Index of 79 Weapons Startups
Tech fascism has become a staggering military power.
Silicon Valley venture capitalists are leading the financing and development of a modernized, comprehensive new military infrastructure, able to operate across multiple wars and conflict zones, with weapons technology for air, water, land and space -- driven by AI, autonomous systems, advanced manufacturing strategies, and a comprehensive global surveillance architecture.
The 2017 founding of Anduril by Palmer Luckey -- funded by Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Lux Capital and General Catalyst -- marked a turning point, establishing the base for a bloom of new weapons companies. Since then, hundreds and hundreds more weapons, defense and surveillance startups have been launched. They are now deployed in genocide, wars, ports, borders and conflict zones around the world. Venture capitalists gaining power in the Trump administration and the U.S. military -- including Marc Andreessen's appointment to the Department of War Defense Policy Board -- creates a catastrophe of corruption and cronyism that will design the next eras of war.
Funding for military and weapons startups have increased dramatically in just the last few years.
Per Crunchbase in August 2024: “Venture funding for defense tech startups is ready to set new records. After Anduril’s huge round, so far in 2024 defense tech startups have raised $2.5 billion — per Crunchbase data — nearly matching the record high of $2.6 billion set in 2022. Last year, such startups collected only $2.1 billion total. Helping the industry hit those new heights are the aforementioned Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. Those firms have made the most investments this year — three apiece — of any VC firm and Andreessen the most since 2021 with 14 deals.”
In December 2025, Crunchbase published the article, “Defense Tech Funding Hits Record High”, finding: “Funding to VC-backed startups in defense — defined here as the industries of military, national security and law enforcement — hit $7.7 billion across close to 100 deals in 2025, per Crunchbase data. That’s already well over double [2024’s] investment tally… and marks an all-time high for investment in the space… While we at Crunchbase News lack the expertise to opine on the demands of a modern military, we can say something about what venture checkbooks indicate about the space’s momentum. In this area, it’s clear that investors’ interest is on the rise. Given the relative youth of much of the defense startup pipeline, there’s also a high likelihood of bigger checks to come.”
By June 2026, the industry had already set its highest annual record, reaching $14.6 billion in funding, outpacing the total for 2025's banner year.
The result is a massive military industrial project. Many venture capital weapons startups are emphasizing manufacturing in the United States, and are building factories across the United States, including in Texas, Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and others. They are negotiating tax breaks and other concessions through direct negotiation with governments, and promising jobs to communities. There are also a number of shipyards and ports in the work, for development of new ships and submarines.
These startups also create demand for mining to supply needed minerals. They are part of the overall tech fascist buildout which includes not only these weapons factories and shipyards, but also all of the data centers, new nuclear power plants, and Network State sites and cities. One remarkable thing is the level of enmeshment between these companies; due to being part of the same venture capital cartel, they are partnering constantly, working on new projects together, securing new contracts together, and moving forward the weapons project at accelerated speeds.
This industrial build-out, organized around imperialism, is the material program of the American Dynamism policy, designed by venture capitalists and rolling out across the existing administration. It is already the basis of J.D. Vance's coming presidential campaign.
As you will see in this document, the same venture capital firms come up again and again; Y Combinator, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Lux Capital, General Catalyst, 8VC and others closely associated with them. In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm, which brings venture capital companies into the military, plays a key role; while Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and traditional finance kick in some of the funding.
The venture capital military strategy is predicated on great power conflict with China, increased tension around Taiwan, the Ukraine/Russia war, the genocide of Palestine, and the joint Israel/U.S. war against Iran. Large additional projects like the Golden Dome promise more funding. There are early signs of incursion into Africa, especially the founding of a tech-fascist backed drone company in Nigeria, called Terra Industries.
Current conflicts have given venture capitalists a way to accelerate their technology, serve as R&D labs, as well as provide new markets and applications for their startups. To venture capitalists, war is both an accelerator of technological innovation and a catalyst of economic growth. Venture capitalists also seek control over borders, prisons and police departments, using these same technologies. They seek 10x+ venture returns on these investments, creating a clear incentive for more global conflict to secure their returns. Venture capitalists have designed these platforms to sell around the world, to United States allies such as in Europe, where they are pushing for re-armament with Silicon Valley weapons companies. More information about spreading tech fascism in Europe can be found on our site.
The weapons build-out is accompanied by a new culture of militarization across the entire field. Most of the websites look nearly identical, using pages that unfold through sleek, angular, futuristic images of missiles, drones, spacecraft, and satellites -- all designed to look like video games and appeal to a new, young generation of tech fascists who will lead the weapons companies of the future. Human soldiers are essentially an afterthought and/or are largely missing in the widely-deployed "warfighter" moniker, "rebranding" these terms to mean computer engineers, tech workers and technical operators from startups.
This document has an enormous number of startups, and a lot of information -- but is still far from all of the companies. The amount of information here expresses the depth and breadth of the weapons build-out in a clear way. Scrolling from top to bottom alone will give a visceral sense of this.
For people seeking an introduction to these weapons companies, we have selected 17 of them that you can review right below this intro: startups selected to illuminate a number of dynamics in this space, that gives you a shorter read but still keeps you informed.
For people interested in exploring these weapons companies in deeper detail, we have left complete, top-to-bottom profiles to support your research. This page can be exported as a PDF for better viewing. If you are interested in specific search terms, use the search in your browser to narrow in on companies, locations, types of weapons system, surveillance, policing, conflicts/wars, etc.
It is time for a broad-based anti-war movement aimed at the new venture capital military and its takeover of governments, military institutions, and accelerationist foreign policy.
Quick Read: 17 Top Weapons Startups
Founded 2017, $11.4 billion raised from Andreessen Horowitz, In-Q-Tel, Founders Fund, BlackRock, Department of War, General Catalyst, Valor Equity Partners, 8VC, Spark Capital, Lux Capital, Thrive Capital, Lighspeed Venture Partners, Quiet Capital, Craft Ventures
Anduril delivers a new vision of warfare, based on autonomous vehicles for land and sea, mass-scale lethal drone warfare, and AI-enabled battlefield intelligence. They are the biggest and most important VC-backed weapons startup, and have over 7,000 employees. They are designed to be the "prime" of the venture capital military; a large defense contractor taking the role of a company like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman or Raytheon.
Anduril products include:
Roadrunner: line of autonomous air vehicles reaching high-subsonic speeds, including a model built to "rapidly launch, identify, intercept, and destroy a wide variety of aerial threats".
Thunder: autonomous attack rotorcraft; "Thunder's modular internal payload bays & open architecture can host combinations of current & future precision munitions, air-launched effects, rockets, & counter UAS effectors."
Barracuda: line of autonomous air vehicles for hyper-scale production, including the cruise missile Barracuda M.
Ghost: a quiet air vehicle featured on the website as dropping munitions, carrying a payload of up to 25 pounds.
Menace-X: a "turnkey" command, control, communications and compute platform for military transport vehicles; Menace-X can be set up in 10 minutes.
Dive-XL: An extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle that can carry multiple large payloads, "tailor-made for long-range missions requiring delivery of large payloads – such as offshore oil or gas infrastructure operations." Anduril is ramping up production of its underseas drones in Rhode Island.
Fury: Autonomous air vehicle advertising "rapid and scalable production at a fraction of the cost of a crewed fighter."
Lattice Mesh: "Lattice Mesh™ is a decentralized mesh networking capability that securely distributes data across services, domains, platforms, and long distances providing access to critical information in remote, degraded, and low-bandwidth environments at the tactical edge. Lattice Mesh connects thousands of Anduril and Third-Party systems across the world in support of real-world operations."
Anduril is also building for space applications, with Anduril calling space "a contested warfighting domain". They have partnerships with Impulse Space, ApexSpace, and Argo Space to further this mission.
Anduril has deployed over 400 sentry towers for border security and base defense, "securing over 30% of the U.S. southern land border". They have additional products not enumerated here, but with similar designs and use cases.
Anduril has a factory in Ohio, with 5 million square feet and $900 million in investment. It is also working towards a manufacturing site for its drone boats, in a Baltimore shipyard. It has leased more than 1 million square feet of land in Long Beach for manufacturing and R&D with a $1 billion investment plan. It also has offices in Washington state, including "a multi-acre military testing facility near Carnation, Wash". According to Wired, Anduril has "10 or so factories, half a dozen test sites, and around 30 offices span at least 18 US states and territories and eight countries abroad".
In 2024 and 2025, Anduril engaged in many projects and contracts. It was selected by the US Navy to develop a Counter Unmanned Aerial System (CUAS) Engagement System (CES). The Department of Defense selected Anduril’s Ghost-X aerial drones for mass production. In 2025, the U.S. Army assigned Anduril a contract to develop a prototype command and control (C2) architecture for its Next‑Generation Command and Control (NGC2) initiative. The Department of Defense awarded Anduril with the Defense Production Act Investment in order to expand solid rocket motors industrial base.
Anduril and South Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai have said they’re teaming up to “reimagine and expand American and allied seapower”. Oracle and Anduril have partnered to deliver “AI-powered defense solutions from the datacenter to the tactical edge”. The Taiwan Ministry of Defense signed an agreement with the U.S. government, permitting procurement for as many as 1,000 “attack drones” via Anduril and AeroVironment. Taiwan is a key part of the supply chain for artificial intelligence development and has been an ongoing site of tension in the ongoing US/China cold war. Anduril also has an agreement with the Polish government to produce its planned Barracuda cruise missiles in Poland; "U.S. defense-technology company Anduril Industries has teamed up with Poland’s state-run defense giant PGZ for local assembly and production of the surface-launched Barracuda-500M cruise missile. Pending ongoing negotiations with the Polish Ministry of National Defence, the producer is also pitching its Fury autonomous combat aircraft and the Thunder autonomous attack rotorcraft to Poland in an effort that could make the nation their first European user."
