Latest Stories
DARPA Wraps Up the RACER Autonomy Program
Looks like at least one RACER has crossed the finish line. On Wednesday, DARPA announced that the Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program, launched in 2021 to develop new vehicle autonomy algorithm technologies, has officially wrapped up. Now, it’s up to the autonomy companies that spun out of it—including Overland AI—to keep […]
Raft Launches a Partner Ecosystem
Guess what, guys? The defense tech dudes are forming new cliques. This morning, AI-for-defense powerhouse Raft announced that it’s launched a “partner program [that’s] designed to help industry partners rapidly build, integrate, and deploy mission-ready applications on top” of Raft’s data and AI programs. The idea is that because Raft is already plugged into the […]
DIU, DAWG, and Navy Want You to Control Their Boats
DIU is wasting no time getting to work under its new leadership. Last night, the innovation unit posted a new $100M (yes, $100M) prize challenge to “prototype market-ready solutions to establish a robust, scalable and vehicle-agnostic capability for understanding, tasking and coordinating autonomous systems at the fleet level.” Using normal words: They’re looking for a […]
3D-Printed Battery Startup Material Closes $7.1M Seed Round
Whatever image you have of what batteries look like, forget it. On Tuesday, Miami-based 3D-printed battery startup Material announced it had raised a $7.1M seed round co-led by Outlander VC and Harpoon Ventures. The company is taking aim at a surprisingly persistent problem: Batteries power nearly everything we write about, yet they’re rarely designed for […]
Q + A: A.J. Bertone, Managing Partner, In-Q-Tel
If you’ve been paying attention to the past year of Tectonic (!!), you’ll recognize a sneaky three-letter acronym that pops up on a lot of defense tech cap tables: IQT. For those lucky enough not to be in the know, that stands for In-Q-Tel, a not-for-profit venture fund backed by the US government and investing […]
A Q+A with Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper
Mark Esper has spent a whole heck of a lot of time in the defense ecosystem. After a decade in uniform in the US Army, he worked as a congressional staffer, a senior policy aide to Sens. Chuck Hagel and Bill Frist, and a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the early 2000s. Then, he […]
A Q+A with Alex Ferrara, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners
If there is one fund that knows how to deploy big-time cash into tech companies, it’s Bessemer Venture Partners. The Silicon Valley fund has about $19B under management, and has invested in tech giants from LinkedIn (everyone’s fav) to Shopify. This year, the fund has turned to defense—specifically, European defense. They led Auterion’s $130M Series […]
A Q+A with Arthur Herman and John Burer
If you’ve been in DC anytime in the past few years, you will have heard of Arthur Herman. In case you’re unfamiliar (nerd!), he wrote Freedom’s Forge back in 2012, which has shaped a lot of the First Breakfast-type reindustrialization conversations we’ve been having lately. Sparknotes: The book (if you haven’t read it or have […]
