Welcome to Spotlight on Dynamism, where we shine a light on CEOs and companies at the intersection of innovation and national interest. Covering sectors from defense to public safety and supply chain, we delve into the stories of mission-driven leaders committed to civic responsibility, whose ventures not only cross verticals but also redefine business models in their quest to address critical national challenges.
This month, we turn our focus to Ari Tuchman of Quantifind and Tyler Sweatt of Second Front, pioneers within the defense tech community. Amidst accelerating technological advancement and the corresponding rise in financial and cyber crimes, their companies are at the forefront of security and innovation, offering groundbreaking solutions that underscore the need for advanced, proactive defense technologies.
Quantifind brings AI-driven risk intelligence to financial institutions, enhancing financial crime detection capabilities. Concurrently, Second Front's DevSecOps platform delivers SaaS to government with speed, built-in accreditation, and security at its core.
To learn more about Ari and Tyler's insights into shaping the future of national security, please see their complete interviews below.
Quantifind is a leader in financial crime intelligence automation, utilizing AI to integrate internal financial institution data with public domain information for risk discovery. Their platform, Graphyte™, significantly boosts the efficiency of financial crimes analysts by managing risk and reducing false positives. Focused on combating fraud and money laundering, Quantifind's technology has proven invaluable to Tier 1 banks, Fortune 50 companies, and the DoD.
With over a decade of R&D in machine learning, natural language processing, and risk modeling, Quantifind stands at the forefront of financial crime prevention.
Ari Tuchman
CEO
“Our vision was to build a crystal ball company – essentially, how do you tell the future?”
Second Front specializes in expediting government access to SaaS applications for national security missions. Its Game Warden platform is a DevSecOps solution that provides secure cloud hosting environments with built-in accreditation to the government, particularly within the Pentagon and DoD.
This capability is crucial for the U.S. government's ability to access mission-critical technology on classified networks. By bridging the gap between commercial software and national security needs, Second Front plays a critical role in modernizing defense technology infrastructure.
Tyler Sweatt
CEO
“It was a moment of realization: what we were building had the potential to be much larger than we imagined”
Ari Tuchman, CEO
Ari co-founded Quantifind in 2009, after an academic career in atomic physics, with the vision to help businesses and governments make data driven decisions. Ari’s work on precision measurement and signal processing has distinguished his career, beginning with an effort in hazardous material detection and now focusing on driving automation and efficiency in combating financial crimes.
- Hometown: New York, NY
- University: Harvard University and Yale University
- Book Recommendation: Magister Ludi, Hermann Hesse
Lazard: Your background in atomic physics, quantum measurement and academia is quite unique – from where did the idea of Quantifind originate and how did you build it into the scaled business that it is today?
AT: My background was in academia, specifically teaching atomic physics at Stanford. Initially, I planned to stay in academia, but I wanted to build things, which is challenging to do within an academic setting. I realized I had to choose one path. For me, the choice was to start a company.
So, I left academia around 2007 and recruited some colleagues to start a company initially focused on detecting land mines and chemical weapons. We spent a lot of time building the hardware and laser control, using various quantum engineering techniques. Once we built the sensor, the signal processing became key. How do you find one explosive molecule among a trillion others? And so this challenge pulled me more into machine learning rather than hardware.
Around 2010, the National Science Foundation approached us as part of the American Recovery Act. They aimed to convince eclectic scientists to focus on AI, which showed incredible foresight, given it was 2010. They offered large grants, allowing us to spin out the signal processing and machine learning side of the company. And ultimately, this led to the birth of Quantifind.
Over the years, Quantifind has evolved to focus more specifically on financial risk management and anti-money laundering. We've built a scalable product that leverages our foundational technology to help banks improve the efficiency of their AML programs. Our platform, Graphyte, embodies over a decade of R&D and deployment experience in machine learning, natural language processing, risk modeling, and Name Science. Today, we're helping many large financial institutions and government agencies combat financial risk and crime, staying true to our original vision while adapting to meet the needs of different markets.
“Our vision was to build a crystal ball company company – essentially, how do you tell the future? How do you build a company that can see around corners?”
Lazard: It seems that you were ahead of your time in 2010. How did you make Quantifind work in the early years?