In January 2026, Anduril gained a contract with U.S. Marine Corps to "provide dismounted Marine infantry rifle squads with a man-packable (easy to carry), easy-to-operate precision strike capability to engage adversaries beyond line of sight." They are working with Boeing to create a midrange interceptor "to defend against cruise missiles and hostile drones". The United States Air Force has given Anduril's Fury its formal name of FQ-44 Fury, with Defence Security Asia stating: "The announcement carries greater significance than branding because Washington intends to acquire approximately 1,000 combat-ready, semi-autonomous aircraft, creating affordable mass designed to extend the reach, awareness and survivability of crewed fighters without proportionally expanding pilot numbers." The Air Force plans to field at least 500 semi-autonomous fighter drones and 500 strike drones by 2032, including Anduril's Fury.
Commenting on the naming, Palmer Luckey posted on X: "In Chinese culture, the number '44' is considered unlucky because the pronunciation of "four" (四, si) sounds similar to the word for "death" (死, si), and '44' is seen as 'double death'." Fury is now undergoing integration to carry a range of air-to-ground weapons; they are also integrating 500-pound guided bombs, small diameter bombs, and low-cost cruise missiles. It has also executed a rocket launch from a Black Hawk helicopter.
Anduril has partnered with Hermeus, another weapons startup profiled in this document, "to equip its high-Mach Quarterhorse uncrewed aircraft with a flight-proven mission autonomy system." They are partnering with Boeing as part of an U.S. army effort "to develop a new, mass-producible midrange air-defense missile to protect bases and troops from cruise missiles, drones, and other aerial threats." With a long-running partnership with Palantir, in 2026 the companies received production contracts for "the Army’s next-generation ground system that will collect and disseminate intelligence to the battlefield, synthesizing it from joint and national assets based on Earth and in space." It is also developing military headsets with AR, AI, night vision and other capabilities, building on Palmer Luckey's previous work on virtual reality headsets. Additional updates to Anduril can be found on their news page.
An Anduril manifesto, "Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy," lays out its mission and thesis; a selection:
"The most glaring herald of our decline is in our military’s technology. .. . Software has, to paraphrase Marc Andreessen, tried to eat the world, but with the battlefield it found a meal too ungainly to digest. Despite spending more money than ever on defense, our military technology stays the same... The results are sobering: today, in almost every wargame the United States Department of Defense models against China, China wins... It is time to recapture that spirit of innovation and bring cutting-edge technology to our armed forces again. War in Eastern Europe, the looming threat of a Taiwan invasion, and a rising tide of security threats in other regions of the world demand it... The largest defense contractors are staffed with patriots who nevertheless do not have the software expertise or business model to build the technology we need. Tomorrow’s weapons – autonomous systems, cyberweapons and defenses, networked systems, and more – are enabled through software, while these companies specialize in hardware. These companies work slowly, while the best engineers relish working at speed. And the software engineering talent who can build faster than our adversaries resides in the commercial sector, not at large defense primes. These companies built the tools that kept us safe in the past, but they are not the future of our defense... With the right technology, the right ways of building, and the right partners in the armed forces, we can build the systems that will safeguard the allied democracies for the next century and beyond."
In July 2025, Palmer Luckey posted "Anduril had people/hardware in Ukraine two weeks into the invasion. Our autonomous weapons have destroyed hundreds of millions worth of Russia's war machine." Its drones have faced challenges in Ukraine, with a Fortune profile stating Anduril's CEO "admits frankly that Altius didn’t match Ukraine’s needs. Altius was designed for launching from aircraft, he explains, which is correct for a U.S. context, because U.S. forces are usually fighting far from their bases. For Ukraine, he says, cheap, land-based, and mass-producible turned out to be the better option." Ukraine is widely known as a testbed for new drone technologies; the Council on Foreign Relations stating "Ukraine was able to produce an estimated four million robotic and autonomous systems in 2025, and is, by all counts, on track to produce between five million to six million in 2026." On October 9, 2026, Palmer Luckey wrote on X: "...there is a reason Ukraine has been consistently asking for more and more Anduril tech for years now."
From a Wired profile on the company:
"In Anduril’s portrayal, traditional defense companies typically don’t build something until the customer has specified exactly what it’s looking for. By contrast, Anduril has developed about a dozen different prototype products, and acquired the startups behind a dozen more, without always knowing for sure that someone will buy them. The company can do this because of support from venture capitalists including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital—more than $6 billion so far, with another $4 billion likely on the way. Its annual R&D spending is on the order of Lockheed Martin’s $2 billion last year, says Paul Kwan, managing director at investment firm General Catalyst and an observer on Anduril’s board."
Fortune additionally reports that Anduril's "growth plan includes selling drones like Altius, an offensive-munitions product, in volume to Taiwan and Ukraine, and eventually for its Barracuda missile to find traction as a long-range strike weapon. Ideally everything will reach the market quickly, if imperfectly, rather than Anduril waiting another decade and spending billions to reach 100% perfection."
Anduril's Altius-600M attack drones were delivered to Taiwan in 2025; from Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense: "In the afternoon, Minister Koo, accompanied by Army Vice Minister Lieutenant General Yang Chi-JUNG, Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Chen Chien-Yi, and heads of relevant Ministry of National Defense units, met with Mr. Palmer Luckey and his delegation. In his remarks, Minister Koo stated that this project, initiated last year, achieved rapid delivery of the first batch this year, providing the ROC Armed Forces with critical 'immediate combat readiness' and effectively enhancing ground defense in depth and strike capabilities."
Anduril has also delivered critical systems for Operation Epic Fury, used against the Iranian Shahed drones, with an Anduril executive stating "We're heavy participants in the current conflict in the Middle East, mainly on the defensive side". Iran captured one of Anduril's autonomous underwater vehicles in the Straits of Hormuz in August 2026. News coverage stated "Tehran already appears to be having a field day with the situation, with Iranian embassies around the world mocking the U.S. for losing the drone."
Commenting on the war with Iran, Anduril's CEO Brian Schimpf told Fortune: "'The U.S. and Israel did something like ten times as many strikes in the first month of the war as they did in the entire Gulf War. This is the new normal of what these conflicts are going to look like.'... Modern conflicts, he argued, are no longer primarily about destroying military assets; they’re about strangling economies. Data centers, oil refineries, and shipping lanes are the targets now, and low-cost drones have made striking them cheaper than ever. 'The economic warfare that is effectively the Strait of Hormuz, this is the new normal of what these conflicts are going to look like,' he said."
Elbit, Israel's large military company, is partnering with Anduril on a mobile tactical cannon for the U.S. Army.
Anduril is making aggressive moves to enter the Israeli market, with Palmer Luckey meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in a "secret" visit to Israel in February 2026; in June 2026, "meeting with a number of senior officials in Israel to establish a local operation that will deal with sales to the Ministry of Defense and R&D for its global products". According to the Jerusalem Post, "The aim of the delegation is to promote deals to sell the company's products to Israel's Ministry of Defense, with an emphasis on command and control systems." The company is said to be considering a permanent Israeli representative in-country, and are reported by Israeli media to have looked at a former Israeli Air Force Commander.
Senior executives of Anduril invested in Israeli startup, Traysar, for "underground warfare" for "terrorist" tunnels and military bases; Lux Capital, Craft Ventures (David Sacks), and engineers from SpaceX have also contributed to its funding.
Domestically, the U.S. National Guard has been provided with anti-drone technology from Anduril. The craft has flown alongside F-35 fighters during Air Force testing. Along with Palantir, Anduril has been awarded a NATO contract for its Lattice software. Anduril has a contract worth up to $20 billion from the U.S. Army for counter-drone operations.
Anduril also has a partnership with OpenAI, to deploy Anduril's AI for "national security missions".
Arsenal-2, "a new software- defined shipyard" project from Anduril is slated for construction in Baltimore County, Maryland with the facility totaling "more than 2 million square feet — roughly 40 football fields" and "will expand America’s submarine industrial base and continue a legacy of naval shipbuilding at Sparrows Point, where Bethlehem Steel produced steel and ships during both World Wars."
In a press release by Anduril,
"Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. Navy has awarded Anduril a contract of up to $2.9 billion, with payments tied directly to demonstrated production outcomes. This contract structure ensures that Anduril, not the taxpayer, takes on the majority of the execution risk, aligning incentives to ensure on-time, high-quality submarine production. Altogether, this equates to a $6.6 billion investment in America’s submarine industrial base."
Maryland Governor, Wes Moore states, "This massive new project will deliver the largest private investment and create the most jobs in Maryland in over a decade—driving billions of dollars in economic activity that will boost Maryland families not just in Baltimore County, but throughout the state..."
Founded 2022, $1.5 billion raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Quiet Capital, Silent Ventures, Lightspeed, General Catalyst, Valor Equity Partners, Space.vc., JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Castelion builds "affordable" long-range strike hypersonic weapons, focusing on rapid development and testing and integration with existing war platforms. A common theme across the venture capital weapons portfolio is mass-manufacturing weapons systems, using economies of scale to drive prices down.
