Sheesh. This week kind of feels like going back to school combined with winning the lottery combined with the early days of the defense tech hype train. And it’s only Tuesday. Yesterday, hardware testing giant Nominal announced that it’s raised a $240M Series C at a $3B valuation led by Lightspeed Venture Partners (and co-led […]
Lol guys. I think we might have to reconsider the whole Series-based funding scale pretty soon. This morning, “European defence and industrial scale-up platform” (read: fancy rollup) Onodrim announced that it’s raised a $300M Series A at a $1.3B valuation, led by Lux Capital. The idea is to use this small fortune to “acquire established […]
Well, gosh. Y’all really decided to start the week off with a bang, huh? This morning, long-range cargo drone company Skyways unveiled a new version of its VTOL UAV called Skyreach, which packs in 100 lbs of payload, more than 18 hours of flight time, and a 1,300-mile range. “Skyreach brings the range of a […]
Shield AI is buying radar hotshot Echodyne for $5.3B—and raised $2.5B to fund the transaction.
Turns out everyone still really loves a tiny little plane. Yesterday, autonomous aviation company (and Anduril BFF) Joby Aviation ($JOBY) announced that its US Air Force autonomy contracts have grown to nearly $37M in total commitments, up from roughly $20M previously. The increases come after Joby completed an autonomous flight (on a Cessna Caravan) across […]
Looks like the whole reindustrialize wave ain’t over just yet. This morning, robotics-for-manufacturing startup Aformic announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it’s raised a $6.95M seed round led by Veteran Ventures Capital. Aformic CEO Michal Fiuk told Tectonic that from here, the plan is to scale up production of—and customers for—its in-factory intralogistics […]
Back when we started Tectonic, we wondered (out loud, a lot) when the great wave of prime-startup partnerships would come into full swing. It seems, nearly two years on, that we’re officially in the thick of it. Yesterday, contested logistics UAV startup Grid Aero announced that it’s inked an official partnership with Oshkosh Defense (not […]
Well, gosh darn. So much for Europe being conservative when it comes to funding defense. This morning, British-slash-German hypersonic deep-strike company Hypersonica announced that it’s closed a €100M Series B to “accelerate development of its deep-strike systems, increase testing cadence and expand operations and reindustrialisation across Europe.” “The debate about whether Europe needs hypersonic deep-strike […]
Last year, it was all, “Everyone loves a tiny little autonomous plane.” Now it’s all, “Everyone loves a tiny little helicopter.” What’s next? Yesterday, autonomy giant Shield AI announced that it’s inked a partnership with European prime Leonardo to integrate its flagship Hivemind autonomy stack onto Proteus, the prime’s “uncrewed rotorcraft” (read: helicopter drone). “Leonardo […]
In case you missed it, there is a new player on the unsexy side of defense. Last week, a new AI-powered planning and logistics company called Watchtower Labs emerged from stealth with $35M in seed funding led by Shield Capital and Conviction, with participation from Founders Fund. The idea is to build “AI-native applications that […]
