The questions investors actually ask.

Summit Cognitive builds the runtime admissibility layer for AI in high-stakes decisions. Every governed action ships a Decision Receipt: a cryptographically signed, replayable, independently verifiable record of why the answer was allowed, revised, blocked, or escalated. We do not replace the analysis — we make the analysis admissible.

A governed decision platform that cryptographically proves every autonomous action was authorized, evidence-linked, and policy-compliant before execution. The product turns an AI-assisted decision into a governed artifact — the Decision Receipt — that shows why the answer was allowed, revised, blocked, or escalated. Summit operates at the knowledge-graph layer, not the model layer — a new control plane we call Cognitive Security.

The first wave of AI adoption optimized for productivity; the next wave will be judged by decision accountability. The risk is not that AI is wrong — it's that AI is wrong in ways the operator cannot detect and the auditor cannot reconstruct. A regulatory window and a category vacuum are arriving together: the OMB federal AI governance mandate; the EU AI Act (Articles 13–15, runtime obligations) binding August 2, 2026 with penalties to €15M / 3% of turnover; and NIST AI RMF converging with bank model-risk guidance (SR 11-7), FedRAMP, CMMC, and IC Directive 503.

Brian C. Long — Founder & CEO, technical lead / PI. More than two decades across cyber, media, and intelligence work on institutional decision systems and cognitive infrastructure. Sole founder by design at this stage: the entire codebase was built and is maintained by one person. (Distinct from the founder of Attentive / Adaptive Security.) The first three post-funding hires are a federal capture lead, a security engineer, and a design-partner success hire, supported by a network of credentialed advisors. Full bios are in the data room.

Real and in production. It is live at decrec.summitcognitive.ai with a public key and ledger for independent verification. It is not a model wrapper, not a UI overlay, not a research project.

Engineering metrics are audit-time figures (late May to early June 2026); some have since advanced. The full traction table is on the investor hub.

Yes — that is the point of the design. Decision Receipts are Ed25519-signed and the public key plus ledger are published at decrec.summitcognitive.ai, so a receipt can be checked offline and independently. Replay determinism is measured at 99.9%, meaning a governed decision can be re-run and reproduced. Note: independent code review by established third-party security firms is scoped, not completed — we do not claim "independently reviewed by."

Explanation is not proof. Observability tells you what happened and audit logs tell you who did it — but neither tells you why the system reached this conclusion, with this evidence, under this policy, captured at decision time. Summit is not an AI governance company. It is the runtime admissibility layer that AI governance, model safety, data security, and audit firms all need underneath them. Cognitive Security operates at runtime — every decision, every time, signed before the output leaves the system — unlike governance, which operates on review cycles.

Pre-seed and pre-revenue. We are raising a $1.5M pre-seed SAFE (YC post-money standard, with a negotiable cap), designed for one lead plus one to two defense-tech co-investors. The cap table is 100% founder-owned: no convertible notes, no advisor equity issued yet, no employee option pool issued yet. A non-dilutive Colorado OEDIT Advanced Industries grant (~$250K) opens July 1, 2026.

The valuation cap is to be set with the lead investor and is deliberately not published on this public page. It is discussed in the access-gated data room as part of an active diligence engagement. The instrument is a YC post-money SAFE with a negotiable cap.

No board today; investor information rights only, no board seat at the SAFE stage. MFN on later SAFEs in the same round; pro-rata and standard information rights are offered to the lead and major investors.

Yes — non-dilutive first. A Colorado OEDIT Advanced Industries grant (~$250K) opens July 1, 2026. Federal credentialing is complete (UEI assigned, SAM.gov registered, CAGE code assigned), and there is a $2.1M federal pipeline across three proposals, with an a proposed SBIR Phase I base of $150K (not yet awarded). The detailed pipeline and federal readiness packet are in the data room.

Use of proceeds, as stated to date:

• The multi-tenant and public-demo path
• The first two hires
• SOC 2 Type I
• The Wave-1 non-provisional patent filings
• Pilot business development

That is a 12–18 month runway. The base-and-downside 18-month model, with the burn-and-runway narrative, lives in the data room.

Funded milestones include at least one signed pilot, general availability in Q4 2026, patent counsel engaged with filings underway, and a federal Phase II / transition motion. The base-case go-to-market milestone is three to five design partners converting to paid contracts within six months of funding. These are plans and model-based estimates, not commitments.

