Brian Weaver - CEO

On the heels of success leveraging data and technology to improve outcomes in marketing, Torch.AI co-founder and CEO Brian Weaver set his sights on the growing complexity of data in healthcare. To accelerate, Weaver acquired a California based healthcare intelligence company, rebuilt the leadership team, and evolved the business into a real-time analytics platform for more than 8.5 million healthcare users. Then he met Jae Cha.

Prior to Torch.AI, Cha was instrumental in developing an innovating marketing data platform for VML, now the world’s largest digital advertising agency. Jumping at the chance to pioneer a new data analysis capability, Cha and a small team began work on the initial prototype, affectionately referred to as "Torch". The Torch platform rapidly assimilated data from hundreds of sources into a common operating picture and utilized graph data structures to generate simple correlation across vast data. The dream was a crystal ball for the enterprise.

Recognizing the potential of the prototype beyond the healthcare market, Weaver approached Microsoft with an idea: a market sensing and intelligence platform for their U.S. partner ecosystem. It was a hit, but the demand for new insights from the platform nearly drowned the nascent start-up. “This is never going to work,” declared Weaver. Insights were only as good as the data being fed into the platform. The data was flawed, hard to use, and expensive. No other company was focused on trying to make data easier to use, for good reason: delivering high quality data is one of the hardest problems in technology. Weaver continued to search for a better way. The firm penned a deal with H&R Block to fight fraud and in 2016 news of the team's success reached Washington, D.C., where the scale and consequence of problems demand advanced solutions. A new partnership with Deloitte quickly followed.

What's in a name? Torch.AI was inspired by Plato’s Republic and in particular, the Allegory of the Cave. The story focuses on the idea that our perception of reality is different from the truth, the good. In the story, light from a torch casts shadows on the wall of the cave, these shadows are perceived by people as truth because they were unable to see the source of the light. It reminds us that truth can be found in data, but it can deceive. The story inspires us today to take what we have learned and return to the cave to teach and share data lessons to all those who will take up the challenge of unlocking human potential.

Driven by the opportunity to support the defense and intelligence communities—to serve those who serve—Weaver founded Torch.AI with Cha, Bob Owens-the company’s Chief Delivery Officer, and Jon Kramer-Chief Technology Officer. Torch.AI was ready to solve the fundamental challenge in enterprise IT: getting real value from complex data. Torch.AI’s Nexus™ data processing platform was born.

In 2018, less than 18 months after founding the company and completing the development of Nexus™, with just 18 employees and competing against 63 of the world's best known companies, Torch.AI won one of the largest software system contracts with the U.S. Government to orchestrate large-scale data for clearance investigations and continuous evaluation.

Then, in 2019 Torch.AI won a watershed contract to deploy Nexus™ as the official Data Broker for the U.S. Department of Defense, integrating more than 36 distinct systems across 10 Federal agencies serving more than 100 enterprise-grade customers. The firm's AI-enabled data processing platform successfully integrated dozens of complex data connections in a matter of months. Kramer and his team perfected a capability which decomposes any incoming file or data type into machine understandable elements in memory before the data is stored, allowing for the universal application of machine learning in real time. Soon after, Torch.AI's Nexus™ software was granted an Authority to Operate (ATO) through a rigorous government certification process.

To accelerate the success of the previous several years, Torch.AI selected WestCap, a prominent private equity firm, for the company's first round of institutional capital. At $30 million, it was one of the largest Series A investments of the year and largest for any company in Kansas City history. Soon after, Torch.AI committed to growing in the Kansas City region. Governor Laura Kelly and the state of Kansas responded with a $27 million incentive package, which rewards the company for adding even more high-paying tech jobs.

In 2021, Torch.AI acquired DataTech, a software development company that specializes in complex financial transactions and audits for the US Department of Defense. A few months later, B23.io, a market leader in Maritime Autonomy and related-AI applications joined the Torch.AI family, expanding presence with the US Military.