Coming out of stealth mode, in 2024 Castelion successfully tested their first hypersonic prototype in the Mojave Desert. It announced a new $1 billion fund raise in August 2026 to scale production of its Blackbeard missile, stating "Castelion has secured more than $500 million in U.S. military contracts over the past 18 months and took Blackbeard from a clean sheet to program of record in under four years, with fielding targeted for 2027."
In May 2026, Castelion announced, "a production framework agreement with the Department of War to manufacture and field Blackbeard, its first low-cost hypersonic strike missile, at a guaranteed minimum of 500 missiles per year once testing and validation is complete, with a pathway to purchase thousands of additional missiles."
It has launched construction of a manufacturing campus in New Mexico, and partnered with Saronic, another VC-funded weapons startup profiled on this page, to launch Castelion's missiles from Saronic's autonomous surface vehicles ("drone boat"). As the weapons startups are funded by the same small group of venture capital firms, they are able to work together very closely, advancing the overall military build-out through R&D, partnership and integration.
Founded 2022, $2.7 billion raised from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, Quiet Capital, US Innovative Technology Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer.
Saronic makes military autonomous surface vessels for naval and maritime forces. It identifies and tracks targets using sensors and artificial intelligence, can be orchestrated as a swarm, and integrates with a variety of weapons systems, including loitering munitions. Their mission statement says: "Through improved sensors and surveillance systems, advanced communication technologies, and enhanced situational awareness tools, we enable military commands to better detect, track, and respond to potential threats in the maritime domain. By providing naval and maritime forces with the most intelligent autonomous surface vessels available, we directly increase their ability to address the emerging challenges of the future, and revolutionize the future of naval warfare."
Its vessels are “Attritable: Produced at scale for mass deployment and utilization in high risk missions."
They offer three vessels, including 24, 52, and 180 feet , and carrying up to 150 metric tons of payload.
Saronic is building a "next-generation" shipyard in the Port of Brownsville, Texas, with the company stating:
"The announcement marks a major milestone in Saronic’s mission to restore U.S. shipbuilding capacity at scale. First introduced as a vision for the future of maritime manufacturing, Port Alpha now moves from concept to reality through a planned investment of more than $3 billion that aims to establish one of the most advanced shipyards in the world, built for software-defined shipbuilding and autonomous maritime systems.
The project is expected to generate more than $160 billion in regional economic impact for Cameron County and $264.5 billion for the State of Texas, while creating up to 10,000 direct jobs. This makes Port Alpha one of the largest economic development projects in modern Texas history. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2026, with Port Alpha expected to open for operations in 2028...
More than a shipyard, Port Alpha represents a new model for American shipbuilding — combining advanced manufacturing, software-defined production, and autonomy at unprecedented scale."
Cameron County, Texas has agreed to a 95% tax break for Saronic, contingent on 35% of its workers living in the Rio Grande Valley. The Saronic shipyard was originally planned for the Network State project California Forever, however, this does not exclude the possibility of a future presence; Saronic also has a shipyard location in Franklin, Louisiana.
Founded 2021, $3.3 billion raised from General Catalyst, Prima Materia, Saab, Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, ICONIQ Capital, JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Helsing is an AI-enabled drone company serving the full war theatre for sea, air and land operations. It offers an autonomous fighter jet, and a mass-producible strike drone operating in a swarm formation, which can carry anti-tank and anti-structure munitions. They also create underwater autonomous swarms for the "underwater battlespace"; targeting systems; "AI pilots" to enable existing warcrafts with artificial intelligence capabilities; and anti-aircraft radars for electronic warfare.
Based in Germany, and serving US allies, Helsing has contracts with Germany, France and England. Helsing is active in the war in Ukraine, stating "The conflict in Ukraine has exposed a critical need for sovereign and distributed production capabilities at scale across Europe and NATO, especially for intelligent mass like UAVs and precision munitions..." and stating in a press release, "Helsing has been present in the country since early 2022, and the team has grown steadily since. Thousands of units of HX-2, Helsing's AI-enabled strike drone, have been deployed to the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the beginning of [2026] alone."
Helsing is building "resilience factories" to "ensure local and sovereign manufacturing capabilities for nation states. Helsing is building Resilience Factories across the European continent, thereby unlocking distributed production capacities for critical defence assets, with each location gaining the ability to source from local supply chains and workforces." The first Resilience Factory is being built in West Virginia, with a Helsing executive reporting "we’ll be able to produce 2,000 strike drones per month. That’s more than any like capability presently being produced in the US today."
A 2026 profile on Helsing's factory in Germany can be found here, with the NY Times reporting "For investors, Helsing’s key advantage comes from its role in the grueling combat in Ukraine, where Helsing has deployed thousands of drones since late 2024. Those missions provide Helsing a trove of data, allowing it to update its software regularly; Ukrainian soldiers record many attacks on video, for mission-success analysis. 'There is so much more at stake here,' Scherf said. 'These technologies move very fast.'"
Helsing has signed an agreement with EURENCO -- which manufactures explosives, propellant and military fuels -- "to deliver sovereign European warheads for HX-2, Helsing's AI-defined strike drone. Designed for European armed forces, the capability will be built to meet French operational requirements in the first instance."
It is working on a deal to provide its technology to Germany's military, with Politico reporting "Under the contract, Helsing is supposed to deliver two experimental uncrewed combat aircraft, two ground control stations, a ground segment, operating system software, autonomy software and a government-owned reference architecture that other systems could plug into... Germany is moving ahead with a national air-combat architecture that could shape how future European drones, aircraft and sensors operate together." Helsing is also doing trials for Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force.
The language of military sovereignty deployed by Helsing is similar to tech arguments for "sovereign clouds", where data centers and AI technology developed by tech fascist VC firms are sold as "sovereign solutions". However, venture capitalists, themselves seeking sovereignty, and building, deploying and operating these weapons factories, are not in fact extending sovereignty to host countries, but rather setting up their own military footprint within them.
This is visible in the funding of Terra Industries in Nigeria, where the company is being presented as a sovereign defense company despite being funded largely by extremist U.S. venture capitalists. Venture capitalists promise to sell sovereignty when in actuality, the growth of their military project establishes their own sovereignty and undermines that of its host countries. More information on Terra Industries can be found in this document.
Founded 2019, $522.7 million raised from Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Decisive Point, Draper Associates, US Department of Energy (grant), DCVC, In-Q-Tel, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures.
Radiant creates portable nuclear reactors for military sites and installations. Hundreds of the reactors can be connected to their monitoring software. Just one of the nuclear microreactors, Kaleido, "can power 1,000 homes for 5 years," and is "transportable by land, sea, or air and deployed directly at customer sites." They are a dual use technology, for both commercial and government customers, and their nuclear reactors are designed to be the size of a shipping container.
In Andreessen Horowitz's funding announcement for Radiant in 2023, partner David Ulevitch said:
"Most people don’t know that nuclear energy — a clean, carbon-free energy source — accounts for 20% of electricity in the United States and over half of its carbon-free electricity. However, while large nuclear reactors are often (erroneously) villainized — and face extraordinarily high regulatory hurdles and long timelines — less attention has been paid to how nuclear fission can produce reliable, abundant, clean energy in places outside of the standard grid. There are many locations around the world where the utility electrical supply is insufficient, unreliable, or non-existent – such as microgrids, military sites, and more...
[Radiant's] portable design makes it possible to produce energy wherever it’s needed, without grid infrastructure. And their use of TRISO fuel cores and helium cooling ensures the reactors are safe and resilient...
Small, modular, and portable nuclear reactors have the potential to usher in an era of energy abundance and reliability, and we are excited by the mission of the Radiant team to make this a reality."
Radiant secured a $3.8 million award from the Department of Defense as part of its efforts to develop "advanced energy conversion methods that can be applicable to warfighters of the modern era and the rapidly evolving energy landscape of the battlefield.”
In 2026, the Air Force and Defense Innovation Unit selected Radiant to deliver microreactors to the Buckley Space Force Base, "to support critical national security and intelligence missions." The contract is worth $750 million. "Radiant’s Kaleidos microreactor will provide sustained, uninterrupted energy to support critical infrastructure for the Department of the Air Force... With a resilient, always-on power capability measured in years, not days, Kaleidos will provide the operational continuity and mission readiness that critical installations demand." They are looking at a 2028 timeline to deliver the first microreactors.
Supporting this mission, Radiant is building a factory on a site previously used for the Manhattan Project, in Tennessee, with a press release explaining "Oak Ridge was home to some of the first nuclear facilities in the world," and Radiant's CEO stating: "What was formerly the first Manhattan Project site will now be the site of the first portable nuclear generator production." They are initially hoping to produce up to 50 reactors per year.
Radiant has been selected by the Department of Energy to receive high-assay low-enriched uranium [HALEU], which "contains between 5% and 20% uranium-235, but the material is not currently commercially available from US domestic suppliers - the existing nuclear fleet uses low-enriched uranium fuel, which contains up to 5% of the fissile uranium isotope. Gaps in supply could delay the deployment of advanced reactors. To address this, the DOE set up the HALEU Availability Program in 2020 to secure a domestic supply of HALEU for civilian domestic research, development, demonstration, and commercial use, which developed into the allocation process." Commenting on the award, Ted Garrish, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, said "The US Department of Energy's HALEU Availability Program is an important stepping-stone for the nuclear industry as we work to establish a domestic nuclear fuel supply in support of the American nuclear renaissance."
