Tech

Divergent and Mach Industries Team Up

Watch out, world: The LA boys are teaming up. Yesterday, Mach Industries and new-age manufacturing giant Divergent announced that they’ve teamed up to build a drone called Venom, a “prototype flight demonstration aircraft showing hardware development at software speed,” according to a statement put out by the two companies. And they’re not messing around when […]

Investment

Aussie Autonomy Startup Breaker Raises $6M Seed Round

In case you missed 8VC and Lux Capital throwing their weight behind Nigeria’s Terra Industries this week, the big ballers of American defense tech VC have been casting their eyes abroad lately. And now, they’re looking at the land down under.   Earlier this week, Breaker—an Australian-American startup building AI voice-control software for autonomous swarms—raised $6M […]

Investment

Seasats Aims to Boost USV Production after $20M Series A 

Laissez les bons temps rouler in maritime autonomy world.  Yesterday, California-based USV startup Seasats announced that it closed a $20M Series A led by Konvoy Ventures, with participation from Shield Capital, Techstars, and others. That fresh capital brings their total funding to over $40M, and as CEO Mike Flanigan told Tectonic, it’s all about scaling […]

PentagonTech

ICYMI: Saronic Tapped for DARPA Pulling Guard Program

Look away, pirates: The Pentagon’s research agency is on a mission to make it a little bit harder to mess with unarmed vessels, and they’re betting that maritime autonomy hotshot Saronic can help them get there.  Last week, DARPA tapped Saronic and three others to design and develop a semi-autonomous escort vessel under the Pulling […]

Tech

ICYMI: Autonomy Testing for CCA Begins

Well, the US certainly didn’t slow things down while we were all eating pretzels in Munich.  In case you missed it: On Thursday, the US Air Force announced that it’s kicked off integrating and testing the mission autonomy packages for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. That’s the software brains, basically, that will make those […]

Investment

Nigeria’s Terra Industries Raises an Additional $22M

Watch out, because Terra is taking off.   Yesterday, a few short weeks after raising $11.75M in a seed round led by 8VC, Nigerian autonomous systems startup Terra Industries announced they’ve tacked on another $22M in a strategic bridge round led by Lux Capital. That latest haul brings the company’s total seed funding to $34M at […]

Investment

Defense Project Management Startup Integrate Raises $17M

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that the Pentagon is way too bureaucratic and siloed, especially when it comes to engaging with industry.  Most of the proposed fixes to the Pentagon’s red-tape hellscape revolve around faster procurement, prototyping, and fielding. Seattle-based software startup Integrate is trying to solve a different bottleneck: […]

Europe

Quantum Systems Secures €150M ($178M) in Financing 

Well, the European drone dudes certainly aren’t messing around at the Munich Security Conference. Yesterday, German drone giant Quantum Systems (QS) announced that it’s secured €150M ($178M) in financing backed by the European Investment Bank (EIB), Commerzbank, KfW, and Deutsche Bank. The company says the money will be used to “support the company’s continued growth […]