Rownd Inc.

Rownd Inc., a small disadvantaged, veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned business based in Raleigh, North Carolina, delivers identity and authentication platform software to the Department of the Air Force and the National Institute of Standards and Technology as a prime contractor, competing entirely in full-and-open (non-set-aside) procurements for research and development work.

Rownd's federal footprint centers on zero-trust authentication, passwordless authentication, and personal data governance for Air Force operational and research environments. The company's most substantial award is a $9.997 million definitive contract from Air Education and Training Command (AETC) for ROWND.AI SBIR III, awarded July 1, 2026, running through June 30, 2030 under firm fixed-price terms, focused on sign-up, user onboarding, and customer authentication platforms. Prior work includes a $1.237 million SBIR Phase II contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for an Airmen Adaptive Zero-Trust Authentication Platform for website and mobile applications (awarded September 13, 2023, completed June 23, 2025), a $748,533 Other Transaction Agreement with Air Force Materiel Command Research Laboratory for a full-spectrum personal and private data governance and control system (April 2022 through July 2023, performed in Durham, North Carolina), and a $73,931 SBIR Phase I contract from AFRL for a dynamic web application security and data management platform (awarded December 15, 2023, completed March 15, 2024). Rownd also holds a cooperative agreement grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology for research on multi-factor authorization and passwordless authentication technologies, awarded October 1, 2023 with an ultimate completion date of March 31, 2024; Rownd planned to subaward portions of the NIST grant for analytical cost studies and related research.

Rownd's customer base is narrowly concentrated. The Air Force (both AETC and AFRL combined) accounts for five of six awards and approximately $12.1 million in combined potential value, with AETC alone anchoring $10 million. NIST represents one small grant award. Across six total awards from 2021 forward, $3 million (25% of combined potential value) has been obligated. Activity shows episodic growth — one award in both 2021 and 2022, three in 2023, and one in 2026 — with the company operating entirely as a prime contractor and not appearing in subcontractor roles. Rownd competes in full-and-open procurements without set-aside restriction; the SBIR awards and AETC definitive contract carry either no set-aside designation or small-business set-aside framing typical of SBIR Phase structures. No parent vehicles, GWACs, or BPAs appear in the source data. No subcontractor footprint is present.

The Rownd Platfrom is a first-of-its-kind B2B SaaS Data Ownership Platform. We can save businesses and governments 95% of the time and cost associated with new privacy regulations, reduce security risks, and give end-users control over their data so they can focus on providing great products and services.

Right now there is no affordable solution for small/medium business compliance or for end-users to control their own data. Rownd does both. Businesses do not want to spend their time and money deleting and managing people's data, they want to create the next Candy Crush or sell more products.