# Team - Octet

Source: https://octetproof.com/team/

> The team building Octet, proof of location. The founders previously spent five years building navigation technology with the U.S. Air Force, which NATO special operators use in the field today.

For the whole site in one file, read https://octetproof.com/llms.txt

# Built with the U.S. Air Force.

1. 1. A way to know where you are without GPS.

Octet is built on positioning technology our team developed with the U.S. Air Force under U.S. government R&D funding: a way to know where you are without GPS. Special operations forces use it today to navigate terrain where GPS is jammed or unavailable.

2. 2. Location can't be trusted anywhere.

The problem is not limited to conflict zones. Location can't be trusted anywhere.

3.

More than a billion people use VPNs and proxies, which make a device appear somewhere it is not, and spoofing apps fake GPS outright. When credentials are stolen, every part of the login is correct except where it comes from. Access controls, sanctions screens and geo-restrictions have to trust whatever location a device reports, because there has been no way to prove it.

4.

Bots already make up more than half of internet traffic, and AI agents, robots and drones now act on their own. Each of those actions needs a location it can prove, because location is the last factor that ties the digital world to the physical one.

5. 3. Make location a fact that anyone can build on.

Provable digital time was solved a quarter of a century ago. Provable location remains unsolved. Octet exists to make location a fact that anyone can build on.

Octet is building proof of location: physical location, signed in hardware, that any app can use as a factor. It is our second venture-backed company; together we built and exited the first, focused on supply-chain optimization and alt-PNT. We have been working together for more than a decade.

Backed by Variant, ex/ante, and hivemind, with angel investors in leadership at World, Coinbase, and quantitative hedge funds.

### Benjamin Fels

Co-founder & CEO

Began his career on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where he became the youngest senior trader in firm history. Has twice deployed first-of-a-kind AI, in financial markets and in mission-critical supply chains. Advised the UN and written on AI for the Financial Times.

[LinkedIn ^](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamintheloniousfels/) [X ^](https://x.com/benjamintfels) [Writing ^](https://benjaminfels.substack.com/)

### Suvrit Sra

Co-founder & CTO

MIT Professor, now Professor for Resource Aware Machine Learning at TU Munich. [Awarded the €5M Alexander von Humboldt Professorship for Artificial Intelligence](https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/explore/newsroom/dossier-alexander-von-humboldt-professorship/suvrit-sra). His work in machine learning, optimization, and mathematics is widely cited. Suvrit writes production code; the core of Octet's engine is his.

[Preprints ^](https://github.com/suvrit/preprints) [Publications ^](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eyCw9goAAAAJ&hl=en)

### Drew Arenth

Co-founder & COO

Began his career in offshore logistics, from the Arctic to the Middle East, then a decade in edge technology where he led the roll-out of multi-billion-dollar supply chains and the first deployment of AI for supply chains across sub-Saharan Africa.

[LinkedIn ^](https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewarenthmba/)

## Work with us.

We have no open roles right now. If you want to build this with us, write and tell us why, and what you would build.

[Careers](https://octetproof.com/careers/) Click to copy