Nooks, a secure collaboration startup bridging the gap between government and private sector intelligence, has raised $25 million in a Series A round to accelerate the modernization of classified workflows in national security. The round was led by Zigg Capital and Upper90, with additional backing from SAIC and Lockheed Martin, signaling strong industry confidence in the dual-use tech space.

Founded by Sean Blackman, Nooks is building an integrated collaboration platform specifically designed to handle classified data and workflows for defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure sectors. By bringing Silicon Valley-grade UX into the black-box world of secure workspaces, the company is empowering the public sector to adopt modern tools without compromising national security protocols.

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What Nooks Does

At its core, Nooks provides a secure, cloud-native collaboration and communication platform that meets stringent classified work requirements. While traditional collaboration tools like Slack, Google Workspace, or Microsoft Teams dominate commercial enterprise, they are non-starters in high-trust government settings.

Nooks replaces legacy tools - often decades old - with a platform that feels modern, fast, and user-friendly, while still complying with federal data handling regulations like FedRAMP High, DoD IL5/6, and beyond.

Key product features include:

• End-to-end encrypted team messaging and video conferencing
  
• Secure document collaboration and version control
  
• Role-based access controls and on-prem deployment options
  
• Compliant with NIST, CMMC, and classified infrastructure protocols
  

Think of Nooks as the “Slack for national security”, but engineered for teams working on space systems, AI warfighting algorithms, and sensitive defense research.

In teams operating under intense operational tempo and data classification pressures, workflow fluidity isn’t a luxury  -  it’s a necessity. What many founders overlook when building for regulated or government-adjacent markets is the importance of designing trust-first workflows that mirror the chain of command. Nooks doesn’t try to reinvent behavior  -  it encodes it. That’s how you get adoption in zero-failure zones: not with new metaphors, but with seamless protocol adherence that makes users feel safer while moving faster.

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Why This Matters

Classified workspaces in the U.S. government still rely on siloed infrastructure, aging virtual desktop interfaces, and fractured communications. These gaps create delays in mission-critical operations and hinder cross-agency coordination.

With geopolitical tensions rising and threats evolving in real time - from cyber to space to AI - it’s no longer feasible to operate without agile collaboration infrastructure that can operate securely across domains.

Nooks is the connective tissue between classified information and the teams responsible for acting on it. From space tech startups to cyber intelligence units, the demand for secure but usable collaboration tooling has never been higher.

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The Insight: How to Land Government Deals as a Startup

One of the smartest strategies employed by Nooks was choosing to productize their compliance narrative before their features. Instead of leading with speed, integrations, or UI polish, they led with clearance-aligned credibility  -  creating a psychological permission structure that made procurement teams comfortable signing off.

Too many startups wait until after they’ve built their product to “get compliant.” What Nooks did differently was make compliance itself a part of the product roadmap, validating key frameworks like NIST, CMMC, and FedRAMP not as checkboxes, but as value props. That shifted the conversation away from procurement friction and toward operational acceleration.

Here’s the takeaway: in regulated sectors, speed follows safety. If you build trust into the first conversation, the speed of deal flow will compound. It’s not just about passing audits  -  it’s about passing the internal gut check of people who can't afford risk.

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Market Outlook: The Rise of DefenseTech and Secure Collaboration

DefenseTech is experiencing a generational shift. Public-private cooperation in national security is surging, and software-first startups are gaining budget share once reserved for legacy primes.

• $886 billion is the U.S. defense budget for 2024, with over $130B earmarked for R&D and tech modernization (DoD Budget Briefing).
  
• Defense-focused VC funding reached $6.3B in 2023, a 5x increase over 2019 levels (Pitchbook).
  
• The secure government cloud market is projected to hit $25.6B by 2030 (Allied Market Research).
  
• Over 60% of U.S. federal agencies are expected to shift to hybrid or cloud-based classified collaboration within the next 3 years (CSIS).
  

Startups like Nooks are no longer seen as fringe experiments. They're being treated as essential force-multipliers  -  injecting agility and precision into workflows that previously ran on inertia.

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Who Uses Nooks Today?

Nooks’ client base includes a mix of:

• Government agencies: From intelligence communities to DoD field teams
  
• Defense contractors: Looking to upgrade internal security while enabling hybrid work
  
• Federally funded research centers: Managing sensitive R&D across universities and labs
  
• Critical infrastructure operators: Including aerospace, energy, and communications
  

Nooks doesn’t replace classified networks like SIPR or JWICS - it augments them, creating secure compartments where hybrid and remote teams can still collaborate, code, write, and make decisions in real time.

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What’s Next After $25M?

With this Series A funding, Nooks plans to scale across several vectors:

• Rapid expansion of government certifications, including FedRAMP High and DoDIN APL
  
• Deployment of AI tools inside classified workflows, with language models trained in isolated secure environments
  
• Hiring across engineering, compliance, and customer success
  
• Expansion into international classified environments, particularly with NATO-aligned countries
  
• Launch of secure integrations with other defense-first platforms, enabling an ecosystem of modern tools that can “talk” securely
  

Ultimately, Nooks aims to become the default operating layer for secure, collaborative work in national security - a “Google Workspace for classified missions.”

In a world where defense technology needs to move at the pace of modern conflict, the line between commercial and classified is rapidly blurring. Nooks represents the new generation of tools built with both usability and unbreakable trust at their core.

As global risks become more complex and distributed, so too must the systems that manage them. Nooks is not just solving the problem of security - it’s redefining what secure collaboration should feel like in the 21st century.