ROC goes public to support its expansion push
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By
Nick Wakeman
The vision artificial intelligence- and biometrics-focused firm collects $24 million to hire engineers and expand the infrastructure that fuels its algorithms.
Rank One Computing Corp. is looking to boost its development efforts now that it is a publicly-traded company.
Denver-headquartered ROC raised $24 million in its Feb. 20 initial public offering when it began trading on the NASDAQ. According to its prospectus, ROC will use about $10.8 million to hire more engineers and scientists to accelerate product development.
Another $3.2 million will go toward updating and expanding the neural-processing infrastructure used to train its vision AI algorithms.
The remaining $7.6 million will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes.
ROC was founded in 2015 to develop vision AI solutions that can analyze unstructured visual data. The company's solutions are used to analyze images and video, including fingerprints, to identify people, detect threats and extract usable intelligence.
Federal government customers accounted for 81% of ROC’s revenue for the first nine months of 2025, according to the prospectus. ROC's overall revenue for that period totaled $13.5 million.
The Navy is its biggest government customer and accounts for $3.3 million in unclassified prime revenue over the trailing 12 months, according to USASpending.gov.
ROC sells several vision AI products including its video analytics platform called ROC Watch, which accounts for 37% of its revenue. The company also sells a developer toolkit called ROC SDK and a biometric identification system called ROC ABIS.
The company’s roots in national security are deep. Co-founders Joshua Klontz and Brendan Klare worked together in the facial recognition research group at Noblis and supported the FBI’s use of facial recognition tech in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing.
Klontz is ROC's chief technology officer with Klare holding the titles of board chair, chief scientist and president.
CEO Scott Swann spent 18 years at the FBI. Swann met Klare and Klontz while leading a case study of the bombing.
ROC also describes itself as transformative force and a disruptor in areas such as facial recognition, forensic video triage, multimodal biometrics and AI-assisted digital casework
“We are not just building AI. We are rebuilding the global infrastructure for identity and evidence,” ROC says in the prospectus. “Our platform is consolidating what today exists as a fragmented patchwork of vendors into one unified capability. What used to require multiple tools, complex integrations, and manual handoffs is now becoming a single, seamless user experience.”
The company says it is leading a shift away from foreign built legacy systems.
“We believe the current generation of overpriced, siloed, and opaque platforms is collapsing under its own weight,” they say in the prospectus. “What comes next must be leaner, faster, and far more transparent. ROC is building the platform that defines the next era.”
Since its debut on Feb. 23, the company's stock has traded above its $6 asking price with a high of $7.51.