AT: Yes, we were definitely ahead of the market, but our work with the federal government helped offset some of the pain associated with getting those first commercial customers. We used our early R&D to prove that our technology wasn’t just theoretical, but that it could make accurate predictions across different domains, which helped us gain credibility and secure those early "at bats."
In today’s market, “AI” has become a bit of a buzzword, but enterprises can see through marketing. You need to show proven success – who you have won as a client, what you are doing for them, and why it is working. It was frustrating to be early to the market, but we've been doing this for 10 years and have top-tier banks as references so it’s working in our favor now.
Lazard: Did Quantifind have a big break? How has the Company evolved since?
AT: Initially, we offered intelligence agencies a platform for signal extraction from messy, unstructured data to identify terrorist groups working together by analyzing local Reuters news feeds. It worked well but was extremely bespoke and consultative. It took us years to turn that into a product.
Our break came with Wells Fargo where Graham Bailey, now our COO, was tasked with discovering fraudulent companies setting up accounts – it had been a highly-manual process to date. We won the contract, beating multiple high-profile competitors, because we had experience, not necessarily in money lending or KYC, but in predictive signal identification. That marked our transition from a consulting firm doing high-profile engagements to a product company.
But, our first significant win was actually with Sony Pictures, which was quite opportunistic. We had great technology and were trying to explore where there might be a product market fit. There was no logical path from working with intelligence agencies to working with Sony Pictures, other than the credibility we had built through our government work. When you walk into Sony's marketing department and tell them, "Here's what we're doing for some of these three-letter agencies, do you want us to try applying that to your marketing?" they were willing to give it a shot.
We helped Sony predict who would buy a ticket to "21 Jump Street," steering their creative marketing and boosting the movie's tracking from $17 million to $36 million.
Lazard: What were the major challenges you faced while building Quantifind and how did you overcome them?
“Startups used to get meetings and pilots with AI buzzwords, but not today.
Now, you need to show proven success – who you have won as a client, what you are doing for them, and why it is working.”
AT: One of the most significant challenges we faced was proving our technology's ability to make accurate predictions from messy, unstructured data. This required rigorous mathematical analysis and innovative signal processing techniques, which were not easy to implement.
Another challenge was transitioning from bespoke projects to a scalable product. Initially, our work was highly specialized and consultative, particularly in the defense sector. We had to demonstrate that our technology could be adapted for broader applications, which took years of refinement and real-world testing.
Securing our first major commercial client was also a significant hurdle as well as navigating the shift from government projects to financial institutions, which required us to build credibility in a new market. Our experience with intelligence agencies helped, but we needed to prove our effectiveness in financial risk management and anti-money laundering. This was achieved through key partnerships and successful deployments.
Lazard: How does Quantifind differentiate – why do you win?
AT: Our sales team now leads with "just test us." Before we get into any conversation, we tell potential clients to test us on speed, accuracy, and scale, not to ask us which version of language models that we're using!
Some of our competitors are legacy companies with substantial marketing budgets, often 50 to 500 times larger than ours so by focusing on delivering measurable outcomes, we can replace outdated technologies and provide effective solutions for both greenfield opportunities and existing systems.
Lazard: Can you share a success story with us – a case study that drives home the value that Quantifind brings to its customers?
AT: My favorite case study is from our work with a large fintech company (unfortunately I can’t provide the identity but they are a household name, I’ll leave it at that). From a performance perspective, we managed to reduce 95% of their false positives in sanctions screening and alerting. Reducing false positives by 50 to 70% is an extraordinary result, so achieving 95% was remarkable.
This reduction immediately led to headcount savings on their compliance team. But what was even more exciting – and something we had never seen before – was that it netted them 10,000 new customers a month by reducing account abandonment.
“When we saw that our speed improvements netted our client 10,000 new customers a month and was 2x faster, it was clear that we’re a revenue generation solution as well as a cost savings one.”
Lazard: So Quantifind is a revenue generation solution, not just a cost savings one?
AT: Exactly. Think about someone signing up for an account online – if a normal 12-minute account setup ends up taking 72 hours because that person was incorrectly flagged for a further KYC check, they would just leave, right? The fintech company was losing customers left and right. By reducing those false positives, Quantifind netted them 10,000 new customers a month.
That was incredibly exciting. Some of our tests involved SWAT teams literally timing how long it took to use our investigative platform versus others. When we saw our platform was 2x faster and also could net our clients 10,000 new customers a month, it was clear that we’re a revenue generation solution as well as a cost savings one.
