San Francisco-based Contrivian has completed its merger with Big Network, creating what the company describes as the first vertically integrated multi-modal connectivity platform. The transaction brings Big Network's proprietary networking software entirely within Contrivian's technology portfolio — not available through any other vendor — alongside its existing connectivity, hardware, and managed service capabilities.
The core claim is architectural. Most managed connectivity providers assemble separate third-party products, setting up a primary connection with a failover behind it. That model reacts only after performance has already degraded. Contrivian's approach replaces sequential fallback with an active-active architecture: multiple connections — whether fibre, broadband, LTE/5G, or LEO satellite — operate simultaneously, with traffic routed continuously based on real-time path conditions.
"Traditional architectures wait for the primary connection to degrade or go down before moving traffic to a backup. We continuously measure every available path across fiber, wireless and LEO satellite and optimize traffic according to real-time performance. That makes separate connections behave as one system, reducing the brief outages and performance gaps associated with traditional failover."
— Tom Daly, Principal Technologist, Contrivian
"Nobody else has this software, because nobody else built it for this. The Big Network software was engineered from the ground up for intelligent, multimodal, mission-critical connectivity, and it now lives inside our platform and nowhere else. Software, hardware, carrier and engineering now work as one system. It's a network engineer in a box, and that's what lets us move faster, serve more customers and scale Contrivian as demand for mission-critical connectivity keeps growing."
— Grant Kirkwood, Founder and CEO, Contrivian
The combined company operates across more than 160 countries through a network of more than 600 carrier relationships. In March 2026, Contrivian launched Contrivian Constellation, a unified multi-constellation LEO connectivity solution integrating Starlink alongside other LEO networks with terrestrial connectivity through a single managed platform.
The merged entity targets enterprise and government customers in public safety, healthcare, energy, financial services, and other sectors where connectivity availability is critical to operations.
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