For all of the time we spend talking about the shiny, go-boom side of defense, we haven’t spent too much time in this newsletter on one of the scarier sides of modern conflict: cyber warfare. Lucky for us, a startup called Twenty that came out of stealth last week is all over it. The company—founded […]
Turns out the leap across the pond goes both ways. This morning, UK-based USV company Kraken Technology Group announced that they’ve scored a coveted $49M cap OTA with United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to develop and prototype “novel uncrewed surface and subsurface vessel technologies to enhance maritime capabilities for U.S. special operations forces.” This […]
Well, the US hype for rare earths is showing no signs of slowing down. Yesterday, US rare earths processing giant Vulcan Elements announced that it will build its Pentagon-backed magnet manufacturing facility in Benson, North Carolina. As promised, the facility will have 10,000 metric tonnes of rare earth magnet manufacturing capacity and, the company says, […]
Remember when we said that everyone loves a little baby tank? Well, ARX Robotics is back to prove our point. Yesterday, the German unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) company announced that it’s secured a “significant major order” from Ukraine—financed by the German government—for its Gereon UGVs. ARX UK CEO David Roberts told Tectonic that with the […]
The factory of the future is back, baby. Yesterday, hypersonic missile company Castelion announced that they’re breaking ground on a new, state-of-the-art facility in New Mexico that (at full capacity) will be able to churn out “thousands of Blackbeards [Castelion’s flagship hypersonic] a year,” Castelion COO and co-founder Sean Pitt told Tectonic. Pitt said that […]
Again, we’re not saying that money moves are happening across Europe because of the Tectonic European Defense Summit…but the signs are there. This morning, Ukraine signed what Emmanuel Macron called a “historic” letter of intent with the French government to buy 100 Dassault-made Rafale fighter jets, along with eight SAMP/T air defense systems and Aster-30 […]
We’re not saying crazy cash is flying around the defense tech world because of our summit, but we’re not not saying it. Yesterday, “domain dominance” defense startup and 8VC darling CHAOS Industries announced that it’s raised $510M in new funding at a $4.5B valuation, led by Valor Equity Partners (friends of Mr. Musk and early […]
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 […]
Whoever thought the defense tech investment hype cycle was coming to an end, think again. Late last week, California-based VC fund MVP Ventures announced that it’s raised a $125M Fund II, nearly quadrupling its $35M Fund I. MVP Managing Partner Weston Moyer told Tectonic that about 12-15 percent of that will go to defense tech—six […]
Well, that Hegseth speech wasn’t the only good piece of defense tech news to come out at the tail end of last week. On Friday afternoon, Reuters reported that the US Army plans to buy at least a million drones in the next two to three years, and that they plan to buy 500K a […]
