Latest Stories
Exclusive: Auriga Launches Hypersonic Weather Testing Chamber
If you read Tectonic, you’ll probably be aware of two things: Hypersonic weapons are in high demand these days, and the government wants to move fast to field them. Like, really fast. That’s all well and good, but one super-underappreciated part of that story is that testing these systems—especially the unsexy stuff like coatings, ceramic […]
First Look: Cantos Raises $70M Fund IV
If there is one thing you take away from today’s newsletter, let it be this: Everyone and their mother is still pouring oodles (and then some more oodles) of money into defense. Yesterday, SF-based Cantos Ventures announced it closed a $70M Fund IV earlier this year, which Founder & GP Ian Rountree told Tectonic that […]
Vantor Unveils WorldView 3D
If you thought those super-precise 2D satellite images of—for example—bombed-out Iranian nuclear sites were cool, just wait ’til you hear what Vantor has in store for you today. This morning, the satellite imaging company (formerly known as Maxar Intelligence—but you should know that by now) released a new product line it’s calling WorldView 3D that […]
Harpoon Ventures Raises $155M Fourth Fund
Looks like no one’s found the shut-off valve on the defense tech funding tap yet. Yesterday, San Diego-based early-stage VC firm Harpoon Ventures—an investor in startups ranging from Firestorm to Ursa Major and Merlin—announced that it’s closed a $155M Fund IV to, in the words of Harpoon investor Riley Loftus, back the “maniacs that are […]
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 […]
