Investment

Ondas Acquires Drone-Maker DZYNE Technologies for $876M

The great defense tech rollup is well underway, and Ondas ($ONDS) is quietly leading the charge.  This morning, the drone and counter-drone roll-up announced that it’s acquired California-based drone company DZYNE Technologies for a whopping $875.8M, forming a new business unit with fellow Ondas portfolio company World View (acquired in April) that’ll be focused on […]

Investment

Defense Tech Funding is Breaking Records, with $35.6B Invested YTD

If you can believe it, today marks the halfway point of the year, and we’d be the first to tell you that it’s been a pretty wild ride in defense tech so far. As it turns out, the numbers back up our—and, if you’re reading this newsletter, your—excitement.  According to Pitchbook data provided to Tectonic, […]

EuropeInvestment

Quantum Systems Raises $1.2B Series D

Well, jeez. We thought Quantum Systems was already having quite the year—turns out we didn’t know the half of it.  This morning, the German autonomy giant announced that it’s raised a $1.2B Series D at a $8B valuation, co-led by Blackstone, Noteus, Airbus, and Advent.   The company says it will use the money to “accelerate […]

Investment

First Look: Cantos Raises $70M Fund IV

If there is one thing you take away from today’s newsletter, let it be this: Everyone and their mother is still pouring oodles (and then some more oodles) of money into defense. Yesterday, SF-based Cantos Ventures announced it closed a $70M Fund IV earlier this year, which Founder & GP Ian Rountree told Tectonic that […]

Investment

Harpoon Ventures Raises $155M Fourth Fund

Looks like no one’s found the shut-off valve on the defense tech funding tap yet.  Yesterday, San Diego-based early-stage VC firm Harpoon Ventures—an investor in startups ranging from Firestorm to Ursa Major and Merlin—announced that it’s closed a $155M Fund IV to, in the words of Harpoon investor Riley Loftus, back the “maniacs that are […]

Investment

Dominion Dynamics Raises $139M CAD ($100M USD) Series A

The Canadians are really making some serious money moves in defense, eh? This morning, Canadian defense tech darling Dominion Dynamics announced that it’s raised a CA$139M (US$100M) Series A led by Georgian (Canada’s largest VC). Dominion founder and CEO Eliot Pence told Tectonic that the company will use the money to scale up production of […]

InvestmentTech

MAKO (née MicroTau) Raises $20M for Shark Skin Film

Is it just us, or is the stuff we’re covering (looking at you, haptic controllers) getting more and more niche? This morning, Australian aerospace tech company MAKO (formerly known as MicroTau) announced that it’s raised AU$28M (US$20M) to scale up production of its—wait for it—“drag-reducing shark skin-inspired adhesive film for aviation,” known as Flightfilm. The […]

Investment

Drone Startup Elroy Air to Go Public Via $1B SPAC Deal

As we all know, there’s a whole lot of private capital going into defense these days, but more and more companies are jumping on the growing appetite in the public markets, too. On Friday, California-based heavy-lift drone startup Elroy Air announced plans to go public later this year through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) […]

InvestmentTech

Code Metal Moves Into Signals Processing With First Acquisition 

Making your first acquisition is a big moment in any startup’s life, and Code Metal is speedrunning it.  Yesterday, Code Metal announced that they’ve snapped up Signal Processing Technologies (SPT), a move that takes the three-year-old startup from simply translating high-level code and algorithms onto hardware systems into actually developing the algorithms themselves, starting with […]