- Contrivian is a startup based in San Francisco, whose software orchestrates multiple forms of connectivity
- Contrivian has deals with both SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon Leo
- The company merged with Big Network in February and is going out for a $20M raise in Q2 2026
Contrivian, a startup based in San Francisco, whose software orchestrates multiple forms of connectivity, started out orchestrating broadband and wireless for enterprises, but then it added satellite to the mix, and that’s when things got interesting. Now, the software vendor has deals with both SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon Leo.
Grant Kirkwood, CEO of Contrivian, said the company is not an SD-WAN vendor, even though orchestrating across broadband, wireless and satellite sounds a lot like SD-WAN. Instead, he said the company works with large multinational organizations that have many different locations — and its software can orchestrate multiple SD-WANs.
However, what sets Contrivian apart from the SD-WAN fray is some of the things it’s doing for the satellite operators.
“We built some software that specifically understands low-Earth orbit internet access better than an SD-WAN option. We can take multiple Starlinks and bond them together to create higher aggregate capacity. We use it as a backup to fiber-fed locations," said Kirkwood.
Even though Starlink looks and acts like a normal broadband connection, “if you peel back the onion a bit, it's actually quite different,” he said. “There are very different performance characteristics, and your network routing intelligence layer needs to understand those things. And so that's what we built, and that's what we incorporated into our multi-constellation solution.”
Today, Contrivian can bond both Starlink and Amazon Leo constellations to offer the best satellite connection at any given time.
In March, the company launched Contrivian Constellation, a software-defined platform that unifies Starlink, Amazon Leo and other satellite constellations into a single, actively orchestrated connectivity layer. Contrivian Constellation continuously measures path performance across each constellation and dynamically steers traffic over the best-performing links.
When asked how Contrivian has already gotten a deal with Amazon Leo, even though the company doesn’t have a commercial LEO service yet, Kirkwood said Amazon Leo is heavily into the testing phase, and customers are interested in the nascent satellite operator because they don’t want Starlink to be the only game in town. They’re accustomed to having fiber diversity on the ground and they want at least two LEO providers as well, he said.
Big Network acquisition
In February, Contrivian merged with Big Network, and the combined technology from the two companies is what enables seamless connectivity across fiber, wireless and LEO networks, along with the multi-constellation technology.
“We had been working with [Big Network] for about two years, and then just decided that we needed to be one company, partly because the technology that we built together with them created a really unique opportunity to bring multiple constellations together, and so we didn't want anybody else to have that," Kirkwood said.
Contrivian’s vital statistics
Contrivian has been entirely self-funded since its founding in 2023. However, it’s going to market for a $20 million capital raise in Q2 2026.
The company employs about 30 people. Its biggest customers are local and state government agencies across the U.S., and it says a $15-billion-revenue healthcare provider is also a customer, although it didn’t divulge the company’s name. Currently, its customer roster includes Amazon Leo and Starlink, as mentioned above.
Asked who Contrivian’s competitors are, Kirkwood said, “There are companies that do pieces of what we do, but we haven't really found anyone that does the full thing, which is partly why we put this together.”
Still, Kirkwood mentioned Contrivian competes somewhat with Expereo, which offers LEO connectivity for global enterprises as part of its managed network-as-a-service offering, and then the SD-WAN providers that do orchestration, “but not quite the way that we do," he added.
"What's interesting is, you've got the big traditional telcos now reselling Starlink. Lumen did a deal, Zayo did a deal. So, they're adding Starlink into their product portfolios, but it's kind of an add-on, as opposed to part of an integrated solution.”