Well, we all saw it coming. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Shield AI was in talks to raise $1B. Turns out the autonomy startup—and investors—had a bit more money on their mind. This morning, Shield AI announced that it has raised a $2B Series G led by Advent International and JPMorgan’s Security and Resiliency Initiative, […]
Big week for the nuts and bolts side of defense. Yesterday, Sift—an El Segundo-based startup building the data infrastructure layer for autonomous machines—announced that it’s raised a $42M Series B led by StepStone with participation from GV (Google Ventures), Riot Ventures, Fika Ventures, and CIV. The company says it’ll use the new cash money to […]
If anyone thought the collective spending spree on defense tech was coming to an end any time soon, think again. Yesterday, Texas-based VC Overmatch Ventures announced that it’s raised a cool $250M second fund, less than 2 years after raising a debut $70M fund in 2024. Jordan Blashek—GP at Overmatch—told Tectonic that this new pile […]
With all eyes on an autonomous future of flight, it’s easy to forget the human pilots who will remain firmly in the cockpit for the foreseeable future. Luckily, one San Francisco-based company is remaining focused on people, even as we await the rise of the robots. Yesterday, Navi AI—a startup using AI to improve pilot […]
Someone queue up Sweet Home Alabama. On Friday, new-age manufacturing company Hadrian announced a big-time, $2.4B partnership with the US Navy—split between $1.5B in private capital and $900M in government funding—to produce components for the Virginia and Columbia-class submarine programs at the startup’s new 2.2M square-foot facility in Cherokee, Alabama. Looks like Hadrian’s $611M in […]
For this morning’s exercise, we want you to take everything you’ve ever known about the way a drone looks or acts and throw it out the window. This morning, contested logistics startup Enigma emerged from stealth with a $5M Air Force contract and about $2M in VC funding in an exclusive release to Tectonic. The […]
Okay, so when you open Tectonic, you might not expect to be reading about a mobile carrier, but hear us out. Yesterday, “privacy-first” carrier Cape raised a chill $100M led by Bain Capital Ventures and IVP, with participation from new investors including 01 Advisors, 137 Ventures, Definition, and Fifth Down Capital. And here’s why we […]
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 […]
