Deepnight co-founders Lucas Young and Thomas Li have been childhood friends and former software engineers at Google. Young, inspired by a scientific paper, wanted to solve the problem of digital night vision technology that had troubled the U.S. military for years. Currently, most night vision technology is analog and expensive, costing between $13,000 to $30,000 per piece from military contractors like L3Harris and Elbit America.
The U.S. Army has been working on digitizing the technology, focusing on hardware. Young, with a degree in computational photography, and Li, with a background in AI tech, decided to quit their jobs and start Deepnight. They joined the Y Combinator winter cohort after realizing that AI accelerators running on system on chips (SoCs) had advanced enough to support real-time viewing at 90 frames per second (fps).
Deepnight’s first customer was the military. Young approached the U.S. Army’s night vision laboratory at an industry event, handing out a white paper that outlined their software-based night vision solution. Impressed by the concept, an army colonel connected them with the US Army C5ISR Center. To demonstrate their idea, the founders built a rudimentary prototype of a night vision smartphone app, which led to their first sale and a $100,000 contract from the army.
The startup’s progress attracted more contracts, and within a year, Deepnight secured approximately $4.6 million in contracts from the federal government, including the U.S. Army and Air Force, as well as partnerships with companies like Sionyx and SRI International. They also raised a $5.5 million funding round led by Initialized Capital and received investments from notable individuals like Vladlen Koltun, the scientist who inspired the company.
Deepnight offers software solutions and collaborates with hardware manufacturers for products such as goggles, military helmets, and more. Their software can be applied to various industries, including automotive, security, drones, maritime, electronics, and navigation cameras. The advantage of their technology is that it relies on an affordable $50 smartphone camera, eliminating the need for expensive custom hardware.
