Latest Stories
Quantum Systems Unveils New UGV
Quantum Systems is officially entering the ground autonomy game, baby. Earlier today, German autonomy hotshot Quantum Systems introduced MANDRILL, its first unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), at the Enforce Tac trade show in Nuremberg. The $3.5B startup, better known for its aerial drones, called it the first in a line of UGVs designed to work with […]
European Nations Launch Interceptor Initiative
Our friends in Europe are having quite the start to the week. In case you missed it: On Friday, leaders of the European Group of Five (E5)—Europe’s five biggest defense powers—announced from Krakow that they’re banding together to beef up low-cost air defense. The new “multi-million euro” project—known as the Low-Cost Effectors & Autonomous Platforms’ […]
Meet Project Millennium, Neros’ 250,000-Square-Foot Drone Factory
Looks like someone wants to unleash drone dominance. Yesterday, the FPV phenoms from El Segundo turned things up a notch big-time with Project Millennium: A new 250,000-square-foot factory down the road in Torrance, CA, where they’ll ramp up production of their Archer drones to a million a year. If you were wondering what they were […]
Code Metal Raises $125M Series B
We’re back to the nuts and bolts, baby. Yesterday, Code Metal, a “code [translator] for mission critical industries” (we’ll explain, dw) announced that it’s raised a $125M Series B led by Salesforce Ventures with participation from Accel, B Capital, Smith Point Capital, J2 Ventures, Shield Capital, Overmatch, RTX, and others. This latest round brings the […]
A Q + A with Matt Cronin, Senior National Security Advisor at a16z
If there is one VC fund you know in the defense tech world, it’s probably Andreesen Horowitz—or a16z, as the cool kids say. The firm—which just raised a casual $15B, including $1.176B for its “national interest” (defense and deep tech) focused American Dynamism fund—has backed some of the biggest names in the game, including Anduril, […]
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 […]
