Pentagon

BlackSea Scores $256M Navy Contract for SPDS

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 […]

Pentagon

Exclusive: Firestorm Snags $30M APFIT Contract

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 […]

Investment

Anello Photonics Raises $25M to Scale

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, […]

PentagonTech

Exclusive: AV’s LOCUST Laser Gets the FAA and Pentagon’s Seal of Approval

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 […]

Tech

Exclusive: Somewear Labs Unveils Multi-Network Drone Radio

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 […]

EuropeTech

Exclusive: Orqa Launches Independent US Company

Everyone really is making that great, grand leap across the pond.  This morning, Croatian drone giant Orqa FPV announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it’s spinning out an independent US entity called Orqa US, focused on building end-to-end UAV systems for Drone Dominance.  The US company is teaming up with defense contractor By […]

Investment

Exclusive: TAG Capital Raises $100M Infrastructure Fund

Well, New Mexico is turning out to be the land of enchantment—at least for a few lucky deep tech firms. This morning, a new NM–based company, Tierra Adentro Growth (TAG) Capital (say that five times fast, nerds), announced in an exclusive interview with Tectonic that it has raised a $100M deep tech infrastructure fund focused […]

Investment

Founders Fund Raises a Record $6B Fourth Fund

If anyone thought the collective spending spree on defense tech was coming to an end any time soon, think again.  Over the weekend, Bloomberg reported that Founders Fund—the 21-year-old VC firm co-founded by Peter Thiel—raised its fourth and largest fund to date: A $6B fund dedicated to later-stage companies, including another big bet on Anduril, […]

Tech

Nominal Acquires Fid Labs

When we said the data nerds over at Nominal are on a bit of a heater a few weeks ago, we weren’t kidding.  Yesterday, the hardware testing company unveiled its first acquisition after raising $80M at a $1B valuation in March, buying up robotics and engineering agentic AI startup Fid Labs to fully integrate its […]

Pentagon

Air Force Snaps Up Powerus Interceptor Drones

The Pentagon is buying counter-drone technology for “real-world operational use” from a startup, but maybe not from one we’d expect.  Yesterday, West Palm Beach, Florida-based drone company Powerus announced a deal with the US Air Force to supply interceptor drones “at scale,” co-founder and president Brett Velicovich told Tectonic.  He couldn’t comment on the contract […]