Equinix, one of the largest data center providers in the world, has also signed an agreement with Radiant to develop "innovative approaches to generating reliable and sustainable electricity to support the needs of Equinix data centers worldwide... Next generation nuclear technologies can offer a pathway to faster nuclear deployments due to their simplified design and robust safety features. Equinix sees safe, efficient and reliable nuclear energy as a promising solution to help power both data centers and the broader grid." Oklo, a small modular reactor company funded by Sam Altman, is also part of the efforts.
Founded 2020, $2.3 billion raised from Andreessen Horowitz, a16z crypto, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, 1789 Capital, JPMorganChase, Valor Equity Partners, Apollo.
Hadrian is building factories to manufacture precision components for the defense industry, leveraging AI. It creates factories "as-a-service", and operated by Hadrian, "to deliver at unprecedented speed, scale, schedule, and quality". It will build and operate dedicated facilities for its customers, removing overhead costs: "a model that allows defense primes and other industries to scale factories to meet existing or new Program of Record demand for parts, assemblies, or entire products." They also integrate with existing factories.
Use cases include building parts for rockets, satellites, jets and drones, citing competition with China's industrial base. It has partnered with Lockheed Martin to accelerate missile production through its "factory-as-a-service". They have a partnership with Fortastra to build advanced spacecraft, and with Anduril to supply precision parts for Anduril's systems.
In August 2024, Hadrian acquired Datum Source, a maker of procurement software. They currently have two factories in California, including a R&D facility and manufacturing facility, and a larger facility in Arizona, with a dedicated division for maritime defense, and the delivery of their "factories as a service": "a model that allows defense primes and other industries to scale factories to meet existing or new Program of Record demand for parts, assemblies, or entire products." It is planning an R&D hub in San Francisco. In August 2026, Hadrian raised $1.37 billion as it reached 3 million square feet of footprint.
Founded 2020, $57.1 million raised from Alumni Ventures, Bessemer, Initialized Capital, Starburst Ventures, NATO DIANA.
Picogrid creates products for a full view of military operations, integrating sensors and platforms across all domains, including space. Use cases include base security, air defense, and satellite operations. They state "We’re building a future where information moves freely across echelons: a Commanding General can review threats from a coffee shop, while a Defender on the ground receives real-time intelligence from every sensor in the network."
Picogrid is positioned for a role in the Golden Dome, writing on a product page:
"The Golden Dome initiative aims to build a nationwide missile defense architecture capable of detecting, tracking, and intercepting advanced threats—including ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles. But as the system grows to include more dispersed sensors, interceptors, and communication nodes across air, space, and ground, a key challenge emerges: How do you integrate these assets into a single operational picture that enables fast, autonomous response—without locking into a single vendor or platform?... Picogrid is already operational across more than a dozen U.S. military installations and expeditionary sites, integrating force protection sensors into a unified operational picture. In these environments, we detect thousands of threats and process over 3 million data points daily through AI-enabled pipelines."
Picogrid has an "ecosystem" of more than 100 partners, including weapons startups Echodyne, Zeroeyes and Skydio, profiled in this document, as well as Northrop Grumman, Alta Ares and CX2.
It was selected for NATO’s Decision Superiority Warfighter Challenge to support the Maven project: "NATO commanders face an overwhelming influx of sensor data, yet starved for a unified operating picture. Picogrid’s platform enables commanders to act at speed, transforming isolated edge data points into the real-time, cross-domain decision superiority required to outpace modern threats."
Picogrid is working with the U.S. Army (on multiple projects,) the XVIII Airborne Corps, Guardian RF (profiled in this document), the Space Force, and the U.S. Air Force to increase security at critical sites. Picogrid secured a $950 million Air Force contract in 2023. It was awarded a $1.1 million contract from the U.S. Army in summer 2025, and a $9 million contract from the Air Force for counter-drone software in 2026.
Picogrid has partnered with Cameron University in Oklahoma to develop military software, bringing students into the weapons development; Picogrid co-founder stating "We are not just developing technology; we are building a workforce." It also has a factory in El Segundo.
Founded 2018, $566 million raised from Khosla Ventures, NASA, United States Air Force, Founders Fund, In-Q-Tel, Sam Altman, Hercules Capital.
Hermeus is developing autonomous high-Mach aircraft, including its "Mission Plane" prototype: "a mission-ready aircraft built for the American warfighter." Its line of Quarterhose planes are unmanned or remotely piloted. Their aircrafts, under development, includes the Mk 1, which has demonstrated takeoff and landing at the Edwards Air Force Base, and the Mk 2.1, a supersonic-capable aircraft. The MK 2.2 and 2.3 are designed to reach Mach 2 and near Mach 3 respectively. In September 2026, Hermeus was granted FAA approval to test its Mk 2.2 aircraft at supersonic speeds.
The Mk 3 is slated to become "the fastest runway-launched airplane in history," and the Mk 4 "the world’s first hypersonic airplane powered by a Turbine-Based Combined Cycle (TBCC) engine." Darkhorse, a reusable hypersonic uncrewed aerial system, is planned for defense and national security missions.
Hermeus states: "By flying our first aircraft in 2025 and reaching supersonic flight exactly 364 days later, Hermeus became the fastest company in aviation history to go from founding to supersonic flight. We built the world’s first private, unmanned supersonic jet - the fastest unmanned aircraft flying today."
Its current CEO was an early employee at Anduril, with whom Hermeus now has a partnership, to integrate Anduril's mission autonomy system into its aircraft: "This integration also puts into practice what the Department of War, and the Air Force in particular, has urged industry to embrace: modular, interoperable systems where hardware and software can develop independently. Pairing Anduril’s autonomy stack with Hermeus’ high-speed aircraft shows how cross-industry collaboration can deliver operational capability to the warfighter years ahead of traditional timelines."
Hermeus has a contract with the Defense Innovation Unit, worth up to $219 million, and partnered with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to prove "that uncrewed aircraft can reliably reach high-Mach speeds and release payloads in flight, establishing the technical foundation for future military use cases."
Hermeus is headquartered in El Segundo, where it has leased 67,000 square feet and can benefit from the large concentration of defense startups in the region, with the Los Angeles Times reporting:
"Hemmed in by a refinery, LAX and miles of factories and warehouses, El Segundo was once a working-class neighborhood better known for its aroma than its lifestyle. Today, powered by SpaceX and other high-tech, high-growth companies, it has evolved into an upscale enclave perfectly positioned for some of the region’s hottest businesses. The South Bay city is building a new narrative, using the warehouses, offices, industrial lots and homes that were part of its deep history in aerospace, oil and defense and catching the next waves of innovation in space, finance, sports and even toys. SpaceX started in El Segundo and has since spawned more than 100 startups, many in the area."
Founded 2016, $15.9 billion raised from Founders Fund, Y Combinator, Spark Capital, Accel, Thrive Capital, Spark Capital, Coatue, Amazon, Tiger Global Management, NVIDIA, Meta.
Scale AI is artificial intelligence, machine learning and agentic AI for defense, government and the enterprise. Its mission "is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions." It says it is "in production by the U.S. military’s largest programs", with customers listed including Air Force Research Laboratory, the U.S Army, the U.S. Air Force, the Defense Innovation Unit, the White House, BAE Systems, the Defense Logistics Agency and others. Scale AI reports it has been deployed on classified networks for over 6 years: "Scale is a model-, data-, and infrastructure-agnostic AI factory that connects to classified data across any infrastructure—CUI, SIPR, SC2S, and JWICS—without exquisite AI integrations, or vendor lock-in." Use cases include AI war planning, naval decision-making and maritime security.
Scale AI is part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, and announced in spring 2026 that its contract with the Pentagon had increased to a possible total value of $500 million, and is integrated with Anduril on the Thunderforge project to bring AI agents into the military.
Scale AI also serves healthcare and enterprise customers, used by Meta, Cisco, Cohere, TIME, Paramount, BP Oil and others. The Mayo Clinic is also a customer, leveraging the technology for its AI development, with the customer case built on streamlining processes, automating detection of safety events, and reducing administrative overhead.
The company has a contract with Qatar's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, as it works to develop Arabic language-based AI systems. In a post by Scale AI's country lead for Saudi Arabia, "Most immediately, my priority is to establish Scale as the partner of choice for the Kingdom's most strategic AI initiatives. This means building tangible applications that enhance tourism and citizen satisfaction, improve healthcare and education, and optimize operations and security for giga-projects and global events. In the years ahead, I envision a significant Scale presence, having enabled hundreds of unique AI solutions and built a substantial ecosystem of local data and AI experts. The ultimate measure of success will be whether Saudi Arabia achieves its goal of becoming a global AI leader. A world-class applications infrastructure, built on a solid foundation of data, is how we get there."
Scale AI can be used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and autonomous military vehicles and weapons systems. It is currently used by the US Air Force, the US Army, the White House, the Defense Innovation Unit, and Shield AI, another weapons startup covered in this document.
In 2026, Scale AI settled a serious legal action: "In four suits filed in San Francisco Superior Court between December 2024 and May 2025, former workers Steve McKinney, Amber Rogowicz, and Chloe Agape, among others, accused Scale AI of misclassifying them as contractors, underpaying them, and denying them benefits, like overtime and sick pay, they would have been entitled to as regular employees." It is additionally facing a lawsuit over psychological trauma sustained by workers exposed to traumatizing content in data labeling work.
Scale AI published a whitepaper on Agentic Warfare [PDF]; some excerpts:
"The era of Agentic Warfare has begun. The first nation to fully operationalize agentic systems in military decision-making will shape the course of the 21st century... These systems consist of multiple AI agents, each performing specific and coordinated tasks, forming constellations of immense computational power. Harnessed by the Department of War, these systems enable U.S. forces to outpace and outmaneuver even our most capable opponents...
