Latest Stories
MAHI Unveils Alpha-8 USV With Belgian Shipbuilder
If you thought the unmanned surface vessel world couldn’t get any busier, well, think again. This morning, Belgian maritime autonomy startup MAHI unveiled a 27-foot high-speed USV called the Alpha-8, designed as a demonstration vessel for its autonomy stack in exercises and training with the Belgian Navy, at least to start. Fishy business: MAHI, in […]
Exclusive: Neros and CX2 Team Up
Look out, world. The El Segundo bros are teaming up. This morning, CX2 and Neros announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re teaming up to put CX2’s c-UAS tech onto Neros’ made-in-the-USA quadcopter drones. Specifically, the two companies will build Vadris—CX2’s RF-seeking drone pilot locator—onto Neros’ Archer FPV drone. The idea is to […]
Exclusive: X-Bow Successfully Tests 34.5-inch SRM
Big week for propulsion around here. This morning, solid rocket motor startup X-Bow Systems announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’ve successfully tested their 34.5-inch Ballesta SRM, first unveiled in 2022. The big-boy motor—which has more thrust and can get up to super-fast speeds more quickly—is best suited for launch for big ol’ […]
Castelion Snags $50M Navy Contract for Blackbeard Missiles
The hype for hypersonics keeps getting more real. Yesterday, the Pentagon announced that mass-producible hypersonic missile hotshot Castelion was awarded a $50M contract with the US Navy for the “full-scale prototypes, flight testing, and operational fielding” of its Blackbeard missile, which COO Sean Pitt told Tectonic will be an air-launched variant. The Los Angeles-based startup […]
A Q + A with Matt Cronin, Senior National Security Advisor at a16z
If there is one VC fund you know in the defense tech world, it’s probably Andreesen Horowitz—or a16z, as the cool kids say. The firm—which just raised a casual $15B, including $1.176B for its “national interest” (defense and deep tech) focused American Dynamism fund—has backed some of the biggest names in the game, including Anduril, […]
Q + A: A.J. Bertone, Managing Partner, In-Q-Tel
If you’ve been paying attention to the past year of Tectonic (!!), you’ll recognize a sneaky three-letter acronym that pops up on a lot of defense tech cap tables: IQT. For those lucky enough not to be in the know, that stands for In-Q-Tel, a not-for-profit venture fund backed by the US government and investing […]
A Q+A with Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper
Mark Esper has spent a whole heck of a lot of time in the defense ecosystem. After a decade in uniform in the US Army, he worked as a congressional staffer, a senior policy aide to Sens. Chuck Hagel and Bill Frist, and a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the early 2000s. Then, he […]
A Q+A with Alex Ferrara, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners
If there is one fund that knows how to deploy big-time cash into tech companies, it’s Bessemer Venture Partners. The Silicon Valley fund has about $19B under management, and has invested in tech giants from LinkedIn (everyone’s fav) to Shopify. This year, the fund has turned to defense—specifically, European defense. They led Auterion’s $130M Series […]
