Sift Taps Tech Giants for Talent to Build AI's Physical Backbone

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. – May 13, 2026 – Sift, a data infrastructure platform for physical AI, is signaling a major acceleration in its mission to power the next generation of intelligent machines. The company has elevated co-founder Austin Spiegel to CEO, announced a new San Francisco office, and bolstered its ranks with an impressive slate of senior leaders poached from tech and defense titans including Meta, Anduril, Applied Intuition, SpaceX, and Palantir.

The moves cap a period of explosive growth for the company, which has tripled its revenue year-over-year since 2022 and raised $67 million in capital. Sift is positioning itself as the essential, underlying data layer for a world where AI is moving beyond screens and into the steel of rockets, satellites, and autonomous defense systems—a world where the cost of failure is catastrophic.

The 'No Rollback' Problem

At the heart of Sift's mission is a challenge unique to the physical world. Unlike software, where a bad update can be rolled back, a hardware failure can mean the loss of a billion-dollar satellite or a critical defense asset. This is the reality Sift was built to address.

"Software solved these problems a decade ago. Hardware hasn't," said Austin Spiegel, Sift's co-founder and newly appointed CEO. "Every rocket, satellite, autonomous vehicle, and defense system has to work the first time. There is no rollback. The infrastructure underneath the physical economy is decades behind where it needs to be."

This gap is more than just a theoretical problem. The market for physical AI is projected to surge past $1 trillion by 2035, driven by advancements in robotics, edge computing, and sensor technology. However, the data infrastructure to support these systems has lagged. Companies have often relied on fragmented telemetry, custom scripts, and what some insiders call "spreadsheets and tribal knowledge" to analyze the torrents of data produced by modern machines.

Sift's platform is designed to close this "observability gap." It can ingest and process up to 20 million data points per second with nanosecond precision, transforming a chaotic flood of raw sensor data into structured, queryable insights. For customers like rocket company Impulse Space and satellite manufacturer K2 Space, this means being able to detect anomalies and perform root-cause analysis in real-time, drastically cutting down development cycles. K2 Space, for instance, reported that Sift cut its data setup time from hours to mere minutes, a critical advantage in the fast-paced space industry.

Assembling a Specialist Team

To tackle this complex challenge, Sift has embarked on an aggressive talent acquisition strategy, building a leadership team with deep, relevant experience in scaling technology for high-stakes environments. The company's 80-person team now includes six new senior hires whose résumés read like a who's who of modern tech and defense innovation.

Mike Russell joins as VP of Engineering from Meta, bringing experience in scaling engineering at Riot Games and leading technology for the Supernatural VR platform. From the defense-tech unicorn Anduril, Sift has recruited Noah Lucas as VP of Product. At Anduril, Lucas led the geospatial platform used across a range of autonomous military systems, giving him firsthand knowledge of the mission-critical demands Sift aims to serve.

To drive commercial growth, Ben Schmidt comes aboard as Head of Sales. Schmidt previously ran North American sales at Applied Intuition, a key software provider for autonomous vehicle development, helping scale that company to more than 1,400 employees. His experience is directly applicable to Sift's target market. Meanwhile, Russ Parrish, a veteran of SpaceX, Intuitive Surgical, and IBM, joins as Head of Design, bringing 18 years of experience designing tools for use in operating rooms and on spacecraft—environments where clarity and reliability are paramount.

This strategic hiring underscores Sift's focus on building a team that not only understands software but also intimately grasps the unforgiving nature of physical systems. The expertise drawn from these varied backgrounds—from gaming and VR to defense and space exploration—creates a unique blend of talent aimed squarely at solving the hardware data problem.

Bridging Hardware and Software Hubs

Sift’s strategy extends beyond just talent to geography. The opening of a new office in downtown San Francisco, supplementing its headquarters in the Los Angeles-area hub of Marina del Rey, is a deliberate move to bridge two distinct but complementary ecosystems. Los Angeles has long been the epicenter of America's aerospace and hardware engineering talent, while San Francisco remains the global capital for software, AI, and distributed systems.

By establishing a strong presence in both cities, Sift is positioning itself to draw from the best of both worlds. The company is actively recruiting engineers, product managers, and designers in both locations, creating a pipeline of talent that understands both the physical machines and the complex software needed to control them. Anchoring this expansion is Bill Raj-Derouin, a Founding Engineer with experience building visualization tools at Palantir and SpaceX, who is relocating to lead the new San Francisco engineering team.

Market Validation and Investor Confidence

Sift’s strategic moves are backed by significant market traction and investor confidence. The company counts aerospace leaders like United Launch Alliance (ULA), Impulse Space, and Astranis among its customers, alongside undisclosed enterprise defense programs. This adoption by companies on the front lines of physical innovation serves as powerful validation for its platform.

The financial community has also taken notice. Sift has raised $67 million to date, including a recent $42 million Series B round led by StepStone Group and a previous $17.5 million Series A led by GV (Google Ventures). Investors see Sift as a foundational company solving a critical infrastructure need.

Crystal Huang, a General Partner at GV, previously described Sift's platform as the "missing piece" for machine builders. The thesis behind the most recent funding round is equally clear: as AI moves from controlling pixels to controlling physical objects, the underlying data infrastructure must be reinvented. Sift is building that infrastructure.

As co-founder Karthik Gollapudi, who will now focus on product vision and industry evangelism, noted, the company's origin lies in personal experience. "We started Sift because we lived this problem at SpaceX, and much work remains to solve it across the physical world," he stated. With a new CEO, a fortified leadership team, and a war chest of capital, Sift is now scaling its solution for the entire physical economy.