John Mueller, CEO, Orion Edge

June 2026 — Invest: spoke with John Mueller, CEO of Orion Edge, about relocating the company’s headquarters to Tampa, building an electronic warfare hardware team near key defense partners, and scaling manufacturing with Florida’s incentive programs. “Because we are hardware-focused, most engineering work needs to be on site anyway, and the combination of incentives, talent, and proximity to defense partners makes Tampa a strong base for our next phase,” Mueller said.

Orion Edge has relocated to Tampa. How has the process unfolded so far, and what early impacts are you seeing locally or operationally?

Since the move, we have been able to get established quickly. We secured industrial space near the airport and set up operations there as a first step, and we are already planning to move into a larger facility in the coming months as headcount grows.

Early on, the biggest impact has been access to talent. USF has been a strong pipeline for us, and several of our initial hires in Tampa have been recent graduates from engineering disciplines such as electrical engineering, computer science, and computer engineering. Bringing in that early-career talent has helped us quickly ramp up project work.

What makes this region an ideal location for your operations?

We do a lot of work on the electronic side, and on the defense use case, we focus specifically on electronic warfare. Tampa is attractive for a few reasons.

First is proximity to SOCOM and the innovation ecosystem around it. We work through that ecosystem, including efforts tied to SOFWERX and the Army Research Lab. Being local makes it easier to collaborate, show progress, and stay aligned with what the government is prioritizing.

Second, USF is a real advantage for us. The Army Research Lab team we work with is physically located at USF, and USF also supplies a steady stream of undergraduate and graduate engineers. Because we build hardware, being close to those partners and that talent pool matters.

Third, Florida has a strong R&D tax credit for hardware. If you are building things on the hardware side rather than purely software, you can benefit from a true tax credit. You can apply it toward payroll tax or roll it forward if you are financially declaring a loss for that year. For a venture-backed company investing heavily in engineering, that support matters.

What changes over the past year have had the greatest impact on Orion Edge, and in what ways?

The biggest shift we have felt is on the defense acquisition side. The Army, which we work with most, has been running more innovation-driven challenges and then tying those outcomes to newer acquisition pathways. The intent is to shorten the traditional five- to 10-year cycles and move capabilities into the field faster.

That shift favors teams that can iterate rapidly. Part of why we like hiring early-career engineers out of USF is that people coming straight from undergraduate or graduate programs often adapt quickly to rapid iteration. That does not mean there is less value in experience, but we have found that speed and flexibility are essential as acquisition pathways evolve.

How is Orion Edge approaching talent attraction and workforce development in a competitive market like Tampa Bay?

We rely heavily on referrals. We started by hiring a small group of USF graduate students at the Ph.D. and master’s levels, then gave them autonomy to recommend additional hires from their coursework networks and prior collaborations. We have also hired through local connections and referrals from people who know our work.

We do not use a recruiting service, and we do not have technical recruiters on staff. Even so, we have not had trouble attracting talent in Tampa Bay. We have found a solid base of hardware-focused engineering talent here, and the region has been stronger than some people outside the market might assume.

Compensation is also part of the equation. As a venture-backed startup doing hardware, we can offer competitive packages, including six-figure salaries with benefits for level-one engineers right out of school. That combination of hands-on hardware work, growth opportunities, and competitive pay has made recruiting easier.

What key industry or market trends are most relevant right now, and how is Orion Edge adapting to them?

Historically, defense systems have often been large, expensive programs that took years to develop and deliver. That expectation is changing. Now, after demonstration, there is pressure to move toward production quickly and to do it at a much lower cost point.

On the hardware side, component prices have been trending down, especially for smaller-scale electronics. Things like circuit boards, microcontrollers, and microprocessors have become less expensive as manufacturing processes mature. The government expects those cost reductions to flow through to delivered systems.

For us, that shapes design and production decisions. Systems such as aerial payloads or electronic warfare hardware are increasingly expected to be in the tens of thousands of dollars at scale, and sometimes less. We focus on building hardware that can be produced quickly, iterated rapidly, and delivered at a price point that matches that new reality.

How do you plan to engage with the Tampa Bay community through partnerships, initiatives, or local investment?

Our community engagement starts with USF and the engineering community. We are sponsoring a capstone design program for undergraduate engineering students this coming year, and we are standing up a summer internship program through USF as well. We also see value in the IEEE community and the broader electronics ecosystem tied to USF.

In the next 12 months, that is where we expect most of our outreach to live. It gives students real-world experience and exposure to industry problems, and it helps us build a long-term recruiting pipeline. Even when students pursue careers elsewhere, having engineers familiar with our work strengthens the wider ecosystem.

Looking ahead two to three years, what are your key goals and priorities for Orion Edge, and what is your outlook for the industry?

Our focus is growth in Tampa. Over the next two to three years, we want the Tampa location to grow to about 40 individuals. We are doubling headcount at the start of this year, and we plan to continue scaling from there. We are not planning to expand into other locations, we plan to grow this location in Tampa.

On the business side, we are projecting about $3 million in revenue this year, and we project that out to about $22 million in annual revenue over the next six years based on the pipeline we already have.

There are two major reasons Tampa is central to that plan. One is the R&D tax credit. The more industrialization and manufacturing we do here, the more we benefit at the state level, and it supports continued investment in building hardware.

The second is Florida’s quick response training grant. For companies moving into the state, Florida offers a stipend per Florida W-2, and you can reapply annually. The stipend scales with how salaries compare to the state average, and because our salaries are higher, we receive close to the maximum. This year, Florida awarded us a $90,000 grant, which is roughly $4,300 in non-dilutive capital per Florida W-2 we pay out over the next 12 months.

That structure reinforces our strategy to hire locally and keep growth in Florida. Because we are hardware-focused, most engineering work needs to be on site anyway, and the combination of incentives, talent, and proximity to defense partners makes Tampa a strong base for our next phase.