Imagine: constellations of specialized AI agents, collaborating to supercharge human insight across the full Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA) loop, from strategic signaling down to tactical movements. One system processes satellite imagery; another cross-references SIGINT; another examines political and economic shifts; another runs physics-based simulations. Together, they tackle levels of complexity that would swamp even the best human staff. By running thousands of scenarios in parallel, these new systems enable U.S. forces to better probe for enemy weaknesses, distinguish threat from bluff, and optimize strategies at a pace that far outstrips an adversary’s decision cycle. It’s like a game of chess where one player can make three moves while the other can only make one...
China is already racing to build ‘intelligentized’ forces in which ‘command brains’ and autonomous swarms compress U.S. decision times, multiplying the People’s Liberation Army’s advantages of geography and mass in their near-abroad. A land war remains ongoing in Europe. Drones and loitering munitions drove the most violent exchanges in the Middle East in twenty years. Meanwhile, threats to the homeland are proliferating. The United States must mobilize with the urgency of a nation at war. Rather than wielding wrenches as we did to win World War II, we must instead build the compute, data, networks, and agent-based systems that will deliver agentic capabilities to warfighters and commanders..."
The whitepaper includes recommendations to the American government, focused on accelerating prototypes; "a new Executive Order or National Security Memorandum that would charge the Department of War and Intelligence Community with realizing the full potential of agentic systems;" the collaboration of Congress with the Department of War to "aggressively fund" the projects; as well as training in the military curriculum, and adoption across the U.S. military and NATO allies. This highlights how tech companies are increasingly using their positions to invent and shape military policy.
In 2025, Meta took a large stake in Scale AI to develop a new AI model, which was rolled out in 2026.
In November 2024, RE:AI partnered with Scale AI to offer Asia Pacific enterprises their generative AI technologies.
Founded 2015, $3.6 billion raised from Andreessen Horowitz, US Innovative Technology Fund, SVB Capital, Riot Ventures, Chaos Ventures, ARK Investment Management, Hercules Capital, Blackstone.
Shield AI creates battlefield, autonomous drone swarms and aircraft systems, with the strategic emphasis on AI piloting. It envisions warfare with “AI pilots powering every military asset: aircraft, drones, ships, satellites and submarines... The lack of software and AI engineering talent from large defense primes presented an opportunity to start fresh and build the aerospace and defense technology company of the 21st century focused on AI pilots."
In addition to locations in Washington D.C., Dallas, Texas and San Diego, California, the company has a presence in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Victoria, Australia and Kyiv, Ukraine. In March 2026, it raised $2 billion in funding.
Shield AI's products include Hivemind, its main autonomous software platform providing "turnkey AI pilots for your unmanned system and mission". The Israeli Yamam, the Israel Police's "counter-terrorism" unit, provides a testimonial: “Hivemind saved many lives in combat.”
Shield AI also quotes a Ukrainian drone operator: "With Hivemind we go where no other unmanned aircraft can, deep into Russian held territory, always in GPS and GNSS denied environments." Hivemind has been integrated with Anduril's YFQ-44A aircraft through a U.S. Air Force program for Collaborative Combat Aircraft: "the Air Force’s selection of Hivemind marks a historic shift in defense acquisition towards software-led autonomy. The program also seeks to establish a universal standard for mission autonomy through implementing the Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA), a modular, open-systems approach, to prioritize speed, innovation and a software-first mindset." Shield AI was awarded the first production contract for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program in June 2026. It has also been integrated with Northrop Grumman's Talon IQ, General Atomic's MQ-20 Avenger, and others.
Shield AI's other products include the X-BAT, the "first AI-Piloted" VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) Fighter Jet, and V-BAT, an autonomous drone for "Securing borders, hunting drugs, finding threats." Its website provides photos of the drones with Ukrainian military operators. Its Aechelon reality simulator for military training is used by "more than 1,200 U.S. DoW operational flight training systems and simulation programs across the U.S., NATO, and allied nations."
CBS News, reporting on Ukraine strikes on Russian targets in 2026, wrote:
"In early March, an American-made reconnaissance aircraft glided above Ukraine's choppy Black Sea waters, scanning for Russian targets below. As it approached a gas field just off Ukraine's southern coast, operators monitoring the feed saw what appeared to be Russian soldiers and military equipment on top of an oil rig.
Calling in a fleet of sea drones, Ukraine's navy began firing on the rig. When a nearby Russian Ka-27 helicopter landed to evacuate personnel and equipment, a Ukrainian aerial drone swooped down, exploding on contact with the aircraft.
The engagement cost Russia over $1.5 million in military equipment, and according to Ukraine's navy, destroyed a key Russian platform for strikes into neighboring Ukrainian regions. It was one early example of a more aggressive Ukrainian strategy to use longer-range strike drones to deplete Russia's resources...
The reconnaissance aircraft that spotted the oil rig — a long-range surveillance drone known as the 'V-BAT,' manufactured by the American defense firm Shield AI — has played an increasingly important role in this campaign.
'We focus on targets that are expensive, strategically valuable, or difficult to replace,' a Ukrainian naval V-BAT operator, who goes by the call sign 'Negative' said.
The drones' reconnaissance flights deep inside Russia have allowed Kyiv to expand its strikes targeting military, energy and logistics infrastructure...
Ukrainian officials say the V-BAT has helped identify the location of Russia's more expensive air defenses, such as its S-400 systems. The aircraft also has AI software on board that programs its routes based on the locations of known Russian air defenses."
In the context of the ongoing war with Iran, the Pentagon's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering "said it will integrate Shield AI’s autonomous Hivemind software to power low-cost uncrewed combat attack systems, or LUCAS drones. Shield said the artificial intelligence software will allow the military to coordinate and adapt swarms of LUCAS drones in a rapidly evolving battlefield environment. The technology also allows platforms to operate, adjust and make decisions without human intervention... The U.S. government is embracing new technology in the war against Iran, as the Middle East nation’s low-cost Shahed drones destroy expensive military systems and reshape the modern battlefield."
Shield AI had additional contracts with the Polish Navy and the Indian Army.
In August 2026, Drop Site News published the article "U.S.-Registered Drone Detected at Site of Suspected CIA Boat Strike":
"In the hours after a mysterious attack on an Ecuadorian fishing boat near the Galápagos Islands on March 17, a drone registered to U.S. defense contractor Shield AI was hovering just 500 meters from the burning vessel, La Negra Francisca, according to a review of flight tracking data by Drop Site News. This represents the first known vehicle to arrive at the site of the strike.
The unattributed bombing of three Ecuadorian fishing boats in January and March, and the subsequent abduction and torture of 36 fishermen, was first reported by Drop Site in April. Last week, The Washington Post, building on Drop Site’s ongoing investigation, reported that the attacks were part of a covert CIA operation.
According to flight and vessel tracking data from Radar 24 and Global Fishing Watch, the drone was a V-BAT model, primarily used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, but capable of carrying a weapons payload and switching its signal on and off to avoid detection.
The Shield AI drone matches the fishermen’s descriptions of the drones that circled their boats before the bombing, and bears the same red and green lights eyewitnesses reported seeing as they photographed the explosion.
Shield AI did not respond to a request for comment.
The CEO of Shield AI, Brandon Tseng, has publicly stated that the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy are using V-BAT drones 'to interdict and destroy billions of dollars’ worth of drugs that were headed for the United States of America.' In 2024, the U.S. Coast Guard signed a $198 million contract with Shield AI for V-BAT drones; in April 2026, Shield AI announced it had received an $800 million contract for V-BAT drones from the U.S. Navy.
No drugs were found on any of the three fishing boats investigated by Drop Site—the Negra Francisca, Don Maca, and Fiorella—all of which were searched and cleared by Ecuadorian coast guard personnel prior to the strikes...
Maria Mero, whose husband Gabriel Aladino Mero Delgado and brother Jefferson Ariel Mero Cueva both disappeared on the Fiorella, told Drop Site that her mother-in-law died awaiting her son’s return, falling into a deep depression and ceasing to eat in the weeks leading up to her death. Maria’s young daughter was hospitalized from the anxiety of going seven months without seeing her father. Gabriel’s disappearance also left a void in the family’s finances. Without him, Maria said, the ordinary necessities of life—groceries, her electricity bill, their daughter’s school uniform—are completely unaffordable.
'If the CIA or the United States or the El Salvador patrol or the president is reading this,' Maria said, 'please, I beg you, return my husband, my brother, and all the people who are with them.'"
Shield AI has a robust relationship with Taiwan, with a contract with Taiwan’s National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) to
"use Shield AI’s Hivemind platform to accelerate the development of locally produced AI pilots for the purposes of autonomous mission execution and coordinated multi-system teaming operations, enabling a single operator to supervise multiple unmanned systems from one ground control station. The effort combines use of the Hivemind software development kit (SDK) for integration on indigenously developed platforms with turnkey Hivemind integrations provided by Shield AI for demonstration on NCSIST’s multi-role unmanned systems, supporting sustained operations under limited manpower conditions.
'We are deeply committed to supporting Taiwan’s military and industrial ecosystem. We’ve established a local office at Taipei 101 and are hiring local Taiwanese teammates into high-tech jobs to protect and defend Taiwan. Through this partnership with NCSIST, we are helping enable the drone forces Taiwan is building with cutting-edge AI pilots that will allow drones to team and operate while GPS and communications are jammed,' said Brandon Tseng, president, co-founder, and a former Navy SEAL."
