Latest Stories
House Appropriators Release FY2027 Defense Spending Bill
Unlike in the UK, it’s Christmas in June for the US defense world. Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee released its $1T FY2027 defense spending bill—in line with the Pentagon’s request—and there’s a lot to get excited about for our friends in the startup world (and of course, the primes, too). That eye-watering number doesn’t include […]
Helsing Unveils EW Variant of CA-1 Europa
The mega-drone competition in Europe is heating up, and fast. At the Berlin Air Show yesterday—just as Quantum Systems launched its PULSE P19—European defense tech giant Helsing unveiled a new EW-equipped variant of its drone-fighter-CCA-analog—the CA-1 Electronic Attack (CA-1EA). The new version of the CA-1 Europa mega drone (first announced last fall) is “specifically designed […]
Quantum Systems Unveils New Mega-Drone, Teams Up with Airbus
Big day for Quantum Systems out at the Berlin Air Show. This morning, the German drone giant came in hot with two updates out of ILA: First, they’re launching a new drone called PULSE P19 that “deliver[s] persistent mission endurance while offering significantly higher speed, a more competitive cost profile, integrated counter-drone (C-UAS) capabilities and […]
Exclusive: DEFCON AI Secures $115M Software Integration Contract with the Marines
In case Operation Jailbreak, ongoing NGC2 exercises, and the Pentagon’s all-encompassing Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) initiative didn’t give it away, integration is quickly becoming the word of the year in the defense world. Logistics is one of the areas where the whole “making sure all this new software coming onto the scene works […]
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 […]
