Kilsar

Kilsar, Inc. is a Virginia Beach, Virginia-based software company that develops an AI platform for maintenance training and operations in aviation, defense and industrial settings. Its flagship product, referred to as the Orion platform (and presented on a company site as Mx-Edu), converts technical manuals, maintenance procedures and undocumented expert know-how into structured, step-by-step digital workflows. Core modules include an AI assistant for searching operational and maintenance manuals, tasks and work-log records; a library for storing maintenance data and media assets; workflow/procedure builders for upskilling junior technicians; task time tracking and estimation based on historical data; and work-log tracking across systems, components, users and teams.

The platform's assistant applies natural language processing, predictive analytics and contextual awareness to support guided troubleshooting, predictive maintenance and procedure standardization. Company and third-party descriptions also cite AI-assisted interviews to capture knowledge from veteran technicians, retrieval-augmented generation combined with knowledge graphs, 3D visualization, and multimedia overlays such as videos and annotated diagrams delivered at the point of work. Kilsar also describes AR/MR training work and a separate AI tool, "Sentinel," for base surveillance and security developed for the U.S. Air Force.

Kilsar positions the product for both government and commercial buyers, citing alignment with FedRAMP, NIST and ITAR protocols, encryption, CMMC 2, SOC 2 and IL-4 / FedRAMP Low, 24/7 monitoring and incident response, role-based access control, and ATAK compatibility for federal users.

Founding story

Kilsar was founded by Brendan Lawlor, who serves as CEO, with Justin Carpenter as CTO; Zach Casey joined as CPO in February 2024. Lawlor earned a BS with a focus on AI from James Madison University and previously oversaw data and analytics, strategy and compliance at debt firm PRA Group, and earlier worked at IT firm Mosaic Labs on discovery, the software development lifecycle and digital product refinement. He describes the company's mission as preserving and scaling knowledge traditionally held by retiring maintainers. Sources differ on the founding date, citing 2021 (SBIR company registry) and January 2022.

Business model

Kilsar sells a software platform to organizations that maintain complex equipment, serving both defense/government and commercial customers under a dual-use approach. Revenue sources described in the sources include commercial and defense deployments alongside federal SBIR contract awards.

Enterprise software platform sold to aviation, defense and industrial organizations, supplemented by government SBIR contract funding; the SBIR registry lists the company's revenue range as less than $0.5 million.

Traction

Reported platform results include up to 40% less unplanned downtime, up to 6x faster task completion (a 60-minute manual process reduced to 10 minutes), up to 60% reduction in mean time to repair, up to 25% higher equipment uptime, 50% fewer backlogged maintenance tasks, and 30% faster technician training. The company has four Air Force Phase I SBIR awards totaling $437,551, early pilots with U.S. Air Force units, and a strategic partnership with the Aviation Institute of Maintenance. One account describes a team of 10 or more people; the SBIR registry lists an employee range of 1–4.

Latest developments

In July 2025 Kilsar closed a $3.7 million seed round co-led by Lightbank and Cotulla (Cotulla Holdings / Cotulla Capital), with participation from Techstars and ScaleWolf, and announced a strategic partnership with the Aviation Institute of Maintenance. The company said it would use the funding to expand engineering and deployment teams, accelerate onboarding across defense and commercial maintenance organizations, and further develop Orion's real-time AI assistant. In 2025 it also received an Air Force Phase I SBIR award for AI-enhanced document extraction and analysis for warfighter intelligence and mission readiness.