It’s been a big week for Stark. Last Wednesday, the German drone company announced that it’s opening a 40,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in the UK, the company’s first site outside of Germany and Ukraine. Plus, the company announced that it’s acquiring Berlin-based autonomous flight control start-up Pleno, which specializes in comms-denied navigation for low-cost […]
When defense tech is hot, it’s hot. This morning, dual-use defense- and security-focused VC fund New North Ventures announced exclusively to Tectonic the first close of its second fund. It’s raised $45M in anchor funding (with a target of $80M and room to grow to $100M) through the DoD and SBA’s Small Business Investment Company […]
Well, turns out Firestorm Labs is printing a lot more than drones. On Wednesday, the San Diego-based manufacturing and drone company announced it has raised a $47M Series A led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, Decisive Point, Washington Harbour Partners, Booz Allen Ventures, and others. The company says it […]
Looks like Blue Water Autonomy is doubling down. This morning, the Boston-based autonomous shipbuilding company told Tectonic in an exclusive release that they’re opening a DC office and hiring three new engineers to amp up their development and testing process with the Navy. This comes just two months after the company emerged from stealth with […]
Less than a month after raising $125M and hitting unicorn status, Gecko Robotics has notched another win—or two. On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh-based AI and robotics company announced a partnership with BPMI, the prime for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP), to take its wall-crawling robots into the shipyard. As if that wasn’t enough, they followed […]
After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s UAS memo last week, we said small drones are having a moment. As it turns out, there’s just as much interest in the tech that takes them down. This morning, California-based cUAS maker Epirus announced it’s won a $43.5M contract from the US Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office […]
Just a month after raising $2.5B at a $30.5B valuation, officially entering “neo-prime” territory, Anduril looks more than ready to take on the real primes—this time in the cruise missile game. Anduril announced today that its Barracuda-100M autonomous air vehicle (AAV)—only unveiled last fall—has completed successful flight tests for the High-Speed Maneuverable Missile (HSMM) program […]
If you’ve learned one thing from this newsletter, we hope it’s that new tech is changing the way wars are fought. Drones, directed energy weapons, massive sensor suites—they’ve changed the shape of the battlefield. But the thing is, they also require a heck of a lot of power. Power isn’t always easy to come by […]
Shortly after the House released the Chairman’s Mark for the FY26 NDAA last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) passed their own vision for next year’s defense budget on Friday. While there were some notable differences (we’ll get to that), the two chambers are clearly focused on spurring innovation, largely through their two competing […]
The maritime mash-ups continue. Yesterday, 8VC-backed unmanned surface vessel (USV) company Saronic announced that they’re teaming up with Vigor Marine Group, a maritime services provider that specializes in marine fabrication, vessel repair, and maintenance. According to a release by Saronic, the two companies will form a strategic partnership and “work closely to identify opportunities to […]
