIAA\u2019s CEO shares her advice for separating your personal identity from your title<\/a><\/p>\n

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See you tomorrow,<\/p>\n

@LilyMaeLazarus
lily.lazarus@fortune.com
Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter\u00a0here.<\/p>\n

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Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter.<\/em> Subscribe here.<\/p>\n

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VENTURE DEALS<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Ravee<\/b> Optics<\/b>, a Dayton, Ohio-based developer of laser communication systems designed for transporting data across satellite networks, raised $6 million in seed funding. <\/span>BIG<\/b> Capital<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>JobsOhio<\/b> Ventures<\/b> and <\/span>CincyTech<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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IPOS<\/h3>\n

– <\/span>Apnimed<\/b>, a Cambridge, Mass.-based drug developer focused on sleep-related breathing diseases, filed to go public on the Nasdaq. The company posted $120 million in revenue for the year ended March 31. <\/span>Morningside<\/b>, <\/span>Alpha<\/b> Wave<\/b> Global<\/b>, <\/span>Shionogi<\/b>, <\/span>Columbia<\/b> Fund<\/b>, <\/span>Tao<\/b>, and<\/span> Lawrence G. Miller <\/b>back the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Holtec<\/b> Nuclear<\/b>, a Camden, N.J.-based nuclear power generation company, filed to go public on the Nasdaq. The company posted $989 million in revenue for the year ended March 31. <\/span>Holtec<\/b> Holdings<\/b> backs the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

– <\/span>Tailored<\/b> Brands<\/b>, a New York City-based owner and operator of menswear retailers, filed to go public on the Nasdaq. The company posted $2.6 billion in revenue for the year ended April 30. <\/span>Silver<\/b> Point Capital<\/b> and <\/span>Arbour<\/b> Lane<\/b> Capital<\/b> Management<\/b> back the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Without our money, people will struggle\u2019: Muangthai Capital\u2019s new CEO Parithad Petampai defends the role of microfinance in Thailand<\/a><\/p>\n

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An ex-Palantir exec co-founded the London startup building the software layer between governments and their AI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-term-sheet"],"yoast_head":"\nValarian raises $50 million to help governments and enterprises escape America\u2019s cloud grip - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=3310\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Valarian raises $50 million to help governments and enterprises escape America\u2019s cloud grip - 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