[Editor’s note: “Tech Vets: Profiles in Leadership and Innovation,” is a GeekWire series showcasing U.S. military veterans leading companies within the Pacific Northwest tech industry. The series explores how military experience fosters leadership, resilience, and innovation in tech.]
Jonathan Pan didn’t come from a navy household, however rising up in New York Metropolis, he was deeply affected by the occasions of Sept. 11, 2001, so he signed up and ultimately joined the U.S. Military.
Pan was in his second or third week at New York’s Baruch School when the assaults occurred. He accomplished his training and entered officer candidate faculty in 2005. An infantry officer stationed at Washington state’s Joint Base Lewis–McChord, Pan deployed to Afghanistan with the fifth Stryker Brigade Fight Workforce, 2nd Infantry Division and served in an financial improvement function.
Fifteen years after he left the Military as a captain, Pan’s expertise continues to be impacting his present function as co-founder and CEO of Exia Labs, a Seattle-area startup constructing AI software program to enhance navy wargaming — the analytical video games used to simulate facets of warfare for tactical and strategic decision-making.
The “gaming” side of Pan’s present work is according to the course he took after the Military and grad faculty.
“I’ve been enjoying video games ever since I used to be a child,” he mentioned. “I grew up with PCs and on-line gaming that each one began once I was in junior excessive. It actually harm my grades in highschool, and I performed slightly bit in faculty. Once I was within the navy I had no time.”
Getting a job within the online game business wasn’t even on Pan’s radar. However throughout an internship at Riot Video games he found how enjoyable it might be and that there’s a complete enterprise and craft behind making and promoting video games.
“That acquired me hooked,” Pan mentioned.
After a pair years he moved on to start out his personal e-sports crew known as Ember, satisfied that the longer term was in that form of leisure. He even tried to get Mark Cuban to take a position, to no avail. However the expertise did assist him land a video games function at Amazon, the place he spent 4 years in California.
After games-related jobs at Meta and Walmart, Pan reconnected with a pal who he used to serve with and picked his mind about protection tech and wargames.
“It simply blew my thoughts that the navy is spending a lot effort and time and cash on board video games to make actually vital choices,” Pan mentioned.
So in 2024, again within the Seattle space, he joined forces with Serj Kazar, a former colleague at Riot Video games, and based Exia.
The startup’s preliminary product, Blue, options numerous AI brokers that analyze paperwork and automate every step of the U.S. Military’s Army Resolution Making Course of (MDMP). It may well additionally simulate potential schemes to perform a mission. A more moderen product, known as Recon, was launched this summer time.
In September, Exia gained a $50,000 prize within the Military’s xTech AI Grand Challenge, an initiative to formalize AI processes and insurance policies that improve efficiency, scale back lifecycle prices, and scale impression throughout the power. The corporate raised a $2.5 million seed round earlier this yr.
Pan is a giant believer within the Protection Division’s Hero Skillbridge Program, which he mentioned he used at Amazon to personally rent 9 junior officers transitioning out of the navy.
“They’re nice at drawback fixing,” he mentioned. “They only want an opportunity at a tech firm to show that.”
Reconnecting with navy contacts and innovating on behalf of the Military has had its rewards, and Pan looks like he’s a part of the mission once more.
“Folks’s lives are on the road. That actually fires me up. That motivates me,” he mentioned.
However the navy’s lengthy gross sales cycles will be troublesome and dealing in protection shouldn’t be a get-rich-quick alternative, in response to Pan. If he needed to do it once more he’d in all probability begin with business purposes first. Exia has been trying into the place it might discover a market match — regulation enforcement or pure catastrophe response are potentialities.
And he calls drone supply planning “tremendous thrilling,” noting that Exia is in talks with Amazon and Walmart, although nothing official has been signed.
