Pentagon

Perennial Autonomy Scores $500M JIATF 401 IDIQ

Well, looks like the Pentagon is getting super-serious about c-UAS, what with everything happening in the Middle East.  Late yesterday, Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) announced that it’s awarded a $500M IDIQ to Perennial Autonomy—the super-secret startup reportedly launched by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt—to provide “enterprise-wide counter-unmanned aerial system operations.” The company—which […]

Investment

Armada Raises $230M at $2B Valuation

Mega-giant data centers, in case you hadn’t noticed, are popping up everywhere these days.  But edge computing startup Armada isn’t interested in the supersizing of it all—they want to shrink data centers down and take them to all the far-flung places where the military needs extra processing power. And it seems like the people with […]

EuropeTech

Destinus and Rheinmetall Unveil New Deep-Strike Missile 

Our friends across the pond are pretty big on building up sovereign defense capabilities these days, and Rheinmetall has moved at lightning speed to snap up the lion’s share of that European military spending boom.  Today, the German defense giant and Dutch drone startup Destinus unveiled a new, co-produced long-range deep-strike cruise missile called the […]

EuropeTech

Anduril Downselected for UK MoD’s Project Nyx

If you thought the dudes over at Anduril were done reimagining what the word “drone” can mean, think again. On Friday, the UK subsidiary of the not-so-little defense company announced that it’s officially been downselected for the British Army’s Project Nyx—the MoD’s effort to build an autonomous loyal wingman for Apache helicopters.  “We think Nyx […]

InvestmentTech

Aussie Sensing Startup Arkeus Raises $18M Series A

The Aussies are coming, y’all.  This morning, Arkeus, an Australian defense startup building AI-powered sensing systems for drones, raised $18M in a Series A led by Aussie VC QIC Ventures to expand its global footprint, including in the US.  “We are a little bit under the radar, if you can excuse the pun for a […]

Pentagon

Guetlein Pushes Back on CBO $1.2T Golden Dome Estimate

This article first appeared during our Inside the Dome event in our sister publication, Payload. The head of the Golden Dome program said yesterday that the CBO’s $1.2T cost estimate for the missile-defense program is way off base.  “They’re not estimating what we’re building,” Gen. Michael Guetlein said Thursday at Inside the Dome, hosted by […]

Tech

Vantor and BAE Team Up

You know what sucks? When you think you’ve got a drone flying good and straight over a target, but then it turns out you’re like, super off base. Well, luckily, one prime-new kid on the block partnership is here to help. This morning, Vantor (the artist formerly known as Maxar) announced that it’s teaming up […]

Pentagon

The Pentagon and Five “New Entrants” Ink Low-Cost Missile Deal

The Pentagon wants more bang for its buck, and is looking to five “disruptive new entrants” to get it.  Under a framework agreement announced by the Pentagon yesterday, four companies—Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5—will deliver over 10,000 cruise missiles over three years under the Low-Cost Containerized Missiles (LCCM) program, while Castelion will deliver a […]

Pentagon

Exclusive: Air Force EOD Units Get “Hundreds” More Skydio Drones

We’ve talked a lot about quadcopters used as flying bombs, but turns out they’re pretty helpful for diffusing them, too.  Under a “multi-million dollar” contract, the Air Force’s elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) units are getting their hands on Skydio’s fan favorite X10D Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) small-UAS, the company exclusively revealed to Tectonic […]

Investment

HavocAI Raises $100M to Accelerate Multi-Domain Push

The rise of the robots is truly upon us.  Yesterday, Rhode Island-based autonomy darling HavocAI (known primarily for its USVs) announced that it’s raised a $100M Series A led by Cobalt Capital, which the company says it will use to push further into multi-domain robotics. Single-domain is soooo 2025.  “We captured the maritime space already,” […]