One of defense tech’s largest seed rounds didn’t come from an Austin or El Segundo startup—it came from Nigeria.
Terra Industries, a startup founded in 2024 by two Nigerians in their early twenties, has made a big splash this year, inking major contracts with African militaries and raising millions from the defense VC world’s heavyweights.
The autonomous systems startup first raised $11.75M at the start of the year from 8VC and an all-star cast of participating funds, including Lux Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and Silent Ventures, then quickly followed with another $22M bridge round led by Lux.
Terra’s taking off: Now, Terra has added more cash to its coffers, raising another $18M to officially close out its $52M seed round, with the goal of fueling its expansion of manufacturing capacity in Africa and building out its presence abroad—starting with its first international office in London, the company exclusively told Tectonic.
- Existing backers 8VC, Silent Ventures, Nova Global, Belief Capital, and SV Angel participated in the round, alongside new investor Norleo Space Investments.
- Terra couldn’t comment on the company’s most recent valuation, but CEO Nathan Nwachuku told Tectonic that it was in the nine-figure realm after the $22M seed round extension in February.
That cash isn’t for nothing. Before raising millions in funding, Terra had already secured multi-million dollar contracts with African governments and critical infrastructure (especially oil and mining) operators, protecting roughly $11B in assets.
- In April, Terra announced its first manufacturing facility outside of Nigeria, a 34,000-square-foot factory in Ghana called Pax-2, which will be Africa’s largest drone factory and where the startup expects to produce 50,000 systems annually once it’s fully operational.
Terra’s Tech: Terra, in keeping with its “Anduril of Africa” vibe, has moved fast to roll out a wide range of autonomous systems, including:
- Archer: A VTOL drone with a 1,000km range, 13 hours of endurance, a 9-pound payload capacity, and a 26-foot wingspan.
- Kallon: A solar-powered sentry tower with AI-enabled edge processing and a whole bunch of sensors to detect and track threats several kilometers away.
- Iroko: A small quadcopter drone for ISR or one-way attacks.
- Kama: A new interceptor drone with a top speed of 300km/h. It’s gone through trials with “several militaries across West Africa” and can be adapted for “air-to-ground interception of enemy vehicles,” Nwachuku told Tectonic earlier this year.
That’s been popular with customers: Terra’s “on track to record over $100M in contract bookings and eight figures in revenues by year’s end,” according to Nwachuku, and they’re in the final stages of negotiations “with several African governments and militaries to build and deploy the autonomous systems they need on the battlefield.”
The bulk of that demand is for the “persistent monitoring and autonomous surveillance of infrastructure and high-value sites with products like Archer and Kallon, but that could change quickly as we scale products like Kama,” he added. “Our Pax-2 manufacturing facility, for instance, will be critical to fulfilling orders for unmanned and counter-unmanned aerial vehicles, which are in high demand across African militaries.”
Drone dollars: With $18M in new funding, Terra’s planning to expand manufacturing capacity at their Pax-2 facility in Ghana, which is nearing completion, and open up its first international office in London.
- Terra is also opening an office in San Francisco and is “establishing a presence in DC to support US partnerships and government engagement.”
“The additional strategic funding will help us expand manufacturing capacity as we near completion of our Pax-2 facility in Ghana,” Nwachuku said. “This will be pivotal for the next step in Terra’s journey: scaling into other markets across the Global South and building adjacent business lines to accompany our defense deployments.”
