After a long line of (relatively) smaller contracts, Beacon’s finally getting the big bucks. Last week, California-based aviation AI startup inked a $50M multi-year deal—their 13th, and largest, to date—with US Special Operations Command that’ll put its pilot-assistance software in the cockpits of a wide range of SOCOM’s aircraft. Under the contract—a four-year Prototype Other […]
We told y’all the Europeans were coming. Yesterday, German drone (but, importantly, not strike drone) giant Quantum Systems announced that it’s scored a $15.3M contract for its Vector AI drones with the US Army to deliver “advanced aerial intelligence capabilities to Brigade Combat Teams of the U.S. Army.” This marks the company’s first major Pentagon […]
If you’ve been paying attention to the counter-drone space recently, you’ll know that there’s a whole lot of new tech coming onto the scene and a whole lot of companies making it. The trouble is—all of this stuff needs to work together, and that ain’t always the easiest thing to make happen. Luckily, El Segundo-based […]
The data nerds over at Nominal are on a bit of a heater. Yesterday, the testing startup announced a sole-source $53M, five-year Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with the Air Force Test Center to bring its increasingly popular testing software to help get the service’s next-gen platforms up and running—and fast. Those platforms include the […]
Well, it looks like the Pentagon might finally be well and truly getting on the AI bandwagon. This morning, AI-for-defense startup Striveworks announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’ve scored a $70M multi-year enterprise agreement (EA) with the DoD (through the US Army) to deploy their flagship Chariot Core software across the Department. […]
If you’re a regular reader of Tectonic, you’ll know that there’s no shortage of companies promising to automate aviation. But before robots take over the cockpit, the US military’s human pilots could use a bit of AI assistance to solve a much more basic problem: Scheduling flight plans and managing disruptions without needing a whiteboard […]
It’s a rare week when we write about more contracts than we do investments, but here we are. This morning, space and defense giant Redwire ($RDW) announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it’s been awarded $20M in follow-on orders from the Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Office (PMA-263) […]
Dare we say it seems like the Pentagon might actually be getting with the El Segundo vibe? This morning, LA-based CX2 announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that its Wraith “airborne EW system” (drone) and another yet-to-be-announced product have been selected for Design Reference Mission 3 (DRM3) under the Defense Innovation Unit’s Project G.I. […]
The engine biz is getting buzzy, and the Pentagon is taking notice. Beehive Industries, a Colorado-based 3D-printed jet engine startup, snagged a $29.7M Air Force contract yesterday to complete vehicle integration and flight testing, and qualification of their Frenzy 8 engine—designed as a lower-cost alternative for small cruise missiles and loitering munitions—and accelerate development of […]
Well, the $1.5T defense budget is here, friends. In case you missed it—on Friday, the Trump administration unveiled its FY2027 budget request. As promised, it included a chunk for defense ($1.15T discretionary and $350B mandatory, reconciliation style), larger than the GDP of Turkey. Yes, that is a real statistic. On the menu? Big bucks for […]
