Y’all ever have those moments where you read a story, scroll past, do a double-take, and then scroll back like, “F**ck me.” Yeah, this is one of those. On Friday, the US Army announced (in a fairly chill contract roundup) that it’s issued a 10-year contract worth up to $20B—yes, billion with a B—to “consolidate […]
Between the Pentagon backing a $400M investment in MP Materials, a $1.4B deal with rare-earth magnet-maker Vulcan Elements, and Korea Zinc’s $7.4B refinery in Tennessee, companies up and down the critical mineral supply chain had a pretty big year in 2025. And the Pentagon’s demand for rare earths sure isn’t slowing down in 2026. Yesterday, […]
Sounds like it’s time for Palmer Luckey to bust out the bikini again. On Thursday, everyone’s favorite teeny tiny defense startup Anduril announced that their Dive-XL autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was tapped by the Defense Innovation Unit and the US Navy for the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform (CAMP) drone sub program. Deep Dive: In case […]
Big day for the unsexy side of defense. On Thursday, military logistics startup Rune Technologies announced that they’ve scored a $2M Direct to Phase II SBIR contract with the US Army in support of the service’s PORTAL (Predict, Optimize, Recommend, and Track for Adaptive Logistics) program. The company says that over the next 18 months, […]
The hype for hypersonics keeps getting more real. Yesterday, the Pentagon announced that mass-producible hypersonic missile hotshot Castelion was awarded a $50M contract with the US Navy for the “full-scale prototypes, flight testing, and operational fielding” of its Blackbeard missile, which COO Sean Pitt told Tectonic will be an air-launched variant. The Los Angeles-based startup […]
Things keep getting busier and busier in Vantor-land. On the heels of a deal to integrate with Google’s high-powered Earth AI model, the geospatial intelligence heavyweight announced a big ol’ follow-on contract with the US Army worth up to $217M to continue work on the service’s One World Terrain program, designed to “train and rehearse […]
Everyone’s favorite neoprime is back—and this time with some explosive news (bada-bing!). This morning, Anduril announced that it has received $43.7M in Defense Production Act Title III funding to expand solid rocket motor (SRM) production in the US. The company says the funding will be used to “increase the efficiency and resiliency of [Anduril’s SRM […]
Look away, pirates: The Pentagon’s research agency is on a mission to make it a little bit harder to mess with unarmed vessels, and they’re betting that maritime autonomy hotshot Saronic can help them get there. Last week, DARPA tapped Saronic and three others to design and develop a semi-autonomous escort vessel under the Pulling […]
If you’re looking for something to cure your post-Super Bowl blues, the Department of Defense has you covered. Last week, the Pentagon revealed the 25 vendors selected to face off in the first phase of the Drone Dominance Program (DDP), the department’s $1.1B initiative to buy up tons of low-cost UAVs for the Army, and […]
If you hadn’t noticed, there’s a whole lot of new defense tech coming onto the scene, and, as it turns out, the Pentagon is pretty interested in making sure all of it works together. That’s been good news for Picogrid. Yesterday, the El Segundo-based integration startup announced a $9.3M contract with the Air Force to […]
