Latest Stories
The Fastest Path to Surge Production
The defense technology industry has never been better at innovation. New companies are developing advanced unmanned systems, autonomous platforms, sensors, and other critical capabilities at a pace that would have been difficult to imagine a decade ago. But innovation alone isn’t enough to deliver those capabilities to market. As defense companies move from prototype programs […]
Harmattan and Dassault Unveil Co-Developed NAMIB EW System
Well, seems like the Dassault-Harmattan AI partnership is working out just fine. This morning, the Paris-based autonomy startup and the French aviation giant announced that they’ve teamed up to build—and successfully integrate and test—a new EW detection drone payload called NAMIB. And they’ve already tried it out. In a recent test, a drone (built with […]
Helsing Raises $1.8B at $18B Valuation
Europe—well, Germany especially—is having a heck of a year. This morning, the German defense tech juggernaut announced it’s raised a $1.8B Series E at an $18B valuation, setting a new record for Europe’s largest defense startup funding round after Quantum Systems’ $1.2B raise earlier this month. The Germans are taking this whole rearmament thing pretty […]
Israeli Counter-Drone Swarm Startup Skapion Emerges with $36M
Israel has built some of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world, but FPV drones and swarms have increasingly become a bit of an Achilles heel for the country’s military, particularly in its fight against Hezbollah. One startup is looking to change that, and is bringing some serious US investing firepower along with […]
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 […]
