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 […]
The great startup-prime team-up continues in full force. Shipbuilding giant HII and manufacturing robotics startup GrayMatter Robotics inked a deal on Monday to bring AI-powered robotics to the most unsexy parts of the shipbuilding process—like surface prep, grinding, coating, and inspection—with the goal of speeding up the lethargic pace of building new Navy vessels. Factory […]
Busy times for rocket motor-makers. Yesterday, solid rocket motor (SRM) startup X-Bow Systems snagged a $12.2M contract for “thousands” of rocket-assisted take-off (RATO) kits—including SRMs and launchers—for defense technology company Aevex’s 200lb Disruptor drone. Big drone, big boom. We like it. X marks the spot: X-Bow, pronounced “crossbow,” is on a mission to shake up […]
Well, the dronemakers are certainly stepping up their game. This morning, Huntsville-based Cummings Aerospace announced that they’ve successfully completed arena testing for an anti-armor warhead for their three-foot-long Hellhound S3 drone. Cummings founder and CEO Sheila Cummings told Tectonic that the warhead-equipped drone was able to blast through several sheets of steel—mimicking a tank or […]
The race between a handful of nuclear fission startups to switch on their microreactor and small modular reactors before Independence Day is heating up. Yesterday, Los Angeles-based space and defense-focused nuclear startup Antares moved into the “final innings” of turning on its Mark-0 microreactor after the Department of Energy approved its Documented Safety Analysis (DSA), […]
Last week, Northrop Grumman announced that the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division put its Lumberjack Group 3 UAS—kitted out with AI-enabled targeting courtesy of Palantir’s Maven Smart System and a six-pound precision strike munition—to the test during the recent Operation Lethal Eagle exercise, roughly a year after it was first unveiled. Looks like the primes […]
