Less than a year after dropping a cool $4.1B to acquire BlueHalo, AV—the artist formerly known as AeroVironment—is back with another acquisition. Earlier this week, the company snapped up California-based drone manufacturing and design firm ESAero for $200M. Under the deal, ESAero will function as a subsidiary of AV under its Loitering Munition Systems business […]
Another day, another IPO. Defense tech is entering the big leagues, baby. Yesterday, flight autonomy hotshot Merlin officially started trading on the Nasdaq as $MRLN after merging with a SPAC called Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. IV and raising about $200M in proceeds. The deal valued Merlin at $800M pre-money. In normal people speak? Merlin just […]
Well, god damn. When we said the Ukrainians were coming, we didn’t necessarily think it would be directly to the US stock market, but here we are. This morning, Ukrainian UAV software company Swarmer officially IPO’d on the NASDAQ as $SWMR. The company—which builds the software brain that allows drones to operate as a swarm—is […]
We keep saying maritime autonomy is all the rage, but multi-domain autonomy is really where it’s at. This morning, Rhode Island-based unmanned surface vehicle (USV) startup HavocAI announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it has acquired not one but two companies—heavy-lift drone-maker Mavrik and industrial vehicle autonomy startup Teleo—to take its autonomy software […]
Manufacturing is so back, baby. Well, at least if AI and defense are involved. Yesterday, UK-based advanced manufacturing startup Isembard announced it has raised a $50M Series A round led by Union Square Ventures to accelerate its plan to open 25 factories by the end of the year. CEO Alexander Fitzgerald told Tectonic that most […]
If anyone thought the defense tech hype train was slowing down, think again. This morning, Austin-based fund Scout Ventures announced that it’s closed a $125M Fund V to invest in tech companies that are building “artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, space infrastructure, cyber, quantum, and advanced power technologies.” The new fund brings total funding raised by […]
We’re sensing that things are just starting to heat up on the drone detection front, and investors are, too. This morning, Israeli-American radio frequency (RF) sensing startup R2 Wireless announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it raised $5M in a funding round led by Origin Ventures, with participation from Spring Rock Capital, Corner […]
After a quiet few years, it looks like our friendly neighbors up north are diving headfirst into defense tech. Hot off a $15.2M ($21M CAD) seed round in January, Canadian defense tech startup Dominion Dynamics kicked things up a notch late last week, announcing plans to invest $37M ($50M CAD) to kickstart development of Scout, […]
Remember on Friday when we said that the Americans were coming? Well, turns out the Europeans are coming, too. This morning, FPV hotshot Orqa announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it’s raised a €12.7M ($14.7M) Series A led by Expeditions and signed a teaming agreement with Texas-based Red River Army Depot to expand […]
Welp, the Anduril mafia and Nominal are making things super-extra-official. Yesterday, the testing startup announced that it’s raised a whopping $80M “acceleration round” (their term) led by Founders Fund, valuing the company at $1B. Nominal co-founder Bryce Strauss told Tectonic that the cash money will be used to double the size of their team and […]
