DOGE Veterans Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox Raise Funding for AI Operating System Startup Targeting Senior Care, Construction, and Manufacturing

Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox announced plans to launch Special, a startup that will build an operating system to transform critical American industries with AI. The pair posted on a16z’s Substack that Main Street, like the federal government, is inefficient and that the company will vertically integrate by buying businesses in critical sectors and running them on Special’s operating system.

Their first target is senior care through a vertical called FigureHealth.

In an interview on TBPN, Cavanaugh said Special is also looking at markets like construction, manufacturing, and other very labor intensive, highly regulated markets where learnings from DOGE can be applied to the private sector. Cavanaugh and Fox wrote that one needs to look no further than childcare learning centers in Minnesota or hospice businesses in California to find immense waste at the state level from businesses that benefit from taxpayer dollars.

Fraud allegations against Minnesota childcare centers formed the justification for President Donald Trump’s administration to deploy thousands of immigration agents to the state earlier this year.

Andreessen Horowitz led the funding round for Special. Steve Davis, Antonio Gracias, Baris Akis, Anthony Armstrong, Donald Park, Adam Ramada, and Brooks Morgan, all described as DOGE teammates, are backing the venture. Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer at Palantir, also participated in the round.

Adam Ramada and Brooks Morgan founded the Austin-based BANNER VC after leaving DOGE in August 2025. Cavanaugh and Fox did not respond to requests for comment, nor did their apparent investors. While part of DOGE, Cavanaugh and Fox led the forcible takeover of the US Institute of Peace.