The budget drama on the Hill continues. Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its $852.5B defense spending bill for FY26, providing a $21.7 billion (2.6%) boost in spending over Trump’s budget, plus a big ol’ “hell no” to some of the President’s policy priorities. Among the starkest differences between the Senate’s appropriations bill and the administration’s […]
Everyone loves a tiny little plane. Yesterday, Israeli eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) startup AIR announced a $23 million Series A, led by Entrée Capital with participation from Dr. Shmuel Harlap. The company says it will use the funding to ramp up production and expand its U.S. operations—especially given how keen the Trump administration […]
Another heavyweight is jumping into the command and control (C2) ring. This morning, unmanned surface vessel (USV) maker Saronic Technologies unveiled Echelon, a C2 system built for the unique demands of the maritime domain. Saronic CTO Vibhav Altekar described it to Tectonic as a unified portal to manage everything that could impact an autonomous fleet. […]
What a time to be a prime. In the past few weeks, we’ve finally gotten a look at Q2 results from some of defense’s biggest players—Northrop Grumman, Raytheon (RTX), Lockheed Martin, and L3Harris, among them—and the results have been mixed, to say the least. Amidst tariffs and record-high geopolitical tensions, and in the face of […]
Remember when we said maritime autonomy is all the rage? Well, looks like we were right. Yesterday, the Navy officially launched its Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) program with a nice lil solicitation. According to the doc, PMS 406–the unmanned maritime systems program office–is “seeking proposals for innovative, commercial technologies that accelerate attainment of [unmanned […]
In case you missed it, on Friday, SecDef Pete Hegseth met with his Baltic counterparts at the Pentagon, where the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian defense leaders committed to spending 5% of GDP on defense by next year. Yes, next year, as in 2026. Impressive, especially when you consider the rest of NATO isn’t on track […]
In case you missed it, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump unveiled his “AI Action Plan” to slash red tape for AI development, promote the export of American AI, and counter “ideological bias” in artificial intelligence. Plus, there’s all that fun countering China stuff. The plan is wide-ranging, but the 28-page document (paired with all of […]
The big money moves just keep on coming. This morning, edge computing company Armada announced a $131M strategic funding round, which it will use to build a new “megawatt-scale” modular data center called Leviathan. New investors Pinegrove, Veriten, and Glade Brook joined the round, alongside returning backers Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Shield Capital, 8090 Industries, […]
In case you missed it, Anduril announced late Friday that they’d been awarded a $99.6M, 11-month OTA contract to spearhead a next-generation command and control (NGC2) prototype for the 4th Infantry Division of the Army. The defense megalith will lead an all-star team—including heavyweights like Palantir, Govini, Microsoft, and Striveworks—in building an end-to-end system that […]
Big day for all the sustainment nerds out there. Yesterday, military logistics startup Rune Technologies announced they’ve raised a $24M Series A led by Human Capital, with participation from Pax VC and Washington Harbour Partners. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Point72 Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, and Forward Deployed VC also returned to the table. The raise […]
