#FoundersOnFire Alumni Newsflash

Quantum navigation takes flight, Day 2 automation gets an upgrade and enterprise infrastructure keeps moving

From quantum navigation and Day 2 automation to AI infrastructure, cyber resilience, virtual retail and fintech

From GPS-free navigation on an unmanned aircraft to infrastructure automation, cloud media workflows and jewellery you can try on without putting it on, this week’s Alumni NewsFlash covers another eclectic seven from the Tech Trailblazers community.

SandboxAQ takes quantum navigation into the air

This one feels suitably Trailblazing.

SandboxAQ, winner of the 2024 AI Trailblazers Award, has successfully flight-tested its AQNav magnetic navigation technology on Northrop Grumman’s Lumberjack unmanned aircraft system.

The 9 September test is described by SandboxAQ as the first reported use of a magnetic navigation system on an attritable platform, and the first reported pairing of magnetic and visual navigation on such an aircraft. AQNav calculates position without relying on GPS or other externally transmitted signals, making it particularly interesting where satellite navigation is unavailable, jammed or spoofed.

And there’s a nice detail buried in the announcement: SandboxAQ says its hardware-agnostic software was integrated with the aircraft’s existing computing systems in less than an hour.

When SandboxAQ entered Tech Trailblazers in 2024, alternative navigation was already among the real-world applications it highlighted for its quantitative AI technology. Seeing that work leave the slide deck and take flight is worth watching.

SandboxAQ’s Tech Trailblazers recognition: 2024 AI Trailblazers winner.

Spacelift turns its attention to everything that happens after ‘apply’

Infrastructure teams know the problem. Deployment might be beautifully controlled, but afterwards there’s often a collection of scripts, Slack bots, alerts and automations that only one person truly understands.

Spacelift, a 2025 Cloud Trailblazers runner-up, has launched Spacelift Flows, its attempt to bring the governance associated with infrastructure-as-code into Day 2 operations.

Flows provides a visual canvas for creating and auditing operational workflows, with more than 40 pre-built templates covering jobs such as incident enrichment, drift alerts, certificate monitoring and self-service provisioning. Spacelift is also building AI agents into the model with their own identities and permissions rather than simply handing them a shared human credential.

As Spacelift puts it rather neatly, Day 2 has remained the “wild west” even while deployment automation has raced ahead.

Spacelift’s Tech Trailblazers recognition: 2025 Cloud Trailblazers runner-up.

VAST Data puts security inside the AI infrastructure layer

AI infrastructure and cybersecurity are becoming increasingly difficult to discuss separately.

VAST Data, the 2020 Storage Trailblazers winner, has teamed with CrowdStrike to integrate Falcon security technology directly across the VAST AI Operating System.

The integration includes native support for the CrowdStrike Falcon sensor and lays the groundwork for deeper connections with Falcon Next-Gen SIEM and Falcon Guardian, CrowdStrike’s AI Detection and Response technology. The idea is to protect not simply the underlying infrastructure, but access to enterprise data and the pipelines feeding production AI systems.

For anybody building serious enterprise AI, the increasingly interesting question isn’t only how much compute or data you can throw at it. It’s how much of that new stack your security team can actually see.

VAST Data’s Tech Trailblazers recognition: 2020 Storage Trailblazers winner.

Atsign and Intel take aim at the edge AI encryption bottleneck

An 88x performance uplift is hard to ignore.

Atsign has teamed with Intel on hardware-accelerated, end-to-end encrypted Agent-to-Agent communications for Edge AI, reporting an approximately 88x performance improvement – around 8,700% – in its latest work on smart transportation systems.

The collaboration combines Atsign’s identity-first approach with Intel hardware acceleration. The companies have also co-published a Smart Transportation Solution Brief, “Securing Agentic AI at the Edge for Smart Transportation”, looking at how autonomous agents, edge systems and operational platforms can communicate securely across distributed transport infrastructure.

