When defense tech is hot, it’s hot. This morning, dual-use defense- and security-focused VC fund New North Ventures announced exclusively to Tectonic the first close of its second fund. It’s raised $45M in anchor funding (with a target of $80M and room to grow to $100M) through the DoD and SBA’s Small Business Investment Company […]
After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s UAS memo last week, we said small drones are having a moment. As it turns out, there’s just as much interest in the tech that takes them down. This morning, California-based cUAS maker Epirus announced it’s won a $43.5M contract from the US Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office […]
Less than a month after raising $125M and hitting unicorn status, Gecko Robotics has notched another win—or two. On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh-based AI and robotics company announced a partnership with BPMI, the prime for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP), to take its wall-crawling robots into the shipyard. As if that wasn’t enough, they followed […]
Just a month after raising $2.5B at a $30.5B valuation, officially entering “neo-prime” territory, Anduril looks more than ready to take on the real primes—this time in the cruise missile game. Anduril announced today that its Barracuda-100M autonomous air vehicle (AAV)—only unveiled last fall—has completed successful flight tests for the High-Speed Maneuverable Missile (HSMM) program […]
Shortly after the House released the Chairman’s Mark for the FY26 NDAA last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) passed their own vision for next year’s defense budget on Friday. While there were some notable differences (we’ll get to that), the two chambers are clearly focused on spurring innovation, largely through their two competing […]
Drones are having a moment. Last Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released a memo that the Pentagon would be making some big changes to the way it buys, uses, and trains with drones. In true showman fashion, he announced the changes in a viral video set to Metallica’s Enter Sandman, posted on X with a […]
Like kids on Christmas morning, the defense tech world waits up each year for Silicon Valley Defense Group’s NatSec100 report—the nonprofit’s annual ranking and analysis of the top 100 venture-backed, dual-use and defense tech companies shaping US national security innovation. This week, the report finally dropped. Seeing green: The long and short of it is […]
Focusing on a single domain is so 2024. This morning, Virginia-based DEFCON AI announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that their AI-powered logistics and mobility decision-making software (called ARTIV) is going from air-focused to multi-modal. We’re talking air, land, and sea, baby. Plus, they’ll be testing this new multi-modal product at Talisman Sabre, the […]
Turns out the threat from Iran extends to the defense industry, too. Last week, buried somewhere in the 2025 news cycle, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency put out a joint statement with the DoD’s Cyber Crime Center (DC3), NSA, and FBI warning that US defense companies face heightened risk from Iranian cyberattacks. The statement […]
Most people wouldn’t get too excited about the release of a thousand-page bill draft. But for the defense tech world, there’s a lot to smile about in the Chairman’s Mark of the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). For those lucky enough not to spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill: The Chairman’s Mark […]
