Tech

Exclusive: KBR Taps Tagup’s Logistics AI Platform 

Tag, you’re it! In an exclusive release in Tectonic this morning, big-time prime KBR announced that it’s tapped Tagup’s AI-powered defense logistics software to bring some startup spice to its “global logistics mission sets,” starting off with ground equipment maintenance and logistics planning operations.  In 2026, the unsexy side of defense is turning out to […]

Tech

Saildrone Unveils Spectre, Built with Lockheed Martin

By the look of things, it’s going to be a busy, busy week out in National Harbor.  This morning, USV darling Saildrone announced at Sea-Air-Space that they’re building a new, 52-meter (170-foot) USV called Spectre, the “largest, fastest, and most capable Saildrone platform to date,” according to the company. The big ol’ drone boat is […]

Tech

Exclusive: Tocaro Blue Unveils ApolloCore

It’s Sea Air Space week, baby, and the news is already coming in hot and fast. This morning, maritime perception company Tocaro Blue (you’ll remember them from their team-up with Havoc AI) unveiled ApolloCore, a new camera-based machine learning software, in an exclusive release to Tectonic. The stack—designed to work with the company’s ProteusCore radar […]

Pentagon

Beacon AI Snags $50M USSOCOM Aviation AI Contract

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 […]

Tech

Exclusive: Terra Industries Opens Africa’s Largest Drone Factory in Ghana

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 […]

Investment

Ulysses Raises $46M Seed + Series A

Strap on your life jackets, kids. We’re headed out to sea.  Yesterday, “ocean company” (we’ll explain) Ulysses announced that it’s raised a $38M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) American Dynamism fund, with participation from Booz Allen Ventures and Harpoon Ventures, bringing total funding to $46M (with an earlier, unannounced $8M seed). The startup—which […]

Tech

Exclusive: Aeon Teams Up With GTS on New Warheads and Missiles

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 […]

Europe

Germany Orders “Thousands” of Auterion-Airlogix UAVs

The Europeans are really having quite the week over here in defense tech land.  Earlier this week, autonomy hotshot Auterion announced that it’s won a contract from the German government to provide “thousands of mid-range, heavy AI-guided autonomous strike systems” built with Ukrainian drone company Airlogix to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The systems—specifically, Airlogix’s X […]

EuropePentagon

Quantum Systems Scores $15.3M Army Contract

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 […]

PentagonTech

Exclusive: Picogrid Wins Army c-UAS Integration Contract

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 […]