Dive Brief:
- KODE Labs has achieved FedRAMP High authorization, clearing its building operating system KODE OS for use by federal agencies and other high-compliance organizations operating in sensitive, mission-critical environments, the company announced this week.
- FedRAMP High is the U.S. federal government’s highest standard for cloud services. It designates technology as trusted with the government’s most sensitive unclassified data. The KODE OS platform allows building operators to remotely monitor and control facility equipment and systems using advanced analytics and synchronization across building systems, the company says.
- “Now that we have gone through and gotten authorized … at the highest level of security, it means [we] can go for contracts and be able to help the U.S. government in essentially the most secure buildings that they run,” Edi Demaj, co-founder of KODE Labs told Facilities Dive. The company says it met the FedRAMP requirements using Palantir’s FedStart accreditation-as-a-service program.
Dive Insight:
KODE Labs has been working with the federal government since 2024, when it was awarded a $14.35 million contract by the U.S. General Services Administration’s Public Building Service to deploy its centralized data platform across 150 GSA-managed buildings in the Washington, D.C., area. GSA is the federal government’s agency for managing real property.
Despite the “cloud of bureaucracy” that often comes with government entities, Demaj said, working with GSA has been faster than working with most any other private entity. “They have their stuff documented, they know their processes, they know what they want, [and] they know how to [do quality assurance],” he said.
GSA’s decision to contract with KODE Labs signals that the agency is taking real steps to manage its property, Demaj said. By one estimate, the agency is facing a $26 billion repair backlog. A 2024 report by the Office of Inspector General says that GSA is working to address the growth in deferred maintenance.
The contract with KODE Labs has helped the GSA better understand its buildings so that funds can be invested in the best possible way,” Demaj said.
KODE OS is “essentially [the platform you get] when you want to prioritize based on real data,” Demaj said. While the real estate industry has historically relied on people checking boxes and filling out information across multiple systems to prioritize needs, KODE Labs platform provides a unified data graph that can pull that data together and help operators make decisions on what is happening in a building, he said.
Instead of hearing about problems from stakeholders a week or month late and allocating funds to fix it, he said, KODE OS enables clients to make decisions based on actual performance.
“It’s based on data that comes from the buildings,” he said. ”What you think may need to get replaced today …just because it’s outside of the 10-year span it was supposed to live, [may not need to be] if that data says that it’s still operating [well]. Maybe it doesn’t need to run 18 hours a day. Maybe you can still provide the same comfort at 12 hours a day and extend that lifetime. This is where we come in.”
Work with the GSA and the FedRAMP process has validated the standard that KODE Labs set for itself internally, Demaj said.
The company’s platform for the federal government, KODE OS for Government, is built and validated at SLSA Level 3 for software-supply-chain integrity. It meets OWASP Application Security Verification Standard Level 3 for application security, and it’s operated end-to-end by a U.S.-person-only team, according to a company release.
“We didn’t have to go out and do something completely unique and different, other than just go through the process,” Demaj said. “It was a super proud moment from a technical standpoint. This is the highest scrutiny you can go through.”
KODE OS achieved the authorization through Palantir Technologies’ FedStart program, an arrangement that allows businesses to deploy their applications inside Palantir’s already approved secure cloud setup. The Palantir program, Demaj said, is like having “somebody certified that can help hold your hand through [the FedRAMP process] without having to go through a lengthier and potentially even more expensive process.”
The authorization opens KODE Labs to a lot more opportunities, according to Demaj.
Because FedRAMP and GovRAMP share a common NIST-based control foundation, the company can pursue pathways to support state, local, tribal and education organizations, while FedStart’s support for Department of Defense Impact Level environments provides it with a route to meet additional requirements for even more sensitive, high-impact environments, per the release.
“It opens us up to another market that we didn’t have access to. We will compete with anybody on planet Earth, especially on U.S. government business,” Demaj said.
