Anduril is thinking big. Like really, really big—and nothing says that quite like Arsenal-1. Yesterday, Tectonic paid a visit to Anduril’s $1B, 5M square foot mega-factory just south of Columbus, Ohio, where the company (hard to call them a startup after a $20B Army contract) will kick off production of their Fury drone wingman in […]
You know how the Arctic is, like, super remote, freezing, and increasingly contested? Well, all that makes comms a bit dodgy. Yesterday, defense communications and mission-systems company Ultra I&C announced that it’s sending its Archer troposcatter beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) comms system up to the Arctic for operational trials with the Canadian Armed Forces. Tropo talk: If […]
Less than a year after dropping a cool $4.1B to acquire BlueHalo, AV—the artist formerly known as AeroVironment—is back with another acquisition. Earlier this week, the company snapped up California-based drone manufacturing and design firm ESAero for $200M. Under the deal, ESAero will function as a subsidiary of AV under its Loitering Munition Systems business […]
This Gecko is going green. This morning, Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics announced a five-year, $71M IDIQ contract with the US Navy to deploy its wall-crawling robots and AI maintenance software to 18 ships in the Pacific Fleet—at least to start. The contract, which has an initial award worth $54M with the potential to scale up to […]
Between the Pentagon backing a $400M investment in MP Materials, a $1.4B deal with rare-earth magnet-maker Vulcan Elements, and Korea Zinc’s $7.4B refinery in Tennessee, companies up and down the critical mineral supply chain had a pretty big year in 2025. And the Pentagon’s demand for rare earths sure isn’t slowing down in 2026. Yesterday, […]
Sounds like it’s time for Palmer Luckey to bust out the bikini again. On Thursday, everyone’s favorite teeny tiny defense startup Anduril announced that their Dive-XL autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was tapped by the Defense Innovation Unit and the US Navy for the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform (CAMP) drone sub program. Deep Dive: In case […]
Things may be heating up on the maritime autonomy front stateside, but don’t sleep on our friends across the pond. Yesterday, the UK Ministry of Defence awarded British unmanned surface vessel (USV) startup Kraken Technology Group a £12.3M ($16.5M) contract to supply the Royal Navy with 20 of its super speedy K3 Scout drone boats. […]
Watch out, y’all. The British are coming. Earlier today, Arondite, a UK-based startup building integration tech to make those autonomous systems we all know and love work together nicely, announced a “multi-million” pound contract with the UK Ministry of Defence to deploy its Cobalt software across the British Army’s Very High Readiness Force. Teamwork: If […]
We keep saying maritime autonomy is all the rage, but multi-domain autonomy is really where it’s at. This morning, Rhode Island-based unmanned surface vehicle (USV) startup HavocAI announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it has acquired not one but two companies—heavy-lift drone-maker Mavrik and industrial vehicle autonomy startup Teleo—to take its autonomy software […]
Manufacturing is so back, baby. Well, at least if AI and defense are involved. Yesterday, UK-based advanced manufacturing startup Isembard announced it has raised a $50M Series A round led by Union Square Ventures to accelerate its plan to open 25 factories by the end of the year. CEO Alexander Fitzgerald told Tectonic that most […]