The partnership is referred to by the company as part of a "sovereign AI" program. Taiwan has reportedly allocated funding for 280 Shield AI V-BATs. According to 2026 reporting from the Taipei Times, "Two years ago, less than 1 percent of the materials used in Shield AI products came from Taiwan, [Shield AI Taiwan representative] Chen [Yi-ju] said. That figure had risen to 16 percent in May and June this year, and the company expects that Taiwanese suppliers could soon account for as much as 25 percent of the value of an individual drone." Shield AI has partnered with Taiwan's Thunder Tiger to team unmanned surface vessels.
A 2025 Fox News article states that "Shield AI's X-BAT [is] designed to counter China's strategy of destroying American aircraft before they leave the ground... Analysts say China has developed a chilling strategy for fighting a war with the United States: destroy America’s fighter jets before they ever leave the ground... The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has spent years building an arsenal of long-range precision missiles — including 'carrier killers' like the DF-21D and DF-26 — capable of destroying U.S. aircraft carriers and striking American airfields across the Pacific. The goal: keep U.S. air power out of range before it can even launch... Now, a U.S. defense technology firm says it has built a way to fight back. Shield AI, based in San Diego, has unveiled a new AI-piloted fighter jet designed to operate without runways, without GPS, and without constant communication links — an aircraft that can think, fly and fight on its own."
In June 2026, Reuters reported that
"A Romanian Navy official's hand was caught in a V-BAT propeller on May 12 during a Shield AI training exercise on a boat off the Texas coast – severing two of her fingers and fracturing a third, a spokesperson for Romania's Ministry of National Defence told Reuters.
The incident, which has not previously been reported, comes as Shield AI struggles to overcome years of technical hitches and safety concerns with its V-BAT, according to interviews with 21 former employees, industry executives and investors, and a Reuters review of a whistleblower complaint, a lawsuit related to hostile work environments and company presentations.
Reuters found that the V-BAT has crashed more than 50 times over the past 18 months, that several staff who raised safety concerns were dismissed and that a Cessna plane with a Shield AI employee and his child aboard had to take evasive action to avoid a mid-air collision with a V-BAT.
Shield AI also allegedly obscured technical flaws with its V-BAT, which costs about $1 million, to help land military sales, according to a previously unreported whistleblower complaint filed in May to the Department of Labor's Office of Administrative Law Judges and reviewed by Reuters."
Shield AI was involved quickly in the genocide of Palestianians following Oct 7th 2023, with Politico reporting in November 2023 that "Already, Israel is using self-piloting drones from Shield AI for close-quarters indoor combat... Shield AI co-founder Brandon Tseng confirmed that users are able to customize the Nova 2 drones that the IDF is using to search for barricaded shooters and civilians in buildings targeted by Hamas fighters... A Shield AI spokesperson said the company is confident its products are not being used to violate humanitarian norms in Israel and 'would not support' the unethical use of its products."
Shield AI is listed as a company profiting from the Gaza genocide by the Action Center for Corporate Accountability.
Founded 2018, $37.5 million raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Dell Technologies, Capri Ventures.
Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, Toka is an intelligence company: "Toka helps trusted governments keep citizens safe and defend against terrorism, crime, and near-peer adversaries through exquisite signals intelligence & access capabilities... Toka has re-imagined ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance] for the Internet of Things (IOT) age to deliver real-time access to intelligence at scale... Toka delivers unique access capabilities for cyber operators to collect, maneuver, and effect outcomes against near-peer adversaries... Whether it’s making an arrest or launching an attack, protecting the team from unnecessary risks and harms is essential. Toka’s solutions replace existing methods of access with less risky, frictionless solutions." Use cases include covert entry, network intelligence, video and vehicle forensics, battlefield reconnaissance, criminal investigations, and targeting and tracking.
Writing from Business Insider in 2019 notes of Toka: "Its founding team is a who's who of the Israeli cybersecurity world. Toka's CEO is Yaron Rosen, the former cyber chief for the Israel Defense Forces. Its chief operating officer is Kfir Waldman, a serial entrepreneur and former Cisco executive. There's also Alon Kanton, a former executive at Check Point Security. And its final cofounder and director is former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Three investors and two technologists with knowledge of Toka told Business Insider that the company has offensive capabilities, though the company disputes that characterization."
Writing on Toka from Whitney Webb in Mint Press News: "while Toka professes that its products are only used by “trusted” governments and agencies to combat “terrorism” and maintain order and public safety, the sales pitch for the NSO Group’s Pegasus is remarkably similar, and that sales pitch has not stopped its software from being used to target dissidents, politicians and journalists. It also allows many of the same groups who are Toka clients, like intelligence agencies, to use these tools for the purpose of obtaining blackmail. The use of blackmail by Israeli security agencies against civilian Palestinians to attempt to weaken Palestinian society and for political persecution is well-documented."
"The company sells technologies that allow clients to locate security cameras or even webcams within a given perimeter, hack into them, watch their live feed and even alter it – and past recordings – according to internal documents obtained by Haaretz and reviewed by a technical expert. Its activities are regulated by the Israeli Defense Ministry... According to the internal documents, as of 2021, the company had contracts with Israel valued at $6 million, and had also planned an 'expansion of existing deployment' in Israel... Toka, per the documents, offers tools that allow clients to “discover and access security and smart cameras,” survey a “targeted area” and “stream and control cameras” within it over time, and target cars, to “wirelessly” provide “access” and extract what Toka terms “car forensics and intelligence” – in other words, the geolocation of vehicles... Technical documents reviewed by an ethical hacker prove that Toka’s tech can alter both live and recorded video feeds – all without leaving any forensics or telltale signs of a hack... [Human rights lawyer Alon Sapair said] 'Take for example the Blue Wolf facial recognition technology, used by the IDF to keep track of Palestinians. The West Bank is Israel’s defense establishment testing ground – and a scenario in which Toka’s tech is deployed unbeknownst to anyone is simply terrifying.'"
2026 reporting from the Palestine Chronicle says "Within the intelligence industry, information derived from vehicles is known as 'CARINT,' or car intelligence. The investigation found multiple Israeli firms operating in this sector, including at least one capable of penetrating vehicle systems directly. One such company, Toka — co-founded by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak — developed an offensive capability allowing operators to monitor occupants from inside the vehicle. According to Haaretz, the system could remotely access 'the microphone of the vehicle’s hands-free system, allowing eavesdropping on the driver, and even tap into cameras installed on the dashboard or around the car.' The technology was approved for presentation to potential clients by the Israeli Defense Ministry before the company later stated it no longer sells the product."
A 2026 investigation by Drop Site News exposes attempts to pilot Israeli facial recognition technology in Nigeria, "Barak’s companies scaled up from operating a pilot at a small university to advising at the highest level of Nigeria’s state cybersecurity apparatus. In 2020, the World Bank subsidized a partnership with the Israel National Cyber Directorate and Toka Group, another ex-intelligence startup co-founded by Barak, to work directly on Nigeria’s national cybersecurity infrastructure. The cooperation deepened last year, in July of 2025, as an Israeli firm installed cyber warfare simulators at Babcock to train the next generation of cybersecurity operators." Ehud Barak was in contact with Jeffery Epstein around these events.
Techspot has drawn attention to the fact that Andreessen Horowitz is an investor in both Flock Safety and Toka.
The relevant Toka press release stated: "Israeli firm Toka is now serving as an advisor to Nigeria‘s government under a project to design and bolster the African country’s national cyber resilience. The cyber security company was selected by the World Bank, which is funding the project to assist Nigeria’s cyber development, including national frameworks, technical capabilities and enhancement of skills... Toka CEO Yaron Rosen was quoted as saying “We are proud to play an integral role in the World Bank’s strategic global effort by providing recommendations to the Government of Nigeria on strengthening its national cyber defense capabilities, and preparing for the ever-changing landscape of cyber threats.”
Founded 2015, $87.7 million raised from In-Q-Tel, Yuga Labs, Epic Games, Alumni Ventures, NATO DIANA, Booz Allen Ventures.
Hadean, a startup based in the UK, is creating “the Military Metaverse”; here the focus is on integration of AR/VR in the battlefield, as well as war-gaming and training, seeking to "Increase the realism of wargames and accelerate the wargaming process." Its use cases include mission rehearsal, mission planning, command and control, targeting and air defense.
Hadean is partnered with Palantir, Microsoft, Google Gemini, BEA Systems, Deloitte and others. A partnership between Hadean and Booz Allen Hamilton boasts "the delivery of next-generation mission readiness tools to the US federal government, integrating Hadean’s scalable spatial computing and AI software with Booz Allen’s deep mission expertise."
The Palantir partnership is to deliver technology jointly to the UK Armed Forces: "With Palantir already embedded across MoD networks, Hadean can deploy AI and simulation tools into classified environments far faster than traditional Defense pathways allow." Palantir's press release on the partnership say its combines "Hadean’s leading edge wargaming, command & control and battlefield training products deployed on Palantir’s Foundry software.. This partnership with Palantir will allow Hadean to turbocharge its relationship with the MoD and expand the use of its suite of products. Hadean is currently providing its cutting edge training software to the Armed Forces, but with Palantir’s Foundry underpinning the products, Hadean's software can integrate seamlessly with the existing MoD data fabric and deploy faster to live environments." Hadean has also participated in a technology demonstration for the UK Royal Navy.