For Edge AI, encryption has often meant accepting a performance penalty. Atsign and Intel’s results suggest that trade-off can be pushed much further than many teams have assumed.

Atsign’s Tech Trailblazers recognition: 2024 and 2025 Networking Trailblazers winner. 

LucidLink brings the borderless production story to IBC

IBC opens in Amsterdam today, and LucidLink is there with a particularly good demonstration of what cloud infrastructure looks like when the customer story takes centre stage.

The 2019 Storage Trailblazers winner is showcasing LucidLink Connect, its Developer Tools and its new managed service provider programme during the show. LucidLink was also a Cloud Trailblazers runner-up that year.

On Saturday, DAZN Lead Editor Matt Lee and Head of Automation Nick Lewis will take to the IBC Showcase Theatre to explain how the broadcaster runs production across cities, continents and time zones, and how it is looking at LucidLink Developer Tools to automate more of those workflows.

Editors on opposite sides of the world picking up the same production without transferring enormous files around first is a considerably more useful cloud story than another architecture diagram.

LucidLink’s Tech Trailblazers recognition: 2019 Storage Trailblazers winner and 2019 Cloud Trailblazers runner-up.

Perfect Corp. makes 2,300 pieces of jewellery virtually wearable

Here’s something a little more sparkly than Kubernetes.

Perfect Corp., whose founder and CEO Alice Chang was a 2021 Female CxO Trailblazers runner-up, has partnered with Indian luxury jewellery brand QWEEN on a 3D augmented-reality try-on experience.

The deployment can support as many as 2,300 products, allowing shoppers to virtually try on rings, earrings and bracelets from a desktop or mobile browser. Physically Based Rendering is used to reproduce details including reflections, material texture and the way light behaves across gold, diamonds and gemstones.

QWEEN can also turn its own existing 3D assets into AR-ready products through Perfect Corp.’s self-service authoring tools rather than sending every individual item away for manual production.

That’s a rather tangible example of AI and AR disappearing into the shopping experience rather than demanding to be the shopping experience.

Perfect Corp.’s Tech Trailblazers recognition: Alice Chang, founder and CEO, was a 2021 Female CxO Trailblazers runner-up.

Alpaca takes index options trading live through its API

Finally, something for the fintech builders.

Alpaca, a 2025 Financial Technology Trailblazers runner-up, has moved index options from paper trading into live trading through its API and dashboard.

Developers can now build around options on indexes including the S&P 500, VIX, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Mini-SPX, having first tested their strategies and order handling in Alpaca’s paper-trading environment.

It fits rather neatly with the company’s developer-first approach. Alpaca’s Tech Trailblazers entry described an infrastructure platform designed to let fintechs and other businesses embed brokerage capabilities without having to construct the entire operational stack themselves.

Moving another asset class behind the API is the next logical step.

Alpaca’s Tech Trailblazers recognition: 2025 Financial Technology Trailblazers runner-up.

Once a Trailblazer, always a Trailblazer

One of the pleasures of running Tech Trailblazers for as long as we have is seeing what happens after companies appear on a shortlist or take home an award.

So keep the news coming.

If you’re a previous Tech Trailblazers winner or runner-up and your company has raised funding, landed a major customer, launched something genuinely interesting, expanded into a new market or achieved something else we should know about, email us at innovate@techtrailblazers.com for possible inclusion in a future Alumni NewsFlash.

And if you’re still hoping to join them, there’s time.

Entries for the 2026 Tech Trailblazers Awards close on 30 September 2026 at 23:59 Pacific Time.

The Awards are open to eligible enterprise technology start-ups and scale-ups from around the world, with 20 categories spanning the established enterprise stack and newer frontiers including Quantum and Robotics.

Enter the 2026 Tech Trailblazers Awards:

Keep blazing those trails!

Rose Ross

Chief Trailblazer & Founder

Tech Trailblazers Awards