EuropeInvestment

Estonia’s Frankenburg Raises €30M Series A

If there’s one thing sharing a border with Russia has taught the Baltics in the past few years, it’s that drone defense is pretty damn important.  Luckily, a crop of high-octane startups is rushing to meet the moment, and securing some serious cash to get there. Yesterday, Estonian interceptor startup Frankenburg Technologies announced a €30M […]

Tech

Shift5 Joins Anduril’s NGC2 Team

Anduril sure has a knack for making friends. Yesterday, defense and transportation-focused startup Shift5 announced that they’re joining Anduril’s Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) prototyping effort to bring its predictive maintenance magic to the Army’s 4th Infantry Division’s vehicles.  Race to integrate: We’ve covered the Army’s NGC2 program a lot, so we’ll keep it […]

Tech

Exclusive: Energetics Startup CMG Emerges from Stealth to Bring More Boom

Defense tech isn’t all drone swarms and software. Sometimes the basic stuff is the most important. Today, in an exclusive release to Tectonic, Texas-based energetic material startup Critical Materials Group (CMG) emerged from stealth to solve an old problem with new tech: Making more of the stuff that makes things go boom, starting with C-4, […]

EuropeTech

Quantum Systems Unveils New UGV

Quantum Systems is officially entering the ground autonomy game, baby.  Earlier today, German autonomy hotshot Quantum Systems introduced MANDRILL, its first unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), at the Enforce Tac trade show in Nuremberg. The $3.5B startup, better known for its aerial drones, called it the first in a line of UGVs designed to work with […]

Tech

Meet Project Millennium, Neros’ 250,000-Square-Foot Drone Factory

Looks like someone wants to unleash drone dominance.  Yesterday, the FPV phenoms from El Segundo turned things up a notch big-time with Project Millennium: A new 250,000-square-foot factory down the road in Torrance, CA, where they’ll ramp up production of their Archer drones to a million a year.  If you were wondering what they were […]

Tech

Vantor Integrates With Google’s Earth AI Model

Vantor’s satellite imagery just got a whole lot smarter with some help from their friends at a little startup called Google. Yesterday, Vantor (the artist formerly known as Maxar Intelligence) announced a deal with Google to run Google’s Earth AI imagery models on Vantor’s government-focused, spatial intelligence platform, allowing Google’s AI to automate analysis reports […]

Investment

Aussie Autonomy Startup Breaker Raises $6M Seed Round

In case you missed 8VC and Lux Capital throwing their weight behind Nigeria’s Terra Industries this week, the big ballers of American defense tech VC have been casting their eyes abroad lately. And now, they’re looking at the land down under.   Earlier this week, Breaker—an Australian-American startup building AI voice-control software for autonomous swarms—raised $6M […]

Investment

Seasats Aims to Boost USV Production after $20M Series A 

Laissez les bons temps rouler in maritime autonomy world.  Yesterday, California-based USV startup Seasats announced that it closed a $20M Series A led by Konvoy Ventures, with participation from Shield Capital, Techstars, and others. That fresh capital brings their total funding to over $40M, and as CEO Mike Flanigan told Tectonic, it’s all about scaling […]

PentagonTech

ICYMI: Saronic Tapped for DARPA Pulling Guard Program

Look away, pirates: The Pentagon’s research agency is on a mission to make it a little bit harder to mess with unarmed vessels, and they’re betting that maritime autonomy hotshot Saronic can help them get there.  Last week, DARPA tapped Saronic and three others to design and develop a semi-autonomous escort vessel under the Pulling […]