Lazard: Has this shift opened any new doors? How will Quantifind continue to evolve?
AT: The shift from being seen as just a cost-saving tool to a revenue-generating one changes the conversation entirely. When you start proving that you can bring in revenue, people's eyes light up. Our win at a Tier 1 bank showcased our ability to achieve incredibly high accuracy at scale.
This success has opened doors in the payment sector, where we hadn't really been before. We're now thinking about payments not only in terms of compliance savings but also revenue generation. If a payment gets flagged and the user switches to a different platform, that's a revenue loss we can help prevent.
Lazard: If you could see around the corner for this market, what major trends do you see that will affect future technologies or business models?
AT: Certainly, we’ll see increased automation in compliance applications and for investigating financial crimes, but I think this efficiency improvement will have two significant ramifications. The first is that risk can be established not only by fleshing out the direct risk of an individual, but also by understanding their network. Higher accuracies allow multiple hops in a related entity network which provide a deeper and more accurate assessment.
Often, adversaries hide behind shell companies to obscure their roots, however a deep network dive can uncover nefarious connections. Second, comprehensive and continuous KYC will spread to every industry, not just regulated industries like banking. Ultimately, enterprises want to be able to trust who they interact with – and that trust needs to be evaluated daily as circumstances evolve. Trust as Service will emerge as an enterprise table stakes standard.
Tyler Sweatt, CEO
Tyler is the CEO at Second Front, having previously served as VP Growth and CRO. Before this, he was a founding team member at CalypsoAI, founded and sold the tech consulting firm Future Tense, and led the emerging technology and security practice at Toffler Associates. As a former military officer, he is uniquely positioned to drive innovation at the intersection of technology and national security.
- Hometown: Clinton, NJ
- University: United States Military Academy at West Point
- Book Recommendation: Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara
Lazard: Your journey started at West Point, a time you've described as deeply impactful. Can you share how this period and its mentors shaped you?
TS: Attending West Point was transformative, not just academically but in shaping my worldview. I graduated with the class of 2005, often referred to as the "class of 9/11." We were just finishing our freshman summer, our version of boot camp, when the towers were attacked. I remember walking to math class when an officer ran down the hall and said, "Hey, we are at war, we've been attacked." Hearing that as a college freshman was surreal.
This unique backdrop bonded us with our instructors in ways beyond the conventional student-teacher relationship, transitioning into comradeship in combat and eventually, into the realm of business. We were part of a tightly knit community, and the mentorship I received was pivotal.
My instructors were not just educators but also thought leaders, who have continued to advise Congress and help shape military strategies on a national level. Their transition from classroom to national advisory roles was a profound lesson in leadership and impact.
“My military experience deeply influences how I approach leadership and decision-making. It taught me the value of time, the importance of focus, and how to communicate complex ideas simply and directly.”
This culminated in a moment that brought everything full circle. My finance instructor, who had read me my oath of commission upon graduation and pinned my lieutenant bars, later played a significant role in our recent funding round led by Salesforce Ventures. This transition from the halls of West Point to the boardrooms of a prominent venture fund highlights the lasting influence of those early mentors on my journey.
Lazard: How has your military experience informed the way you run your business?
TS: My military experience deeply influences how I approach leadership and decision-making. It taught me the value of time, the importance of focus, and how to communicate complex ideas simply and directly. I've tried to bring that ethos into our company culture –valuing brevity, making decisions with precision, and empowering our team to operate with a high degree of autonomy and responsibility.
Coming from high-pressure environments, I learned the importance of performing under constraints, much like following a rulebook in sports. In a team dynamic, everyone plays different roles at different times, but the team thrives only when unified around common goals. Stripping out ego is essential for success. Titles and hierarchical structures don’t scale well at speed, so I focus on recruiting people who can perform collaboratively under pressure.
Lazard: Your move from CalypsoAI to Second Front was quite swift. What motivated this transition, and how did your experiences shape your vision for Second Front?
“When a major defense prime became our second customer, it was a wake-up call signaling demand beyond just SMBs.”
TS: My time at CalypsoAI was marked by significant learnings, particularly around the challenges of deploying software within government systems. It was incredibly frustrating to navigate the bureaucratic maze, and it seemed like for every step forward, we hit another wall.
