Ukraine’s path to NATO is looking shakier by the day, but that hasn’t stopped the alliance from pushing to integrate the country’s battle-tested tech into Europe’s defense tech ecosystem. Late last week, as we were all enjoying our turkey, NATO and Ukraine unveiled a new competition called “UNITE–Brave NATO,” designed to accelerate the adoption of […]
Well, the Europeans aren’t showing any signs of slowing down on the drone front. On Friday, German ISR UAS company (and STARK forefather) Quantum Systems announced that it has raised a €180M ($209M) Series C extension at a €3B ($3.49B) valuation, led by Balderton Capital. This comes on the heels of a €160M ($186M) raise […]
The counter-drone club just got its newest—and maybe youngest—member. In an exclusive release to Tectonic, Thermopylae, a California-based interceptor drone startup launched in June by a 21-year-old Ukrainian engineer, announced it has raised $1.6M in pre-seed funding. New kids: Drawing its name from the famous Spartan battle against the Persians immortalized in the movie “300,” […]
Well, the whole defense spending kick is showing no signs of abating. Yesterday, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te announced in an op-ed in the Washington Post that his country plans to spend an extra $40B (about NT$1.25T) on defense to counter the growing threat from China. A massive portion of the supplementary defense package—which would be […]
For all of the time we spend talking about the shiny, go-boom side of defense, we haven’t spent too much time in this newsletter on one of the scarier sides of modern conflict: cyber warfare. Lucky for us, a startup called Twenty that came out of stealth last week is all over it. The company—founded […]
Well, the drone dollars keep on coming. On Thursday, Alabama-based drone maker Performance Drone Works (PDW) secured a $35M strategic investment from Ondas Autonomous Systems (OAS), the drone and counter-drone business unit of Boston-based defense tech holding company Ondas Holdings. Speeding up: PDW was founded in 2018 out of the Drone Racing League (basically drone […]
For all of the antiquated critiques that defense tech isn’t an investable sector, a whole lot of investors would beg to differ. On Monday, aviation autonomy hotshot Merlin announced over $75M in new private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing, increasing the total capital raised from $125M to more than $200M ahead of their expected […]
Despite the government being shut down for 43 days—the longest in US history—the Pentagon was certainly open for business. After the House struck a deal and President Trump signed a continuing resolution to keep the government open through January last week, the DoD’s workforce returned to their desks to announce nearly $9B in new contracts […]
We’re not saying crazy cash is flying around the defense tech world because of our summit, but we’re not not saying it. Yesterday, “domain dominance” defense startup and 8VC darling CHAOS Industries announced that it’s raised $510M in new funding at a $4.5B valuation, led by Valor Equity Partners (friends of Mr. Musk and early […]
It’s been (another) busy, busy week in defense tech, especially for everyone’s favorite globetrotting neo-prime. Over the past few days, Anduril has announced a new autonomous air vehicle (AAV) called Omen, its selection for the Army’s Integrated Battle Command System Maneuver (IBCS-M) program, a partnership with Hyundai Heavy Industries on autonomous surface vessels (ASVs), and […]
