Washington Harbour invests in software engineering startup

Private equity firm Washington Harbour Partners has made a $60 million growth investment into Raft, a government technology startup that provides software development and engineering services to national security agencies.

Raft started out in 2018 to help the U.S. military and its allies incorporate more technology tools that are driven by data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Through this new backing announced Wednesday, Raft will work to further scale its research-and-development efforts  focused on new product offerings for command-and-control functions.

Raft's founder and chief executive Shubhi Mishra continues as CEO and remains a significant shareholder, the company and Washington Harbour said.

In the fall of 2022, Mishra told our WT 360 podcast that much of Raft's approach for helping customers solve their hardest problems is shaped around the "innovation theater" concept that includes design thinking.

“Our partnership with Washington Harbour will accelerate Raft’s mission of ushering in a new paradigm for the modern warfighter, across all domains of air, land, sea, space and cyber,” Mishra said in a release on the investment. “Next generation, advanced technologies are transforming how wars are initiated, fought, resolved, won, and deterred."

Arlington, Virginia-headquartered Raft describes its product lineup as covering multiple classifications and including government purpose data rights. The software offerings are designed to support battle management, data fusion and integration, and the use of applications in places with limited access.

For Washington Harbour, Raft becomes the private equity firm's main vehicle for further investments in advanced software development activity that supports U.S. government agencies.

Washington Harbour's two other major investments in the federal market include Groundswell, a specialist in digital transformation programs; and the cybersecurity product maker SixGen.