So, the fun thing about defense tech is that no matter how shiny, or fast, or go-boom it is, it doesn’t mean a whole lot if it doesn’t work hand in hand with everything else on the battlefield. Luckily, at least one service seems to be tackling the whole “make sure this stuff works when […]
Well, if anyone thought the software hype era was over, think again. In case you missed it, on Wednesday, the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) increased its enterprise agreement with AI integration and training giant Scale AI from $100M to $500M, supporting “the Department’s strategic imperative to accelerate the adoption of data, […]
Defense tech isn’t all drone swarms and software. Sometimes the basic, unsexy stuff is the most important, especially when you live on the doorstep of Europe’s largest land war since WWII. Yesterday, SWEBAL, a Swedish startup founded by a fintech entrepreneur (totally normal career path), announced that it raised €30M to change the way Europe […]
Another day, another defense tech funding round. Yesterday, Darkhive announced that it’s raised $30M in a Series B funding round led by RTX Ventures to deliver on the $49.7M APFIT contract—the program’s highest single award to date—that the San Antonio-based startup won in December and went public with in March. Hive hype: Founded in 2021, […]
The Army, to put it simply, is pretty into its drones these days. They’re so into drones that they’re even testing out big drones that launch small ones. During recent live-fire exercises down at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Fort Polk, Louisiana, the Army’s 101st Airborne Division turned Petrel Technologies’ Group 3 UAS, […]
Turns out that drone boats can do a lot more than just zip about and terrorize Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, y’all. Yesterday, USV company BlackSea Technology announced that it’s been awarded a $256M Navy contract to “build and support the Seabased Petroleum Distribution System (SPDS) program.” For those of you not steeped in specific Navy […]
You know what they say: When it rains, it pours. And it turns out that holds true whether it’s a thunderstorm or a Firestorm. (Bada-bing!) Fresh off an $82M Series B last week, the 3D-printed drone and mobile manufacturing hotshot announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic this morning that it has secured a $30M […]
Strap in, folks. It’s time to get into the nuts and bolts. On Monday, CA-based silicon photonic optical gyroscope (we’ll get to that) company Anello Photonics announced that it’s raised a cool $25M Series B-2 round led by MESH. New investor Washington Harbour Partners also joined the round, along with existing investors Lockheed Martin Ventures, […]
Last month, the FAA quietly announced that it, together with the Pentagon’s JIATF-401 counter-drone task force, carried out “a thorough safety assessment of a high-energy laser counter-drone system.” Well, the cat’s out of the bag. This morning, AV ($AVAV) exclusively revealed to Tectonic that their LOCUST laser was the mystery counter-drone system tested by federal regulators and […]
If you’ve been keeping up with, ya know, everything going on, drones are kind of a big deal right now. The problem is that the one-way attack drones the Pentagon is rushing to get its hands on often rely on high-end MANET and mesh radios—made by Silvus, Persistent Systems, TrellisWare, and other big players—for communications […]
