The Anduril empire just keeps on growing. This morning, everyone’s favorite defense tech company announced a twofer: First, they’re acquiring Klas, a tactical comms and edge computing company out of Dublin, pending regulatory approval. And second, they’re unveiling a new member of the Menace command, control, communications, and computing (C4) systems family: Menace-T.
In a briefing on the two announcements, Tom Keane, SVP of engineering at Anduril, told reporters that with these new capabilities, the company “is transforming warfighter capabilities at the tactical edge.”
Rugged: Klas was founded in 1991 and has spent the last three decades developing communications systems for the toughest, most out-there environments.
- The company’s most popular product is Voyager, a ruggedized comms system.
- Klas products work on a bespoke operating system called KlasOS, designed for secure connectivity even at the frontline.
- Klas is based in Dublin, but over 90% of its turnover is from the US. It also maintains offices in Florida, DC, and Virginia.
Klas’ products are already used widely across the DoD.
- Klas’s Voyager Tactical Radio Integration Kit (TRIK) was selected as part of the Army’s Integrated Tactical Network (ITN).
- The Voyager Virtual Multi-Enclave System (VMES) supports the Army’s Expeditionary Signal Battalion – Enhanced units.
- The company scored a $11.2M contract with the Air Force in 2018 to provide Communications Fly-Away Kits (CFKs) built on Voyager.
- The company has also collaborated with General Dynamics to integrate GD’s encryption capabilities into Voyager.
- Keane said that Klas is already a subcontractor on the Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System, which Anduril took over from Microsoft back in February.
Best of the best: Keane said that they chose to acquire Klas for edge computing because, well, they were “the best.” When they put the tech to the test—at sea, in the desert, in the air—it kept working even when everything else failed.
Klas’ tech will make Anduril’s systems “smarter, tougher, and more reliable,” especially in extreme environments, Keane said. It’ll also be a boon for Lattice (Anduril’s C2 system) and all of Anduril’s automation and sensor systems.
“Klas will allow Anduril to build new products, move radically faster, and do more,” he said.
The company said it will maintain Klas’ 150 employees and plans to expand the team. This is Anduril’s ninth acquisition since it was founded in 2017.
Way out there: If you’re sensing a theme here, you wouldn’t be wrong. Menace-T was also designed to boost computing and comms capabilities at the edge—and it uses Klas’ Voyager.
- Like its predecessor, Menace-X, Menace-T is designed to provide computing, communications, command, and control (C4) from basically anywhere.
- The system is tiny—just two cases—and can be set up in minutes. (Push to start, as Anduril calls it).
- It runs on Lattice and operates well in comms-denied environments.
- It’s super-portable and vehicle agnostic—Anduril says it’s been tested on the road, in the air, and at sea.
Keane said that Menace-T was only conceived of 12 months ago. A prototype was finished 90 days later, the first systems were fielded 8 months ago, and they’ve been deployed and tested “in multiple countries, across multiple hemispheres, [and] across multiple modalities,” ever since, he said.