EuropeInvestment

French Interceptor Startup Alta Ares Raises €50M Series A 

The era of France’s most famous exports being wine, cheese, and Spurs phenoms may be coming to an end, at least if Alta Ares has anything to do with it.  This morning, the French counter-drone software and hardware startup announced that it’s raised a €50M ($58M) Series A led by Air Street Capital, alongside Cherry […]

EuropeTech

STARK Unveils Two New Drones

If y’all thought the drone craze was dying down, think again. In the past 24 hours, German defense tech darling STARK unveiled not one but two new drones—Cascade and Gambit—at ILA Berlin.  Gambit is a man-portable quadcopter designed for ISR and short-range strikes, while Cascade is a tube-launched loitering munition (also man-portable) with a range […]

Europe

Meet Gardar, Norway’s New €80M Defense Fund

The Nordics are heating up, y’all. This morning, Norwegian VC Sandwater announced the launch of a new €80M ($92M) fund called Gardar, which will “[invest] in Ukrainian defence tech startups from Seed to Series B.” The new fund was set up in conjunction with Ferd AS (a big ol’ family-owned Norwegian investment firm) and Munkene, […]

Europe

Helsing Officially Launches Area 9, Pushes into Robotics

Well, the dudes (and dudettes) in Germany are diving headfirst into the research game.  This morning, German defense tech giant Helsing officially unveiled a new research division it’s calling Area 9, a pie-in-the-sky incubator for European defense tech. Think of it as the Moonshot Factory or Skunk Works, but make it European. As part of […]

EuropeInvestment

Earlybird and AVP Reportedly Raising €500M Defense Fund. 

Well, seems the Europeans are getting super serious about investing in their defense. Yesterday, Sifted reported that Earlybird Ventures is teaming up with Paris-based AVP (the artist formerly known as AXA Venture Partners) to raise a €500M fund focused on defense. The reported raise comes just a few weeks after Earlybird announced that it’s closed […]

EuropePentagon

Redwire Scores Back-To-Back Drone Contracts

It’s been a busy week for Redwire.  On Tuesday, the space and defense giant announced a “multi-year contract valued at high eight-figures” with an undisclosed NATO country for its Penguin Mk3 VTOL UAS, and followed that up yesterday with a $15M contract with the US Army’s Aviation Center of Excellence (AVCOE) for its ISR-focused Stalker […]

EuropeTech

Destinus and Rheinmetall Unveil New Deep-Strike Missile 

Our friends across the pond are pretty big on building up sovereign defense capabilities these days, and Rheinmetall has moved at lightning speed to snap up the lion’s share of that European military spending boom.  Today, the German defense giant and Dutch drone startup Destinus unveiled a new, co-produced long-range deep-strike cruise missile called the […]

EuropeTech

Anduril Downselected for UK MoD’s Project Nyx

If you thought the dudes over at Anduril were done reimagining what the word “drone” can mean, think again. On Friday, the UK subsidiary of the not-so-little defense company announced that it’s officially been downselected for the British Army’s Project Nyx—the MoD’s effort to build an autonomous loyal wingman for Apache helicopters.  “We think Nyx […]

EuropeInvestment

Swedish TNT Startup SWEBAL Raises €30M

Defense tech isn’t all drone swarms and software. Sometimes the basic, unsexy stuff is the most important, especially when you live on the doorstep of Europe’s largest land war since WWII. Yesterday, SWEBAL, a Swedish startup founded by a fintech entrepreneur (totally normal career path), announced that it raised €30M to change the way Europe […]

EuropeTech

Exclusive: Orqa Launches Independent US Company

Everyone really is making that great, grand leap across the pond.  This morning, Croatian drone giant Orqa FPV announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it’s spinning out an independent US entity called Orqa US, focused on building end-to-end UAV systems for Drone Dominance.  The US company is teaming up with defense contractor By […]