One thing led to another, and eventually, Peter Dixon and Enrique Oti the founder and inaugural CTO, respectively, of Second Front and longtime friends, called.
Enrique was leaving the Air Force from Kessel Run, and we had a three-hour conversation about how we could make this process less painful – not even great, just less terrible. The next thing I knew, I was leaving one startup for another, diving headfirst into an even more complex challenge. But that leap was the start of something truly exciting, a chance to directly address a problem we had all experienced firsthand.
Lazard: Was there a pivotal moment that significantly accelerated Second Front’s growth?
TS: Absolutely. We spent our first year proving our thesis was even possible, navigating the policy landscape to show our approach wasn't prohibited – our first major hurdle. Initially, we thought our primary audience would be startups, perhaps ones that had just won their first defense innovation contracts. But when a major defense prime became our second customer, it was a wake-up call signaling demand beyond just SMBs.
As we delivered our first projects and gained initial customers, word of mouth began to amplify our presence. The narrative flipped – suddenly, we found ourselves on the receiving end of inquiries, with people reaching out saying they were referred by someone else. I remember looking at TJ Rowe, our first sales hire and now CRO, and Enrique, recalling how we attended every trade show possible. Whether we had the budget for a booth or just enough to open a cheap Bud Light bar tab, we did whatever we could to gather people and share our mission.
It was a moment of realization: what we were building had the potential to be much larger than we imagined. It was an opportunity to fundamentally change the relationship between commercial software and national security on a larger scale.
Lazard: So how does Second Front differentiate itself in the market? Why do you win?
TS: From our inception, we have been a public benefit corporation, with a clear mission to accelerate the transition of technology to the national security community.
That genesis has guided much of our approach, from transparent pricing to an anti-vendor lock approach to a maniacal focus on quality and customer value.
I think that, combined with our commitment to driving customer outcomes, has earned us a high degree of trust from the market and we do not take that lightly.
“Because DEFCON AI was able to go from prototype to an application running on classified networks through us in a matter of months – something that would normally take years to accomplish – it transforms how the security community thinks about access to technology and software. That type of velocity sends a message to the market that this is possible.”
Lazard: Could you share a specific case study that highlights Second Front's impact?
TS: A standout example involves DEFCON AI. Because DEFCON AI was able to go from prototype to an application running on classified networks through us in a matter of months – something that would normally take years to accomplish – it transforms how the security community thinks about access to technology and software.
That type of velocity sends a message to the market that this is possible. And that's the stuff I get really excited about. Those guys at DEFCON AI are crushing it – their team just rocks. Being the one who enables them to do awesome things faster, well, that rules.
Lazard: How will Second Front continue to evolve and where do you see the business in the next 5 or 10 years?
TS: As we continue to increase the various environments we are deploying to, we continue to remove barriers between national security and commercial software communities. To that end, we are already working on expanding our product suite and already have a software development environment that allows for apps to be developed with compliance in mind from inception, in the hands of hundreds of users.
We will continue rolling features, products, and solutions that rapidly extend the consumability of high-quality software applications in countless environments around the world. Expanding into state and local, international, and other markets positions us to continue to power software for the free world.
Lazard: Looking ahead, what do you see as the catalyst for the defense tech market?
TS: The market is at a pivotal juncture, driven by a generation that experienced firsthand the limitations of technology in defense settings. Many of us, post-9/11 veterans, served with less-than-ideal technology – I often joke that my most reliable piece of tech in Afghanistan was a local cell phone, which never failed me. Contrast that with returning home, where the technology in our pockets, like iPhones or BlackBerrys, far surpassed anything available in a government setting, and yet, we couldn't leverage any of it at work. Fast forward, and many from our ranks are now sitting members of Congress, serving as assistant secretaries of defense. This generation, which came of age with digital technology, is now in a position to challenge the outdated industrial-age approaches to solving knowledge-based problems.
The velocity of recent conflicts, whether it’s the situations in Israel, Ukraine, or elsewhere, underscores the need for agility in developing, delivering, and deploying capabilities. There’s a growing realization that the government can't solve problems by simply printing more money; you need a modicum of efficiency. Those forces converge to create an environment ripe for building a market that can harness private capital and leverage commercial innovation for national security. Suddenly, fostering such a market becomes a straightforward – a bipartisan, universally beneficial idea.
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