Coming at you live from the picks-and-shovels side of defense tech. Today, VectorNav—which makes high-performance Inertial Navigation Systems (INSs) and Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) for a whole range of zoomy and boomy things—rolled out a major upgrade to its accelerometer and gyroscope platform in an exclusive release to Tectonic. The upgrade is designed for super-high […]
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 […]
It’s been a busy past few days for the weekend warriors over at Skydio. Yesterday, the US Army tapped California-based drone-maker Skydio to deliver 2,500 of its X10D small-UAS in a $52M contract, the largest sUAS order from a single vendor in Army history. The company said it moved from bid to award in under […]
Anduril is thinking big. Like really, really big—and nothing says that quite like Arsenal-1. Yesterday, Tectonic paid a visit to Anduril’s $1B, 5M square foot mega-factory just south of Columbus, Ohio, where the company (hard to call them a startup after a $20B Army contract) will kick off production of their Fury drone wingman in […]
If you thought the Crow Industries and Parry Labs mash-up was the only collab to come out of the Army’s xTech Overwatch competition, think again. This morning, GPS-free navigation company TERN and AI-powered simulation and planning company Sandtable announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re teaming up after the exercise to plug Sandtable’s […]
You know how the Arctic is, like, super remote, freezing, and increasingly contested? Well, all that makes comms a bit dodgy. Yesterday, defense communications and mission-systems company Ultra I&C announced that it’s sending its Archer troposcatter beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) comms system up to the Arctic for operational trials with the Canadian Armed Forces. Tropo talk: If […]
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 […]
Well, Nominal is certainly having quite the past few weeks. This morning—on the heels of an $80M raise led by Founder’s Fund and an official partnership with Anduril—the Austin-based testing startup announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re officially teaming up with ground autonomy hotshot Forterra. Nominal CEO Cameron McCord told Tectonic that […]
We keep saying maritime autonomy is all the rage, but multi-domain autonomy is really where it’s at. This morning, Rhode Island-based unmanned surface vehicle (USV) startup HavocAI announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it has acquired not one but two companies—heavy-lift drone-maker Mavrik and industrial vehicle autonomy startup Teleo—to take its autonomy software […]
After a quiet few years, it looks like our friendly neighbors up north are diving headfirst into defense tech. Hot off a $15.2M ($21M CAD) seed round in January, Canadian defense tech startup Dominion Dynamics kicked things up a notch late last week, announcing plans to invest $37M ($50M CAD) to kickstart development of Scout, […]