The first three post-funding hires are a federal capture lead (month 1, retainer), a security engineer (month 2), and a design-partner success hire (month 3); team math at month 18 is roughly six people plus a network of credentialed advisors. The detailed comp and timing assumptions are in the financial model. Any figure not stated here is a [[ TK — confirm with Brian ]] rather than an invented number.

Complementary, not competitive. Palantir builds the investigator's notebook; Summit builds the notarized record beside it — the Amicus Curiae to their investigator. The Decision Receipt wraps any analytic output — from Palantir, any LLM, or any agentic system — and makes it replayable, auditable, and defensible.

Three priority categories:

• Federal mission systems — AFWERX, SBIR, direct-to-CDAO via the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace.
• Regulated enterprise — banks under SR 11-7, healthcare under HIPAA and the 21st Century Cures Act, insurance under state AI-governance mandates.
• Design partners on the pilot waitlist.

The base-case milestone is three to five design partners converting to paid contracts within six months of funding. Pipeline figures are deliberately ranged and never customer-named.

The AI-governance market today is estimated at $4.4B (a third-party figure, cited as the adjacent market — admissibility is a category Summit is creating, not just a slice of governance). The exit thesis is execution-dependent: acquisition by a platform or defense prime, or an IPO on a federal contract base over a 7–10 year horizon. Comparable framing and ranges are in the data room.

First-mover in decision admissibility — no one else is shipping runtime admissibility infrastructure for autonomous AI actions. Summit owns the vocabulary for the category: Cognitive Security, the Decision Receipt, the runtime admissibility layer. The moat compounds across a deployed, verifiable system, an IP surface anchored by the provisional patent, and category-authority content (the forthcoming book Admissible Reality, the Dispatches essay series, and the Warrant podcast).

The IP surface is anchored by provisional patent application No. 64/034,952, filed April 10, 2026; the non-provisional conversion is due April 10, 2027. The round funds the continuation and international PCT strategy, plus the Wave-1 non-provisional filings. The patent is pending, not granted.

The investor-safe four-layer governed decision pipeline is described in the data room's product & architecture section. Patent-sensitive implementation detail is available under NDA only. The public materials describe the system at the architecture level without exposing the protected primitives.

The company. Founder stock and the IP-assignment posture are documented in the corporate & legal section of the data room (certificate of incorporation as a Delaware C-Corp, bylaws, board consents). The cap table is 100% founder-owned today.

We'd rather state these plainly than have you find them:

• Pre-revenue. The company has no paying customer today; revenue is a forward-looking plan.
• Single founder. The codebase is built and maintained by one person; key-person concentration is real until the first hires land.
• Patent pending, not granted. The provisional must convert by April 10, 2027, and prosecution outcomes are not guaranteed.
• Compliance is designed-for-alignment, not certified. SOC 2 not certified; FedRAMP scoped; CMMC planned.
• Independent review scoped, not done. Third-party security review engagements are scoped but not completed; named firms are identified in the gated data room once engaged.
• Category creation. Admissibility is a market Summit is creating; adoption timing depends on the regulatory window landing as expected.

Today, materially — the platform is a sole-founder build by design at this stage. The round directly funds the first two engineering/capture hires to de-risk that concentration, with a federal capture lead, a security engineer, and a design-partner success hire as the first three roles. The hiring plan and advisory network are detailed in the team section of the data room.

To be precise: the company is working to secure a speaking slot at Web Summit in Lisbon — it is in flight, not confirmed. We will not present it as a scheduled fact until it is. Flagship content channels — the Dispatches essay series and the Warrant podcast — are in production.

Not on this public page — by design. Confidential financials, the cap table, the valuation, and term-sheet specifics live in a redaction-by-default data room released to qualified investors with an active diligence engagement. The data-room index on the investor hub describes each section without exposing its contents.

Use the request-access form on the investor hub, or email the founder directly. Access is for accredited / qualified investors; we verify and respond personally — this is not an automated subscription. Once granted, you'll see the executive summary and deck, corporate & legal, IP, product & architecture, compliance, the financial model and cap table, go-to-market, team, federal credentials, the investment & term summary, and the detailed pipeline.

There is an illustrative pre-seed SAFE term summary in the data room. It is a discussion template — not an offer, and not legal or financial advice. A definitive offer would be made only to accredited or otherwise qualified investors, through definitive offering documents, in compliance with applicable securities laws.

Email hello@summitcognitive.ai for company inquiries, or write to the founder at brian@summitcognitive.ai. Summit Cognitive, Inc. is a Delaware C-Corporation headquartered in Alma, Colorado (Park County), founded April 2026.