Government agencies represent roughly 20% of the entire U.S. software market—a massive but strikingly underpenetrated opportunity. Startups have largely remained on the sidelines, partially due to the daunting FedRAMP compliance process. Traditionally, FedRAMP certification requires 12-18 months, more than $1 million in expenses, and the creation of an exhaustive 500-1500 pages of documentation.

Archon tackles this compliance bottleneck with an approach focused on standardizing and automating the redundant elements inherent in the FedRAMP process. Today, each company seeking compliance independently builds identical security and infrastructure modules—such as logging, authentication, and DevOps tooling. Archon recognized this repetitive pattern and productized these essential components into a modular, reusable solution. By providing standardized, fully compliant infrastructure and automated documentation, Archon compresses the typical FedRAMP timeline from 12-18 months down to approximately four months, significantly reducing costs.

Unlike other solutions, which often rely on restrictive third-party environments or costly manual consultants, Archon enables companies to deploy compliance solutions directly within their own AWS environments. This flexibility is especially valuable for software vendors with complex or multi-tenant architectures, a need currently underserved by existing products.

Archon's model positions FedRAMP compliance as an integrated component of software infrastructure, not an isolated process. By automating repetitive compliance tasks and standardizing security controls, Archon creates an efficient path for companies to meet federal standards without reinventing compliance from scratch each time.

Archon's product-centric approach to FedRAMP compliance is the logical evolution of a process currently dominated by costly, labor-intensive services. Archon isn't just automating existing workflows; they're laying a technical foundation that allows broader participation in the government software market, fostering greater competition and accelerating technological progress across the federal sector.

Views expressed are my own and do not represent Pioneer Fund or Archon.