Latest Stories
Redwire Scores Back-To-Back Drone Contracts
It’s been a busy week for Redwire. On Tuesday, the space and defense giant announced a “multi-year contract valued at high eight-figures” with an undisclosed NATO country for its Penguin Mk3 VTOL UAS, and followed that up yesterday with a $15M contract with the US Army’s Aviation Center of Excellence (AVCOE) for its ISR-focused Stalker […]
Anduril Unveils Voyager 1 for Mobile Compute and Comms
Compute is, like, so hot right now. Yesterday, teeny-tiny startup Anduril (they’ve had like, no news lately) unveiled the Voyager Gateway 1, a new “rugged, body-worn compute and communications system designed to fit within an operator’s kit.” The idea is to bring compute allll the way to the front without the heat and discomfort of […]
Manufacturing Startup Amca Closes $300M Series B
Manufacturing is, like, hotter than hot right now. This morning, the Advanced Manufacturing Company of America, better known as Amca, raked in some serious reindustrialize-flavored cash, announcing a $300M Series B at an over $1B valuation. Caffeinated Capital led the round, with Lightspeed, a16z, Lux Capital, and Construct Capital participating. Networking: A lot of new-age […]
Mach Industries Snaps Up Rocket Motor-Maker Exquadrum
It’s not every day that a CEO buys a company older than they are, but welcome to the new age of defense tech. Yesterday, Mach Industries, founded in 2022 by now-22-year-old CEO Ethan Thornton, revealed that it acquired 24-year-old propulsion system and solid rocket motor-maker Exquadrum in a $50M deal back in April. The acquisition […]
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 […]