In 2026, Hadean was selected by NATO’s Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic Warfighters Challenge, as part of a path way "to prove its software can support NATO operations by combining synthetic environments with AI tools to enhance speed, precision, and adaptability."
Founded 2017, $1.5 billion raised from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Abu Dhabi Investment Council, BlockRock, Qatar Investment Authority, Kleiner Perkins.
Applied Intuition has acquired a number of companies, including EpiSci (AI for unmanned platforms), Ghost Autonomy (AI driving), Embark Trucks (self driving truck technology), SceneBox (ML models), and Mechanical Simulation Corporation (vehicle dynamics simulation software). Their vision is to make a billion intelligent machines, including "Warships, aircraft, vehicles, uncrewed systems, and autonomy development". They have 1,000 engineers, of which more than 30 are former founders, and the CEO was previously an executive at Y Combinator.
While having commercial and industrial applications, Applied Intuition also builds system for military use cases "for contested environments", enabling full autonomous vehicles and multi-machine coordination. A quote from former United States Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll states: “They had made our vehicles fully autonomous. Seven weeks later, our soldiers are actually testing that equipment…This exists in venture-backed businesses, this is how they do it every single day. And we as an army just have to get better at it."
Its tools are designed for "all moving machines", with an "end-to-end stack that makes anything that moves intelligent," and control of robot fleets. They are focused on autonomous driving and robotics, leveraging "agentic workflows that connect simulation, validation, data, and real-world operations into a continuously improving data and sim flywheel." Its Dana product can "Deploy, coordinate, monitor, and optimize fleets of autonomous vehicles, robots, and industrial equipment through a unified operational layer."
Applied Intuition provides war gaming and training software simulations. It enables the military to create and game a variety of battlefield scenarios, especially with regard to unmanned ground vehicles. In October 2024, Applied Intuition acquired Ghost Autonomy’s patent portfolio which includes autonomous driving software, for an undisclosed amount.
In 2026, Applied Intuition entered into a strategy collaboration with Saudi Arabian company HUMAIN, which is funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, a large backer of venture capital firms in the United States. According to Bloomberg, "Saudi Arabia’s Humain is partnering with Applied Intuition Inc. to deploy self-driving trucks by 2030, as the kingdom’s leading artificial intelligence firm looks to find practical uses for the technology that align with national priorities. Humain’s collaboration with the California-based startup aims to build a national autonomous logistics network, expanding beyond trucks to robotaxis and ports, the company announced at the sidelines of the LEAP technology conference in Riyadh on Monday. 'Our goal with Applied Intuition is to make this region the first to deploy autonomous trucking at scale,' said Tareq Amin, Humain’s chief executive officer. The US firm has opened an office in Riyadh as part of the deal." Applied Intuition is also expanding in Japan's automotive market, and used in construction sites in Australia. It has partnered with drone company AeroVironment to create autonomous drone swarms; AeroVironment is "best known for its Switchblade suite of loitering munitions"
In 2026, Applied Intuition's air combat autonomous system completed integration into Northrop Grumman's Talon IQ aircraft; according to Applied Intuition's CEO, "Modern air combat demands systems that are interoperable and continuously evolving, and this flight test shows how physical AI can plug directly into an aircraft, execute mission-critical behaviors, and transition control seamlessly across partners". It is also partnered with the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering. It has been selected by the Department of War to pursue integration of autonomous systems in the Department of Defense, and works with the Navy. It has entered a partnership with HII, a large shipbuilder and producer of autonomous vehicles, "to advance AI-Defined warship capabilities".
Founded 2015, $700.3 million raised from Silicon Valley Bank, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Blackrock.
HawkEye 360 (HAWK) IPOed in 2026.
HawkEye 360 has a constellation of more than 30 satellites, operating in clusters of three to collect RF (radiofrequency) data around the globe: "HawkEye 360’s AI-enabled analytics unlock deeper insights from the RF spectrum, using advanced algorithms and machine learning to reveal patterns, anomalies, and hidden signals. These capabilities power scalable waveform analysis and multi-domain data fusion, delivering actionable intelligence for missions such as maritime tracking, GNSS jamming detection, radar monitoring, communications mapping, and space defense... integrating diverse platforms and sensor types into a unified analytical environment... a truly comprehensive, one-stop signals intelligence hub that brings together collection, analysis, and mission support to meet the demands of modern defense and security operations."
The company's mission is to enable "defense, intelligence and national security leaders with mission-critical signals intelligence to enable faster, better decision making. By detecting, geolocating, and characterizing radio frequency emissions worldwide, HawkEye 360 delivers trusted domain awareness and early warning indicators to the US Government and allied partners," stating "We help governments discover illegal activity, track dark vessels, enhance domain awareness, and improve threat detection... detect, characterize, and exploit radar, communications, and navigation signals, expanding the scope of signals intelligence and electronic warfare operations." Major military use cases include detecting, identifying and tracking military vessels, monitoring air defense radar, and tracking radio or satellite phone communications.
In September 2026, Hawkeye 360 announced they had secured contracts in the Middle East totaling $18 million, following up on a press release in June 2026 claiming over $100 million in new international contracts.
It also has a contract with the Indian Navy and regional partners for maritime domain awareness. In 2026, it established a subsidiary in Luxembourg as part of expansion into European markets, with CEO John Serafini stating “The security environment is changing rapidly, and European nations need proven capabilities that can contribute to missions today. Establishing a European entity in Luxembourg strengthens our ability to work alongside governments and industry, support sovereign national requirements, and bring our proven space-based RF capabilities closer to the customers and partners who need them." It has partnered with aerospace company Leonardo for "the development of a sovereign, multi‑sensor intelligence info-driven solution for European customers."
In March 2026, HawkEye 360 announced it has been selected by an unnamed European Ministry of Defense "for an electronic warfare program valued at up to $75 million. The award reflects sustained European investment in space-based electronic warfare capability to support sovereign defense planning and long-term operational awareness." It is currently used by the US Navy, the US National Reconnaissance Office and NASA.
Founded 2014, $850 million raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Axon, Accel, NVIDIA, Hercules Capital.
Skydio is a leading drone or "flying robot" company, with several different drone models. Use cases include "Drone as First Responder" (DFR) for police departments: "position drones at Docks across your jurisdiction or carry them in patrol vehicles for rapid outdoor response. An X10 fleet supports repeated launches and overlapping calls, keeping drones available as demand shifts. This is the core layer of DFR: ready for the calls your agency handles every day."
In November 2023, Politico reported:
"Within hours of the Hamas attack on Israel last month, a Silicon Valley drone company called Skydio began receiving emails from the Israeli military. The requests were for the company’s short-range reconnaissance drones — small flying vehicles used by the U.S. Army to navigate obstacles autonomously and produce 3D scans of complex structures like buildings.
The company said yes. In the three weeks since the attack, Skydio has sent more than 100 drones to the Israeli Defense Forces, with more to come, according to Mark Valentine, the Skydio executive in charge of government contracts."
Their website features endorsement from the Lakewood Police Department, Miami Beach Police Department and Oklahoma Police Department. The drones are also used at prisons and for border security: "Automated patrols maintain coverage along fence lines, known crossing corridors, and remote terrain when agents can’t be everywhere at once... As the situation develops, drones stay locked on. They track subjects across open terrain and give agents the aerial picture they need to coordinate and act fast." Additional case studies provided by Skydio include the police departments for West Palm Beach, Huntington Beach, Redmond, Santa Clara County, Chicago, Pasco, Akron, Los Angeles, Fort Collins and Minnetonka, among others, indicating widespread adoption across the policing system.
In July 2026, the Minneapolis City Council rejected a proposal to contract Skydio to the Minneapolis Police Department: "Dozens of Minneapolis residents attended the Minneapolis City Council meeting to oppose the proposal, filling an overflow room. Residents also submitted 165 pages of written comments, the vast majority opposing the pilot. They cited privacy and safety concerns and criticized the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli military use Skydio drones." Citizens held signs saying "Stop Skydio: No IDF Drones in MPLS".
Resistance to Skydio in Minnesota has been reported by Fight Back! News:
"Dozens of community members testified to their opposition to the city’s use of the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cameras made by Flock and Axon, as well as autonomous drones manufactured by Skydio.
The public hearing was initiated after the previous week’s city council meeting, when activists with the Free Palestine Coalition (FPC) interrupted the proceedings to demand transparency around the city’s contract with Skydio and a process to end it. Organizers explained that Skydio was complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, supplying cutting-edge drones that use AI to surveil urban areas and identify potential targets.
'Skydio is a U.S. company, but the reason it scaled up its sales to institutions started when it sold hundreds of drones to the Israeli military for its genocide in Gaza,' explained FPC organizer and Saint Paul resident Wyatt Miller in his comments to the council members. 'If it wasn’t necessary before a genocide, it shouldn’t be necessary now'...
Sana Wazwaz is a Palestinian American and chapter lead of American Muslims for Palestine – Minnesota, part of the FPC. 'Our coalition firmly believes that no fantasy of stopping crimes is worth the greater crime of being complicit in fascism and genocide,' Wazwaz told the council. 'Skydio has an active contract with the very entity that terrorized our community just this last winter. In the words of Minneapolis Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, ‘To contract with Skydio in light of what happened during Metro Surge is nothing short of morally bankrupt... What we have seen with the murder of Marcus Golden here in Saint Paul, with the murders of Philando Castile, George Floyd, Jamar Clark, that law enforcement without community control over police must not be given surveillance tools.'"
