Latest Stories
Project Omega’s Plan to Turn Nuke Waste Into a Next-Gen Power Source for the Pentagon
The US has a nuclear waste problem. A startup has an idea on how to fix it—and give all the power-hungry hardware the Pentagon loves a next-gen energy supply. Yesterday, Project Omega emerged from stealth with $12M in funding to scale up its nuclear waste recycling technology and accelerate the development of a battery-sized nuclear […]
Applied Intuition Snags UK DSTL Swarming Contract
The great American leap across the pond continues. This morning, autonomy giant (and dual-use stan) Applied Intuition announced that it has officially been awarded a UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Defence and Science Technology Laboratory (DSTL) to “deliver a complete autonomy test bed for ground-launched, near-surface drone swarms.” Applied will lead a consortium of companies—Rowden […]
Exclusive: Tenna Raises $13.5M Seed
In case you haven’t noticed, electronic warfare is kind of a big deal right now. From the frontlines of Ukraine to Caracas (apparently), everyone is trying to figure out the best way to jam and spoof their adversaries while avoiding being jammed and spoofed themselves. Enter: Tenna Systems, an Israeli startup building a spectrum intelligence […]
Blue Water Autonomy Unveils 190-foot “Liberty Class” USV With Damen
Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and defense companies are in the matchmaking spirit. This morning, Boston-based maritime autonomy startup Blue Water Autonomy unveiled its first autonomous surface vessel: A 190-foot big ol’ drone boat designed in partnership with Dutch shipbuilding giant Damen called the “Liberty Class.” We told you maritime autonomy is all the […]
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 […]
