Africa might not come to mind as a defense tech hotspot, but Terra Industries is changing that—quickly. In an exclusive announcement to Tectonic this morning, 8VC and Lux Capital-backed Nigerian drone startup Terra Industries unveiled its new 34,000-square-foot factory in Accra, Ghana, called Pax-2. The facility will be the company’s first outside Nigeria and, with […]
Looks like the old school is teaming up with the new kids on the block. Today, in an exclusive release to Tectonic, Austin-based new-age mini-missile startup Aeon announced that they’ve officially partnered with defense tech OG Global Technical Systems (GTS) to cook up new warhead designs for Aeon’s Zeus system and co-produce GTS’s low-cost cruise […]
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 brains behind the ever-popular Switchblade 600 loitering munition are back with some fancy new go-boom tech. This morning, AV ($AVAV), the artist formerly known as AeroVironment, unveiled the Mayhem 10, an air, ground, or sea-launched autonomous Group 2 drone designed for ISR, electronic warfare, and (especially) precision-strike missions. Go boom: AV’s Switchblade family of […]
The data nerds over at Nominal are on a bit of a heater. Yesterday, the testing startup announced a sole-source $53M, five-year Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with the Air Force Test Center to bring its increasingly popular testing software to help get the service’s next-gen platforms up and running—and fast. Those platforms include the […]
It’s a rare week when we write about more contracts than we do investments, but here we are. This morning, space and defense giant Redwire ($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) […]
Lock in, kids. It’s time for a dose of the super-scary, invisible threats we all know and love. This morning, Ginkgo Biosecurity—the biosecurity arm of Ginkgo Bioworks—officially spun out from its Boston-based parent company as Perimeter. The new firm—led by founder and CEO Matt McKnight—has already secured a cool $60M in growth capital from Kanders […]
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 […]
There’s a lot of energy around fusion lately. Yesterday, Avalanche Fusion, a Seattle-based fusion startup making teeny tiny desktop-sized fusion reactors, snagged a $5.2M contract from DARPA to turn nuclear radiation into electricity for nuclear batteries under the Pentagon research agency’s Rads to Watts program. Teeny tiny: Most fusion startups are thinking pretty big, working […]
