Ithildin
Company · 04 Founded · 2026

Sovereign software is not a feature. It is the whole product.

Founded2026 · Huttwil BE
DomicileSwitzerland
OwnershipFounder-owned
OfficeHuttwil BE
Legal formEinzelunternehmen
LeadershipVincent Grädel, founder

Ithildin was founded in 2026 on a single conviction: Switzerland cannot outsource the software that runs its most consequential operations to firms governed by foreign law.

The name comes from Tolkien. Ithildin is the silvery substance on the Doors of Durin — invisible by day, revealed only by moonlight to those who speak the password. It is the deliberate counterpart to the palantír, the seeing stone whose user is exposed to whoever else holds one. Sovereign data should behave like ithildin. Hidden from adversaries. Visible to allies. Never to strangers.

Why not Palantir? Palantir centralises an organisation's data into its own platform and cloud. Ithildin runs the same class of capabilities entirely on the customer's own infrastructure, under Swiss jurisdiction — designed for total data sovereignty rather than central aggregation. Read the full comparison →

05 — Leadership

Founder-led today. These are the seats we intend to fill.

Ithildin is run by its founder, Vincent Grädel. The seats below describe the expertise we intend to add, not people already in post. Appointments are published once confirmed in writing.

Roles we are seating

Chief Executive Officer

This seat requires a background in Swiss federal procurement and dual-use software.

Chief Technology Officer

Classified-network systems engineering, with an armasuisse/VBS background.

Head of Engineering

This seat requires distributed-systems and data-platform engineering, with ontology-style platforms shipped in production.

Head of Customer Engineering

This seat leads the Forward Deployed Engineering practice and owns customer outcomes end to end.

General Counsel · Compliance

This seat requires FADP counsel, ISG classification handling, and financial-sector regulatory experience. Swiss bar admission.

Business Development

This seat requires federal-procurement and critical-infrastructure relationships. Trilingual.

06 — Advisors

The advisory expertise we are seeking.

Advisor names are confirmed in writing before publication. The roles below describe the expertise we are seating, not the individuals.

Defense
To be announced
Former Swiss Armed Forces flag officer. Modern conflict tempo and classification frameworks.
Intelligence
To be announced
Former NDB or partner-agency leadership. Cross-source fusion and analyst tradecraft.
Finance
To be announced
Senior financial-sector executive. AML / KYC and cross-border private-banking sovereignty.
Critical Infrastructure
To be announced
Operator from rail, energy, or telecommunications. OT and industrial-control security.
07 — Offices

Huttwil. On site where the work is.

Based in Huttwil, canton of Bern. Delivery is hands-on and on site, forward-deployed with the customer.

CH · BE
Huttwil · Headquarters
Federal · Defense · Intelligence

Bernstrasse 38, 4950 Huttwil BE · Schweiz.
Business address of Ithildin, an Einzelunternehmen of Vincent Grädel.

CH
On site · Customer premises
Enterprise · Finance · Healthcare

Forward-deployed delivery at your site.
Hands-on, on-site delivery by the founder.

What we publish under News, we stand behind.

Ithildin's product updates and reference reporting are published under the company's own name and reviewed before they go live. Every dated fact is either a direct account of what we shipped or is cited to a primary source — court records, regulator filings, or named press coverage — with the citation on the page itself, not asserted without one.

Corrections are welcome and acted on quickly: write to contact@ithildin.ch. Individuals are named publicly only where a specific engagement requires it — see Contact and Careers.

The person who built the platform walks into the bunker.

Founder-led, on-site delivery. Briefings on request.