Okay, so when you open Tectonic, you might not expect to be reading about a mobile carrier, but hear us out. Yesterday, “privacy-first” carrier Cape raised a chill $100M led by Bain Capital Ventures and IVP, with participation from new investors including 01 Advisors, 137 Ventures, Definition, and Fifth Down Capital. And here’s why we […]
If you thought the Crow Industries and Parry Labs mash-up was the only collab to come out of the Army’s xTech Overwatch competition, think again. This morning, GPS-free navigation company TERN and AI-powered simulation and planning company Sandtable announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re teaming up after the exercise to plug Sandtable’s […]
You know how the Arctic is, like, super remote, freezing, and increasingly contested? Well, all that makes comms a bit dodgy. Yesterday, defense communications and mission-systems company Ultra I&C announced that it’s sending its Archer troposcatter beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) comms system up to the Arctic for operational trials with the Canadian Armed Forces. Tropo talk: If […]
Less than a year after dropping a cool $4.1B to acquire BlueHalo, AV—the artist formerly known as AeroVironment—is back with another acquisition. Earlier this week, the company snapped up California-based drone manufacturing and design firm ESAero for $200M. Under the deal, ESAero will function as a subsidiary of AV under its Loitering Munition Systems business […]
Another day, another IPO. Defense tech is entering the big leagues, baby. Yesterday, flight autonomy hotshot Merlin officially started trading on the Nasdaq as $MRLN after merging with a SPAC called Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. IV and raising about $200M in proceeds. The deal valued Merlin at $800M pre-money. In normal people speak? Merlin just […]
Well, god damn. When we said the Ukrainians were coming, we didn’t necessarily think it would be directly to the US stock market, but here we are. This morning, Ukrainian UAV software company Swarmer officially IPO’d on the NASDAQ as $SWMR. The company—which builds the software brain that allows drones to operate as a swarm—is […]
This Gecko is going green. This morning, Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics announced a five-year, $71M IDIQ contract with the US Navy to deploy its wall-crawling robots and AI maintenance software to 18 ships in the Pacific Fleet—at least to start. The contract, which has an initial award worth $54M with the potential to scale up to […]
Y’all ever have those moments where you read a story, scroll past, do a double-take, and then scroll back like, “F**ck me.” Yeah, this is one of those. On Friday, the US Army announced (in a fairly chill contract roundup) that it’s issued a 10-year contract worth up to $20B—yes, billion with a B—to “consolidate […]
Between the Pentagon backing a $400M investment in MP Materials, a $1.4B deal with rare-earth magnet-maker Vulcan Elements, and Korea Zinc’s $7.4B refinery in Tennessee, companies up and down the critical mineral supply chain had a pretty big year in 2025. And the Pentagon’s demand for rare earths sure isn’t slowing down in 2026. Yesterday, […]
Sounds like it’s time for Palmer Luckey to bust out the bikini again. On Thursday, everyone’s favorite teeny tiny defense startup Anduril announced that their Dive-XL autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was tapped by the Defense Innovation Unit and the US Navy for the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform (CAMP) drone sub program. Deep Dive: In case […]
