Sounds like someone is learning some lessons in the Strait of Hormuz. In case you missed it, on Wednesday DIU (which, apparently, has been renamed the War Department Innovation Unit) released a solicitation looking for USVs “fully integrated with two or more mature, market-ready aerial drones to detect, identify, track, and defeat hostile threats.” The […]
Well, if you have a solution that you think can take down drones better than anyone else’s, now’s your moment. Yesterday, Brave1—Ukraine’s defense innovation cluster—announced that applications are officially open for the UNITE – Brave NATO joint innovation program. The program—first announced in late 2025—is designed to “bring together Ukrainian defense companies and companies from […]
Told you the Europeans were getting (kind of) serious about the whole drones and autonomy thing. Yesterday, the European Defense Agency (the EU’s joint defense capability organization) announced that it’s down-selected five companies for stage two of its Sentinel Strike Challenge for loitering munitions. Each company will get €30,000 to move on to stage two, […]
The London- and Berlin-based startup secured $30M across two rounds to train autonomous systems.
Well, who says an AI-for-defense platform can’t have a major glow-up? This morning, defense and intelligence AI startup Danti announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’ve launched the new generation of their platform and secured a fresh contract with the US Air Force. The revamp comes after Danti was used during US Special […]
The space-based radar startup’s funding round will fund R&D and its expansion into the Indo-Pacific.
If you thought you’d seen the last of the new-and-shiny interceptor companies, think again. Late last week, FPF Defense—a new cUAS company founded by former Acting Secretary of Defense and Director of the US National Counterterrorism Center Chris Miller—announced that it’s scored a “strategic investment” co-led by RSE Ventures and Ondas Inc. Miller told Tectonic […]
Dare we say 2026 might turn out to be the year of startup-legacy maritime partnerships? Yesterday, unmanned maritime darling Saronic announced that it’s teaming up with Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) to “accelerate the development of autonomy-capable maritime systems and technologies to strengthen America’s shipbuilding industrial base.” Together, the two companies will work on “autonomy and […]
If you thought you’d heard the last of the LUCAS program, think again. Yesterday, orchestration startup NODA AI announced that it’s won a $10M contract with the Pentagon to develop MAESTRO (Multi-Domain Autonomous Enhanced System for Tactical Reasoning and Orchestration), algorithms designed “to project commander’s intent into coordinated autonomous action across air, maritime, ground, and […]
Well, the hottest missile startup you probably haven’t heard of is having a very exciting July. Yesterday, missile startup CoAspire announced that the US Navy has selected a ground-launched variant of its Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile-Extended Range (RAACM-ER) for its Coalition Heterogeneous Affordable Offensive Strike (CHAOS) program. Under a $70M OTA, the company “will […]
