Smack Technologies Raises $61 Million to Put AI on an Operator's Wrist

Alpha trades a helmet display for a simpler interface, but must deliver useful decisions with little or no connectivity.

Smack Technologies closed a $61 million Series B on Aug. 18 to develop Alpha, a wrist-worn AI decision-support device, the company announced. Venture Capital Tracker lists Costanoa Ventures and First In as co-leads, with Point72 Ventures and Felicis participating. The financing brings Smack's disclosed capital above $90 million.

Alpha connects field operators to data processed by Omega, Smack's command-level planning software. Co-founder and CEO Andy Markoff told Military Times that Smack built Omega first because its models could train around daily operations. Alpha presents the harder problem: running those capabilities on field hardware with little or no connectivity.

Sensors would send enemy locations to the wrist display. Alpha would present decision options informed by campaign objectives and the activities of adjacent units, according to Markoff. He compared the form factor to the whiteboard and grease pencil he wore on his forearm as a Marine Raider, or the play sheet a quarterback carries on a sleeve.

Smack considered a heads-up display but rejected it as the primary interface. Markoff cited fogging in hot and humid conditions as one practical limitation. The choice sets Alpha against helmet-mounted rivals such as Anduril's EagleEye in the market for operator-worn decision systems, betting on a wrist screen kept out of the operator's direct field of view.

The wrist display is the visible product. The harder capability sits underneath it. Smack says Omega converts multimodal data into decision options without requiring persistent cloud connectivity. Alpha must extend that reasoning into disconnected, degraded, intermittent and limited communications conditions.

Markoff described the system as a way to encode a commander's intent, theater objectives, constraints and coordination with adjacent units. Alpha is meant to preserve that context when an operator cannot reach higher command. It supports the operator's decision rather than making one autonomously.

That distinction now has to survive the last tactical mile. Alpha has been in development for about four months. Markoff projects a working prototype within one year and possible contracts within two, making the wearable, rather than Smack's more mature command software, the company's next measure of whether AI decision support can hold up when the network does not.