If all goes according to plan, Antares Nuclear and a handful of other nuclear startups will have a lot more to celebrate on July 4 than Independence Day. Earlier this week, Antares, an LA-based space and defense-focused nuclear fission startup, moved closer to turning on its microreactor after the Department of Energy approved its Preliminary […]
Interceptors are so hot right now. Yesterday, Munich-based mini-autonomous-missile company TYTAN Technologies announced that it’s opened up a new facility in Bavaria and inked a partnership with German sensor giant HENSOLDT, all with the aim of producing 3,000 Group 3 interceptor drones a month by the end of 2026. The company—which tests its drones on […]
Once again, the Ukrainians are back to show us a thing or two about drone warfare. Last Friday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced that all of its drone operations will soon be unified under a single operating system called Mission Control, which will basically act as a giant, data-driven eye-in-the-sky for how drones in […]
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Everyone loves a tiny plane. On Monday, Grid Aero, a California-based startup building autonomous aircraft focused on logistics operations in contested environments, announced it raised $20M in a Series A co-led by Bison Ventures and Geodesic Capital to boost testing and production of its “pickup truck” […]
Turns out teamwork really does make the dream work. Last week, Lockheed Martin and its teammates showed off the first version of their Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) prototype to the Army’s 25th Infantry Division during the Lightning Surge 1 exercises in Hawaii. Reboot: As a refresher, Lockheed was awarded a $26M OTA in […]
Everyone and their mother really is doubling down on the whole defense tech thing. On Friday, federal contracting giant Booz Allen Hamilton ($BAH) announced that it’s investing a fat $400M in a16z’s Growth fund as an anchor LP and forming a strategic partnership with the VC giant. (To note: While the check goes to Growth, […]
The Anduril empire just keeps on growing. Yesterday, the defense tech giant announced that it’s opening up a new 1M+ square-foot campus in Long Beach, CA, where the firm (can’t really call it a startup anymore, can we?) says it will carry out everything from software development to R&D. An Anduril spokesperson told Tectonic that […]
It’s a Picogrid party, and everyone’s invited. Today, in an exclusive release to Tectonic, integration startup Picogrid announced that the US Army tapped them to make sure a whole bunch of different sensors, radars, C2 systems, and effectors worked together during a recent sensor-to-shooter counter-drone and force-maneuver exercise at the National Training Center in the […]
Applied Intuition may have cut its teeth in commercial autonomous vehicle software, but the $15B Silicon Valley hotshot is taking the defense world by storm—including on some of the Pentagon’s most ambitious projects. We’re talking Golden Dome, baby. Today, in an exclusive release to Tectonic, Applied Intuition announced that they’ve teamed up with the Department […]
If there is one VC fund you know in the defense tech world, it’s probably Andreesen Horowitz—or a16z, as the cool kids say. The firm—which just raised a casual $15B, including $1.176B for its “national interest” (defense and deep tech) focused American Dynamism fund—has backed some of the biggest names in the game, including Anduril, […]
