Tech

Auterion and MGI Engineering Team Up on TigerShark

Well, these certainly ain’t your granny’s quadcopter drones. Yesterday, autonomy and swarming software hotshot Auterion announced that it has teamed up with UK-based MGI Engineering—a, well, engineering firm—to successfully fly a cruise missile-like drone called TigerShark in the UK. According to the two companies, TigerShark can: MGI and Auterion say this is “the first time […]

Tech

UNION and X-Bow Team Up on Energetics Production

The folks building the factories of the future are certainly having a moment right now.  Yesterday, software-defined manufacturing startup UNION and solid rocket motor-maker X-Bow Systems (pronounced crossbow, btw) teamed up to build “surge-capable” propulsion system production capacity, which X-Bow CGO Maureen Gannon told Tectonic is a “direct response” to the AFRL’s “Endless Forge” initiative.  […]

Tech

Applied Intuition Unveils Mobile Autonomy Testing Unit

We’ve heard of forward-deployed engineers and manufacturing, but now Applied Intuition wants to make autonomy testing mobile. Earlier this week, autonomy giant Applied Intuition rolled out Edge, a “mobile operations center” designed to facilitate the development, testing, and operation of autonomous systems at, well, the edge.  Sim-er down: We’ve covered Applied Intuition before, but as […]

Investment

PE OceanSound Closes $3.4B Fund III

You know an industry is blowing up when the private equity (PE) guys are coming for it.  Yesterday, New York and Florida-based PE fund OceanSound Partners closed a $3.4B Fund II to invest in “technology and technology-enabled services companies serving aerospace, defense, government and highly regulated enterprise end markets.” The oversubscribed fund (goal was $2B) […]

PentagonTech

Exclusive: Firehawk Caps Off Factory Double-Header with a Rocket Contract

It’s been a busy few days for the folks over at Firehawk.  Yesterday, energetics and rocket motor-maker Firehawk Aerospace cut the ribbon at a big ol’ rocket integration facility in Mississippi, where, as told in an exclusive release to Tectonic, the company has snagged a contract to assemble Hydra-70 rockets. To cap things off, they’ll […]

Investment

Inbiome Raises $16M Led by NIF

In case you weren’t aware, defense isn’t always about the stuff that goes boom. Sometimes it’s about the (arguably much scarier) stuff we can’t immediately see. Lucky for us, a newly funded startup is here to help. This morning, Dutch biotech company Inbiome announced that it has raised a $16M Series A co-led by the […]

Tech

Exclusive: Acoustic Drone-Sensing Startup RADD Emerges from Stealth

If you’ve seen—or been on—the battlefield in Ukraine, one of the most significant shifts in drone warfare has been the proliferation of fiber-optic FPV drones. There’s a good reason for that: most UAV detection tech relies on RF sensing or expensive radars, which can be easily sidestepped—or saturated—by RF-silent drones. Enter brand-spanking-new startup RADD. This […]

Investment

Saronic Raises $1.75B Series D

If anyone thought the hype for maritime would fade, what with the whole “potential extended ground war in Iran” thing, think again. This morning, autonomous maritime giant Saronic announced that it’s raised a $1.75B Series D—yes, billion with a “B”—at a $9.25B post-money valuation. Again, yes, that’s all with a “B”. The round was led […]

PentagonTech

Darkhive Secures $49.7M APFIT Contract

When the Pentagon announced the FY26 APFIT program winners way back in December, they were very coy about which companies won which awards.  One APFIT award stuck out—a $49.7M contract with the US Army for “Real-Time Command and Control at the Tactical Edge,” the largest APFIT award to date. Months later, San Antonio-based startup Darkhive […]

Europe

Frankenburg Kicks off Partnership with Polish Prime

Look out, world. The Eastern Europeans are (formally) teaming up. On Friday, Estonian interceptor hotshot Frankenburg Technologies announced that it’s officially inked a production partnership with Poland’s state-owned defense company—Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ)—to produce its air defense systems in Poland.  “Lessons learned from the war in Ukraine clearly demonstrate that attacks carried out by dangerous […]