Investment

Hand-Launched Interceptor Startup Askari Raises $9M Seed

Frying them with microwaves, shooting them down with robo-machine guns, jamming them—counter-UAS companies keep rolling out a growing and creative array of ways to take down drones. Askari has a different take on it. Rather than building vehicle-based or fixed-site air defense systems, the Atlanta-based startup wants to—quite literally—put interceptors into the hands of frontline […]

EuropeInvestment

STARK Raises €500M at €3.5B Valuation

If you think the defense tech scene is hot in the US, take a look across the pond.  Yesterday, German drone startup STARK quietly announced a very chill €500M ($567M) fundraising round led by longtime (in defense startup terms) backers Founders Fund and Sequoia Capital. The two-year-old company told Tectonic that the round put its […]

PentagonTech

Anduril Tapped to Lead NGC2 Common Data Baseline

Hasn’t been a slow year (or week) for Anduril, to say the least, and it’s about to get a whole lot busier.  Yesterday, the US Army announced that it’s selected everyone’s favorite neoprime to lead the common data baseline for its Next-Generation Command and Control (NGC2) effort, tasking the company with making sure all of […]

InvestmentTech

Traysar Emerges to Take Warfare Underground

Last year, Palmer Luckey said that he believes “the subterranean domain”—rather than sea, air, or space—“will be the defining [warfighting] space, but nobody agrees with me, and every time I talk about it I sound insane to people.” He also said that “a vehicle that moves through the crust of the earth is going to […]

Tech

Exclusive: Ondas Unveils a New Fully Autonomous Interceptor

Ondas had quite the week at Eurosatory.  At the defense expo in Paris, the US-based autonomous systems roll-up company unveiled a slew of new tech under its “Autonomy at First Contact” vision, including a ground robot, an autonomous defense orchestration system, and a couple of new counter-drone systems.  In that broader announcement, Ondas hinted that […]

Pentagon

Exclusive: The Army’s $99M Bet on Rune’s Contested Logistics Software

Forget everything we’ve said about contested logistics being unsexy—it’s about as hot as it gets right now, and Rune’s carving quite a nice niche for itself in the space. In an exclusive release to Tectonic this morning, the contested logistics and frontline sustainment AI startup announced its biggest win yet: A five-year, $99M contract with […]

Investment

Powerus Secures $30M Investment from Unusual Machines

Powerus is making power plays all over the place.  Yesterday, the Florida-based drone company announced that it’s secured a $30M strategic investment from drone components-maker Unusual Machines, “[strengthening] a working relationship already in place between the two companies.”  Power up: To back things up, Powerus, founded last year, has made headline after headline for a […]

Tech

Divergent Builds New Mega-Printers and Mega-Factory

The Reindustrialize vibes are high, and business is booming for the companies building the factories of the future.  At the eponymous conference in Detroit yesterday, defense-focused advanced manufacturing startup Divergent came out swinging with two big announcements: They’ve designed and built a massive 26-foot-tall metal 3D printer called Monolith One, and they’re putting 64 of […]

PentagonTech

Mach Industries Wins DIU Contract for Long-Range Strike Drone

Hot off a $300M Series C at a nearly $2B valuation and a $50M acquisition of propulsion system and solid rocket motor-maker Exquadrum, Mach Industries is already making moves to roll out more boomy and zoomy tech. The California-based startup announced this morning that it won a contract for the DIU’s Runway Independent Maritime & […]