If you weren’t sold on the whole “the US is getting hella serious about rare earths and critical minerals” thing, well, the Pentagon is back to prove you wrong—again. In case you missed it, on Monday the DoD announced that the Economic Defense Unit (EDU), in partnership with the Office of the Under Secretary of […]
The drone interceptor world is, like, hotter than hot right now, and investors aren’t showing any signs of backing down just yet. This morning, Singularity emerged after two years in stealth with an $80M Series A led by Khosla Ventures and Felicis, a $400M valuation, and a mission to deploy “low-cost air defense systems at […]
Look out, world. The space guys are coming for your defense contracts. This morning, Antaris—which, to date, has done simulation and modeling primarily for space-based assets—announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it’s launching a dedicated defense-focused mission virtualization company called Aeonyx. The company will help “defense organizations evaluate architectures, validate operational concepts, improve […]
Well, gosh darn. Our friends across the pond really are having quite the month. This morning, UK-based Valarian—which is building “the sovereign infrastructure layer for high-consequence operations and AI-driven systems”—announced that it’s raised a $50M Series A led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). “We’re really, really excited to partner with [NEA],” Valarian founder and CEO […]
Minehunting is back in vogue, and for good reason. If you’ve been keeping an eye on a certain strait off the coast of Iran, sub-sea mines—or the threat of them—have been causing a whole lot of problems. The US Navy, which decommissioned half of its Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships last year, is looking for more […]
The defense technology industry has never been better at innovation. New companies are developing advanced unmanned systems, autonomous platforms, sensors, and other critical capabilities at a pace that would have been difficult to imagine a decade ago. But innovation alone isn’t enough to deliver those capabilities to market. As defense companies move from prototype programs […]
Well, seems like the Dassault-Harmattan AI partnership is working out just fine. This morning, the Paris-based autonomy startup and the French aviation giant announced that they’ve teamed up to build—and successfully integrate and test—a new EW detection drone payload called NAMIB. And they’ve already tried it out. In a recent test, a drone (built with […]
Europe—well, Germany especially—is having a heck of a year. This morning, the German defense tech juggernaut announced it’s raised a $1.8B Series E at an $18B valuation, setting a new record for Europe’s largest defense startup funding round after Quantum Systems’ $1.2B raise earlier this month. The Germans are taking this whole rearmament thing pretty […]
Israel has built some of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world, but FPV drones and swarms have increasingly become a bit of an Achilles heel for the country’s military, particularly in its fight against Hezbollah. One startup is looking to change that, and is bringing some serious US investing firepower along with […]
Pew-pew, baby. Laser weapons are here to stay. Yesterday, the Pentagon announced that it’s awarded two OTAs to nLIGHT Defense and Lockheed Martin Aculight to develop laser weapons systems to “advance the United States’ next-generation cruise missile and unmanned aerial system (UAS) defense architecture.” The combined awards have an initial contract value of $86M with […]
