A Curious Acquisition
Kela Technologies was created with a singular mission: to build an “operating system for militaries.” Its name, “Kela,” is Hebrew for “sling”—a deliberate nod to David and Goliath, symbolizing the power of agile technology against larger, slower foes. In less than a year, Kela raised an astonishing $100 million from elite investors. And for its very first acquisition, it didn’t buy a drone company or a cybersecurity firm. It bought Pelanor, a specialist in AI-powered cloud financial management (FinOps).
The move prompts a direct and perplexing question: Why would a company founded to rewire modern warfare spend tens of millions of dollars on a tool designed to analyze Amazon Web Services bills?
The most surprising acquisitions aren’t about eliminating competitors
The details of the deal are straightforward: Kela, a startup whose impetus arose immediately after October 7, 2023, and was formally established in July 2024, acquired the AI-native FinOps firm Pelanor for an estimated $20-30 million. What makes this transaction remarkable is that it was Kela’s very first acquisition, a move that speaks volumes about its strategic priorities, which were shaped by a national crisis.
Typically, a company’s first acquisition is a move to consolidate a market or absorb a direct competitor. Kela defied this convention. Its goal wasn’t to gain market share in defense but to import an entirely new discipline—the rigorous, data-driven methodology of financial operations—into its core mission. Kela aims to shatter the rigid, proprietary silos of legacy defense procurement, bridging the gap between fast-moving civilian innovation and the notoriously slow adoption cycles of militaries. By buying Pelanor, Kela didn’t just acquire a product; it acquired a battle-tested AI engine and a new philosophy for managing resources under pressure.
The logic used to manage cloud costs can be directly translated to manage military logistics
The core thesis of the acquisition is the strategic repurposing of Pelanor’s commercial FinOps engine for what can be termed “Military Operations” (MilOps). Kela is betting that the fundamental principles used to manage a complex, distributed digital system like a multi-cloud environment can be directly applied to managing a complex, distributed physical system like a modern battlefield. The translation of these concepts is remarkably direct:
- Cloud Cost Anomaly Detection: In the commercial world, Pelanor’s AI automatically flags a sudden 30% spike in database costs and traces it to an inefficient query. In a military context, this same engine can automatically flag a drone squadron consuming 30% more battery power than planned, potentially indicating unexpected high winds or enemy jamming activity that requires immediate attention.
- Resource Rightsizing: Pelanor’s platform recommends downsizing an overprovisioned server that is only running at 15% capacity to save money. This is analogous to a military commander receiving a recommendation to re-task an underutilized high-altitude surveillance asset from a quiet sector to a higher-priority area, ensuring expensive resources are never wasted.
- Unit Cost Economics: A key feature of FinOps is calculating the exact cloud cost required to serve a single customer, informing pricing and profitability. This translates directly to the battlefield, allowing commanders to calculate the full logistical cost—fuel, munitions, maintenance hours—of a single fighter jet sortie. This data provides an unprecedented ability to make operational planning decisions based on efficiency and impact.
This move transforms the art of managing digital assets into a science for managing mission-critical physical ones.
A shared mission can be more valuable than a massive market opportunity.
The founders of both Kela and Pelanor are veterans of Israel’s most elite intelligence and technology units, like Unit 8200 and the prestigious Talpiot program. Kela’s president, Hamutal Meridor, formerly ran Palantir’s Israel operations, while its CEO, Alon Dror, is a winner of the esteemed Israel Defense Prize. This shared background of “technowarriors” created a foundation of trust that transcends a typical corporate acquisition.
This deal is emblematic of a larger national trend. For years, Israel’s draft system channeled its top technical talent into commercial tech, creating cybersecurity unicorns. Now, as described by Kela’s investors at Sequoia Capital, that talent is being “redeployed… back into the defense sector” to address urgent national security needs. Pelanor, despite its advanced technology, faced a choice in a “crowded” commercial FinOps market: raise massive capital to compete globally or find another path. The acquisition offered a unique alternative. As Pelanor’s CEO, Matan Mates, stated, the deal provided his team:
“A home where we could pursue our mission on a larger scale, alongside people who live and breathe a deep sense of purpose”.
This showcases a powerful dynamic where top tech talent is choosing to apply its expertise to national security challenges over purely commercial competition.
The ultimate validation: This isn’t just a business trend, it’s a national security strategy.
Among Kela’s roster of high-profile investors, which includes top-tier venture firms like Sequoia Capital and Lux Capital, one name stands out: In-Q-Tel. This is the non-profit strategic investment firm that serves as the venture capital arm of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The involvement of In-Q-Tel is the ultimate validation. It signifies that Kela’s vision—to rapidly integrate commercial technology into military systems—is not just a promising business plan but a capability of strategic importance to the United States and its Western allies. This backing elevates Kela’s mission from a startup’s ambition to a mission-driven, VC-funded national project designed to solve a critical defense vulnerability. It confirms that the need for agile, software-driven logic in military operations is a recognized national security priority at the highest levels.
A new, lucrative exit path for deep-tech startups has emerged: the defense industry
The traditional path for a specialized tech startup like Pelanor is twofold: raise successive rounds of VC funding to fight for market share, or be acquired by a larger enterprise software company. The Kela-Pelanor deal illuminates a third, more strategic path that represents a fundamental convergence of industries.
This is not a one-off event but part of a larger movement. Western governments, including the U.S. Department of Defense, have formal strategies to integrate commercial tech more rapidly to close the “pace gap” with adversaries. This has created a “coalition of the competent,” where agile, software-centric startups are disrupting slow-moving legacy defense contractors. For companies with sophisticated, dual-use technologies in AI, data analytics, or resource optimization, the well-funded and rapidly modernizing defense-tech sector represents a new, viable, and potentially lucrative exit. It allows deep-tech firms to find a strategic buyer who values their core technology for a high-stakes application that matters.
Conclusion: From Balance Sheets to Battlefields
The acquisition of Pelanor by Kela is a landmark event signaling the accelerating dissolution of boundaries between commercial and military technology. Forged in a moment of national crisis, the deal demonstrates that the sophisticated AI developed to optimize a company’s cloud bill can be directly repurposed to optimize a military’s battlefield assets for maximum mission success.
The principles honed in corporate finance departments to bring accountability to cloud spending are now being called upon to bring operational accountability to the chaotic environment of modern conflict. This convergence of techno-warrior talent, venture capital, and national urgency is creating a new paradigm for Western defense. It suggests that the future of national security will be determined not just by industrial might, but by the ability to weaponize the logic of software.
Sources: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rkytxtingg