Ep. 62: Rune Technologies CEO David Tuttle

Oct 8, 2025

David Tuttle, CEO and co-founder of Rune Technologies, brings a wealth of experience from his time as an Army officer and leading JSOC software teams. In this engaging discussion, he shares how his diverse career shaped his mission to modernize military logistics. Tuttle highlights Rune's innovative tactical-edge software, which flips traditional logistics on its head. He discusses the importance of understanding defense budgeting and how his company is tackling challenges for the Army and Marine Corps, aiming to revolutionize the way they operate and make decisions.

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INSIGHT

Early Wins Validate Market Fit

Rune announced pilots with the Marine Corps and a CRADA with the Army while closing investment from In-Q.
Strategic partnerships and early service pilots validate product relevance and unlock scaled adoption.

ANECDOTE

Career Built As A Toolkit

Dave describes a lifetime of service and varied roles shaping his drive to build mission-relevant software.
He ties experiences from the Army, banking, and industry into a cumulative toolkit for Rune.

INSIGHT

Operational Software Is Fast Leverage

Leading software teams at JSOC convinced Dave that software can rapidly solve operational problems with small teams.
That experience pushed him to join the defense tech sector to build mission-focused software.

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About Dave Tuttle

Dave Tuttle’s career reads like preparation for exactly one mission: building defense logistics software that actually works at the tactical edge. After commissioning as an Army officer and deploying to Afghanistan, he transitioned to aerospace and defense investment banking on Wall Street, where he learned to decode J-books and understand the intricacies of defense budgeting and color of money. A second stint on active duty at Fort Bragg leading software teams within the JSOC enterprise showed him the power of great engineering paired with operational problems. This led him to Anduril, where he spent several years building their command and control hardware business and developing relationships with world-class engineers. Today, he continues serving in the National Guard while co-founding and leading Rune Technologies. His philosophy: every experience, from selling beverages to analyzing balance sheets to leading special operations software teams, compounds into a unique toolkit for navigating the defense market.

About Rune Technologies

Rune Technologies builds software platforms for military logistics and sustainment operations. Their approach challenges decades of conventional wisdom. While legacy defense contractors have tried to push enterprise cloud software down to tactical units, Rune flipped the architecture entirely. Their platform starts at the tactical edge and works upward, recognizing that military logistics is inherently a bottom-up warfighting function. The company focuses on the Army and Marine Corps initially, tackling what Dave calls “the gnarliest problem”—how to sustain a 90,000-soldier force in near-peer conflict. Beyond simple dashboards and data visualization, Rune emphasizes automated course of action recommendations and machine-paced decision-making that enables logisticians to operate at the speed required in contested environments. The company raised a seed round led by Caffeinated Capital, achieved product-market fit in nine months (half their projected timeline), and recently closed a Series A led by Human Capital. Their recent announcements include a Marine Corps pilot contract through the Warfighting Lab, an Army CRADA focused on logistics data standards, and investment from In-Q-Tel.

For more Rune: https://www.runetech.co/

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