The much-anticipated defense tech rollup era is in full swing, even on the other side of the pond. This morning, German defense tech darling Helsing, one of Europe’s most valuable startups, announced that it has acquired Blue Ocean, an Australian underwater drone company, to accelerate the development of its unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) program. Looks […]
For an industry that hasn’t changed much in decades, the solid rocket motor (SRM) space has been on fire lately. On Tuesday, Anduril announced that it successfully completed a static fire test of an SRM it developed and built for air-to-air weapons with RTX. Looks like everyone’s favorite neo-prime is shaking up yet another industry, […]
For all those SBIR skeptics out there, this one’s for you. In an exclusive release to Tectonic, San Diego-based small unmanned surface vessel (sUSV) startup Seasats announced today that it’s snagged an $89M ceiling SBIR Phase 3 indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract with the Navy to deliver its Lightfish USVs to the Marine Corps. Talk about […]
Picogrid is rapidly building up a truly impressive circle of friends. Just two weeks after teaming up with Northrop Grumman’s c-UAS platform, the startup announced late last week that its flagship software integration system, Legion, will be plugging into Palantir’s ultra-popular Maven Smart System (MSS). Picogrid says that Legion will act as a “universal translator,” […]
Mortars are pretty dumb and only go so far. A new start-up called Aventra wants to change that. Earlier this week, the company emerged from stealth with $3M in seed funding led by Lavrock Ventures and a high-altitude, balloon-dropped, modular payload glider that makes dumb bombs smart and long-range strikes cheap. Everyone loves things that […]
The partnerships keep coming on both sides of the pond. This morning, Harmattan AI, the white-hot French autonomous systems startup launched last year, announced a partnership with Ukrainian drone-maker Skyeton to integrate its Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system on Skyeton’s Raybird ISR drone. Oui oui, indeed. Doing deals: In its first year of existence, Harmattan […]
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a double whammy of fun today. Not only has the long-anticipated government shutdown commenced, but SBIR/STTR reauthorization also lapsed at midnight. That’s two big blows for defense startups: the Pentagon can’t issue new obligations without an appropriation, and the biggest non-dilutive funding channel for small firms just went dark. Buckle […]
The Pentagon has a serious case of missile madness. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Defense is pressuring missile manufacturers to double and, in some cases, quadruple missile production, including by holding weekly calls with company executives through a new Munitions Acceleration Council. However, the industry is going to need […]
Many startups are making drones. Some are making missiles. Few are making mid-size drones that fire missiles. On Monday, Aeon and Delta Black announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re partnering to fill that gap by adding Aeon’s software-defined Zeus missiles onto Delta Black’s RAIDER 330 Group 3 drone. (Ae)On Fire: Aeon, founded […]
Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Scale AI has quickly become a big-time defense contractor since, well, AI is all the rage in the Pentagon right now. On Wednesday, the AI training data startup—which Meta took a 49 percent stake in for a cool $15B in June—announced its expanded physical AI data engine platform for […]
