Today, we’re excited to launch @Stratum_Inc (YC S26), the applied AI company for governments.

Stratum builds AI agents that automate the slow, complex manual workflows governments run on. Starting with application review.

We’re deploying AI across every vertical inside the government, clearing backlogs in a fraction of the time and saving agencies tens of billions in admin cost.

Get in touch: http://stratumindustries.co

Stratum

Source: https://stratumindustries.co/ Federal · State · Local

The Government cannot run at the speed of paper.

The people who run the country are handed its slowest tools. We’re building them the best software there’s ever been.

Washington · D.C.MMXXVI

Layer01Everything Goes Through It

America has always been where it happens first

We had the first light bulb, the first powered flight, the first transistor, the internet and the moon landing.We landed a rocket back on its own legs and filled entire cities with cars that drive themselves.

Every one of them had to go through the same back and forth with the government before it could reach anybody - a new factory, a new drug, a new way of moving people, all of it needs approval before it gets deployed, and that is the reason we can build at this scale and be trusted with it.

Hadley Base, 1971Apollo 15 - NASAThe approval isn’t the problem. The software it runs on is.

Layer02The Standard Procedure

How the system works today

Form STR-1980Standard review procedure

1. 01You fill out a form.
2. 02You wait.
3. 03You fill out more forms.
4. 04A department asks you for something you already sent, so you send it again.
5. 05You wait.
6. 06Then you fill out more forms.
7. 07Eventually someone approves it.

Weeks. Months. Sometimes years.Pending

Federal records centerPaper case files in storageThat worked fine in the 1980s, and it does not work now that AI and robotics are moving this fast.

The government wants to move faster, but it doesn’t have the software to do it - the tools people open every morning to file and review millions of applications were built before AI existed, and they still work the way they did then.

You can’t patch your way out of that.The whole layer has to come out and be rebuilt from the ground up.

Layer03Stratum

Stratum is the platform that eliminates the government’s backlog and reviews applications within seconds.

StratumCase STR-2026

1. 01The file lands, and Stratum reads every page of it.
2. 02It checks the file against the rubric the agency already uses.
3. 03Every step routes to the model that reviews it most accurately for the least cost.
4. 04Anything missing goes back to the applicant as one specific request.
5. 05The officer gets the whole file summarized, with every citation behind it.
6. 06The officer approves it or denies it.

Seconds, not months.Human in the loop

Hundreds of agents, running in parallel, on the same backlog.

ClearedIn queue

One reviewer, one file at a time, is the other way to do this.

Hundreds of these run at once in the cloud, so an entire backlog clears in the time it used to take to review a single file.

Every step is auditable, and a person still makes the decision.That part never moves, because the decision belongs to a person.

Clearing the backlog is only the starting point.We’re rebuilding both sides of it, the reviewer’s and the applicant’s, so that filing and adjudication happen instantly instead of over weeks, and government finally moves as fast as the country it serves.

We’re rebuilding the layer the government runs on

Layer04What Runs on Stratum

Everything that involves filing and reviewing a form

Runs on StratumFederal, state and local

Patents & IPPatent filingsTrademark registrationsHealthFDA drug registrationsDevice approvalsFacility licencesFinanceSEC filingsBusiness incorporationsLand & buildBuilding permitsEnvironmental permitsHighway grantsPeoplePassportsDMV licencesDisability ratingsPensionsSurvivor benefitsEverything that involves filing a form and waiting on somebody to read it.

The people waiting on these aren’t abstractions.

A veteran waiting on a disability rating, a retired couple waiting on a pension, a widow waiting on the survivor benefit that decides whether she makes rent this month.

They already did their part, and what they’re waiting on isn’t a decision - it’s a queue.

Layer05Where This Goes

The best process is no process

The best form is no form. You just get to work.

Applying to the government stops being something you do - you orchestrate an agent, the agency orchestrates one back, and between them the whole thing settles itself while you get on with your day.

Step by step

YouThe government

YouYou orchestrate an agent and tell it what you need - a permit, a licence, a claim.09:02

Your agentIt fills out the entire application on its own and files it for you.09:14

The agency’s agentThe agency has orchestrated an agent of its own. It picks the file up the moment it lands and reviews it.09:14

The agency’s agentIt spots what’s missing and asks your agent for it directly.09:21

Your agentYour agent finds it and sends it back, without ever interrupting you.09:23

The agency’s agentWith everything in hand, it summarizes the whole file for the officer.09:26

The officer - a person, alwaysThe officer approves or denies it, on the credibility of the application.14:40

Same day.

By America’s 252nd year there will be no paperwork left

This year America turned 250.By the 252nd you’ll get a permit the way you call an Uber, and that’s the experience every one of us deserves.

When that happens we’ll only be one per cent of the way there, because eliminating the backlog was only ever the beginning.

ArtemisKennedy Space Center - NASAThe government cannot run at the speed of paper. It has to run at Stratum speed.

The new age of America

ArchiveAmerican exceptionalism, in motion

Stratum IndustriesWashington · D.C.

This is the work of the next century and we’re just getting started.