EuropeInvestment

Exclusive: Orqa Raises $14.7M, Heads to the US

Remember on Friday when we said that the Americans were coming? Well, turns out the Europeans are coming, too. This morning, FPV hotshot Orqa announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it’s raised a €12.7M ($14.7M) Series A led by Expeditions Ventures and signed a teaming agreement with Texas-based Red River Army Depot to […]

Investment

Nominal Raises $80M at a $1B Valuation

Welp, the Anduril mafia and Nominal are making things super-extra-official. Yesterday, the testing startup announced that it’s raised a whopping $80M “acceleration round” (their term) led by Founders Fund, valuing the company at $1B.  Nominal co-founder Bryce Strauss told Tectonic that the cash money will be used to double the size of their team and […]

Tech

UNION and Hanwha Team Up on 155mm Production

The state of the UNION is growing. (Bada-bing!!) Yesterday, Texas-based software-defined factory startup UNION announced a partnership with Hanwha Defense USA, the US arm of the South Korean mega-prime, to speed up production of 155mm shells.  Hegseth may be saying the US has plenty of munitions—but sounds like UNION’s betting we’ll want even more. Rippin’ […]

Europe

Exclusive: H4D Heads to Germany

The Hacking for Defense Empire is expanding—and this time, to continental Europe. This morning, the Common Mission Project (CMP) announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re officially launching the Hacking for Defense (H4D) academic program in Germany in partnership with the University of the Bundeswehr (UniBwM). The program—founded by Pete Newell, Steve Blank, […]

Tech

Exclusive: Crow Industries and Parry Labs Team Up

If you thought we were done with the partnership news, well, think again. The mash-ups continue, baby.  This morning, robotics startup Crow Industries and Parry Labs announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re teaming up to build Parry’s edge compute and autonomy stack onto Crow’s Fenris UGV. “We were both finalists in the […]

EuropeInvestment

UFORCE Exits Stealth as a Unicorn

Remember all those videos of Ukrainian sea drones taking out Russia’s Black Sea Fleet? Well, UFORCE, the company making those USVs and a whole range of unmanned systems, officially emerged from stealth today with a $1B+ valuation after raising over $50M from a transatlantic team led by Shield Capital and Lakestar. Good news for all […]

Tech

Hermeus’ Latest Quarterhorse Supersonic Unmanned Aircraft Takes Flight

Things are speeding up on the supersonic front, and fast.  High-speed aircraft company Hermeus announced this week that it has successfully completed a flight test of its unmanned Quarterhorse Mk 2.1, which it calls the “world’s first high-Mach remotely piloted aircraft,” less than a year after the first iteration took flight.   Everyone loves a spicy […]

Tech

Red Cat and ACS Team Up

Another day, another pretty lethal-sounding mash-up. Earlier this week, AI-powered machine gun turret startup Allen Control Systems announced that it’s officially teaming up with drone giant Red Cat as part of their Futures Initiative to build their Bullfrog platform onto Red Cat’s unmanned surface vessels (USVs).  Who said you can’t teach an old frog new […]

Investment

Defense AI Lab Smack Raises $32M Seed and Series A

It’s been a busy, beefy week for the Pentagon and a certain AI giant, but a startup out of El Segundo has a solution to those tensions: Just build an AI lab purpose-built for national security. And investors are on board.  Yesterday, Smack Technologies announced a combo Seed and Series A round to build what […]

Investment

Exclusive: Worldscape.ai Raises $6M Seed

The markets may be in a panic over AI (and, like, at least three other things), but the hype for AI-powered defense tech continues.  This morning, AI-powered geospatial intelligence startup Worldscape.ai announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’ve closed a $6M seed round led by Scout Ventures, with participation from Radius and Washington […]