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center states that during the ICE Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, "More than 3,000 ICE and CBP officers deployed in the Twin Cities and throughout the state of Minnesota. The administration heavily targeted Somali and Southeast Asian refugee communities as an attempt to link these established immigrant communities to the fraud investigations involving a small handful of people. This operation was characterized by brutally violent arrest tactics and an overwhelming community response from Minnesotans in opposition to violent immigration arrests. DHS agents shot at least three people during this operation, two of these shootings were fatal. DHS officers shot and killed Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti on camera while they were engaged in constitutionally protected observation of immigration enforcement. So far, the operation has resulted in more than 4,000 arrests."
According to the company, they are "Trusted by every branch of the U.S. DoW, allies, partners around the world, and more than 4,000 organizations across the country," including the US Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard, U.S. Army and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and Secret Service. For the military, Skydio advertises: "Skydio’s autonomous flying robots gives nations and their forces the intelligence to see first, decide faster, and defeat threats, from the battlefield to every base, border, and critical infrastructure. At home or abroad, day or night." Use cases include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, asset inspection and base defense; it is used at Travis Air Force Base, next to the California Forever Network State project.
In March 2026, the Pentagon placed its largest drone order ever from Skydio; close to 3,000 units priced at $17,300 each: "As well as a big drone order, this is a loud statement that DJI, the company that makes basically every consumer drone worth owning, has been shut out of the American military market entirely... The X10D is a so-called 'hunter' drone — a flying spotter that finds targets so that other, explosives-laden kamikaze drones can destroy them. If you've been following the war in Ukraine, you'll probably have read about this hunter-killer combo. Cheap reconnaissance drones fly overhead looking for tanks, artillery positions or troop concentrations. Once they spot a suitable target, they relay coordinates to FPV racing drones equipped with munitions that finish the job. It's devastatingly effective, horrifyingly efficient and has pretty much redefined modern warfare."
In a 2024 interview with Axios, Skydio's CEO stated "I've never met drone users as sophisticated as the folks in Ukraine. I've visited twice this year and we're hiring a team there to support Ukraine because we believe it's where the future of defense is being shaped. Succeeding in Ukraine is vital to defending a democracy and ensuring our technology is capable of succeeding in a future high-end fight involving the U.S."
Skydio has been sanctioned by China over sales to Taiwan, with the Financial Times reporting the sanctions caused a "supply chain crisis" over Skydio's reliance on Chinese batteries: "China’s sanctions, imposed on October 11 [2024], hit several US groups, including privately held Skydio, in retaliation for Washington’s approval of the sale of attack drones to Taiwan. Skydio had recently won a contract with Taiwan’s fire agency... [Skydio] said it had sent more than 1,000 drones to Ukraine for intelligence gathering and reconnaissance purposes. The drones have also been used to help document Russian war crimes."
In April 2026, Skydio announced it will invest $3.5 billion in the U.S. to build out manufacturing and R&D: "Skydio already manufactures more dual-use drones than any company outside of China. The company has shipped more than 60,000 flying robots to more than 3,800 customers, including more than 1,200 public safety agencies throughout the country, every branch of the U.S. military, and 29 allied nations, as well as more than 450 utility and energy companies."
A WIRED expose on video captured by Skydio drones for the SFPD provides important information on how Skydio is being used in the field.
Skydio has adopted a strategy of giving or subsidizing drones to police departments, including with the Metro Nashville Police Department for a "trial" of its drones, with the Nashville Post reporting:
"Alex Apple, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, told the Post that Metro procurement regulations authorize pilot programs that 'do not require a contract between the parties.'
Based on Skydio’s dealings with police departments in other cities, the drone company’s free trial approach appears to be a feature, not a bug.
Skydio has partnered with several other police departments and sheriff’s offices across the U.S. on a free trial basis, including those in Leander, Texas; Cook County, Ill.; Orlando, Fl.; and North Richland Hills, Texas, to name a few.
Last October, the Denver Police Department launched a 'zero-dollar' trial program with Skydio that was set to run through March 2026. Some Denver City Councilmembers didn’t learn about the program until they were contacted by Denver7 News weeks later."
In 2024, TechCrunch published an expose on how Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz provided money to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to purchase Skydio drones:
"The venture capitalist has facilitated communication between the LVMPD and at least six a16z portfolio companies. TechCrunch learned about this relationship after receiving over 100 emails between Horowitz and the department, as well as internal police emails about his donations primarily between January 2023 and July 2024, in a public records request... Horowitz has justified his involvement with the LVMPD by pointing to dropping crime rates in the city — which he says is happening thanks, in part, to his donations. In his post, he claimed that 911 calls are being answered faster and that, thanks to Flock Safety, 17% more suspects are being arrested."
The LVMP Sheriff is quoted as saying: "We are going to get to a place at some point where it becomes impossible to commit a crime.”
TerraHaptix / Terra Industries
Founded 2024, $52.6 million raised from 8VC, Silent Ventures, SV Angel, Lux Capital, Valor Equity Partners.
Terra Industries is a Nigeria-based defense company primarily funded by Silicon Valley venture capitalists associated with firms tied to Anduril, Palantir and other military and intelligence startups. Presented as a sovereign defense company "to protect critical infrastructure and resources across the Global South," and for "indigenous high-technology development", the company is actually funded and developed by tech fascists.
Terra Industries has products that are very similar to the products produced by Anduril and other parts of the tech military. This includes a sentry tower, an autonomous ground drone, a mass-producible quadcopter drone, and a long-range unmanned aerial vehicle for border surveillance, infrastructure inspection and defense. Terra has also invested in Aeon, a Nigerian cybersecurity startup.
While still a very new company, their funding by the largest and most powerful venture capitalists has allowed them to move very quickly. They are working to open a 34,000-square-foot drone manufacturing facility in Ghana, and signed an agreement with the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria, a state-run military company run by the Nigerian Armed Forces, to "position Nigeria as a regional hub for drones, high-tech manufacturing, cybersecurity solutions, R&D, and specialised training". They claim they are "already deployed to protect power plants, mines, and other nationally critical assets valued at approximately $11 billion across multiple African countries." They've also opened a London office, to "expand manufacturing capacity, accelerate deployments across the Global South, and grow its engineering, operations, and business development teams." Terra says "Across Africa and the Global South, infrastructure sabotage, illegal mining, organized crime, and terrorism continue to threaten industries and livelihoods".
In September 2026, they received $2 million from two different mining companies in contracts for protection of lithium mines, a "a fleet of 20 sentry towers and 4 Iroko drones across their sites for surveillance, real-time threat detection, and response". They are also contracted to provide security for the Jema'a Resource Project in Nigeria:
"The Jema’a Resource Project is one of Nigeria’s most significant mineral assets, covering a multi-metallic deposit of gold, lithium, copper and nickel at Gidan Waya. In July, the project and the Kaduna Mining Development Company signed agreements with the Africa Finance Corporation under a $500 million framework to finance and develop mining assets across the state. Securing these sites is a priority as development moves forward. This contract is the first under a partnership between Terra Industries and Anka Metals covering mining security. Terra will provide autonomous surveillance and site protection for the project."
More information on Terra and the growing role of tech fascism in Africa can be found on our site.
Covenant
Covenant came out of "stealth mode" in September 2026, raising over $250 million from Andreessen Howowiz, Founders Fund, 8VC, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lux Capital. According to reporting from Bloomberg, Covenant is building a "heavy-payload, long-range cruise missile, called Anthem, that it says is cheaper to produce than comparable systems... Covenant also announced that it already has signed military contracts across the US and Europe, and is opening a new production facility in Dallas. It already has facilities in Germany and Israel, and is headquartered in Washington, DC. The startup is now looking to expand its weapons manufacturing and production capabilities and plans to add to its engineering, manufacturing and program management teams."
Their website says "The West has extraordinary missiles, but not nearly enough. Anthem is built on local production lines so allied governments buy directly from an industrial base they can rely on." This reflects the strategy of venture capital weapons factories being distributed across many countries to support sales to governments.
Full Index
Founded 2024, $500K raised from YCombinator.
From a post on the Y Combinator website: “Ares is building a new class of anti-ship cruise missiles. We are going to deliver the capabilities that the DoD wants in a form factor that’s 10x smaller and 10x cheaper.”
Like many weapons startups, their technology is premised on possible war with China: “A war with China in the Taiwan Strait would look nothing like what we've seen in Ukraine or the Middle East. Wargames within DoD and military experts are in agreement that the most useful weapons in such a conflict would be long range anti-ship weapons or cruise missiles.”
A key part of the AI supply chain, Taiwan is an ongoing site of tension between venture capitalists and China. Further updates to their site state, "The world is barreling towards conflict but the U.S. and its allies lack the weapons needed to face the conflict ahead. Our arsenal is aging, outnumbered, and far too slow to replenish. And in the Indo-Pacific, where any fight will unfold at massive scale and speed, running out of munitions would be catastrophic."
Ares Industries was Y Combinator's first defense investment, with analysis in Noema: "Such a shift for a respected incubator that attracts the crème de la crème of startup offerings is exemplary of the industry’s multi-year shift toward investing in warfare tech; it’s gone mainstream."
Ares is currently developing mass-fire munitions and its "Maverick" and "Goose" products: "Swarms of Goose can overwhelm defenses and enable maritime area denial, each carrying a ~20 lb payload out to 100 miles. Packs of Maverick extend the fight much deeper, each delivering a ~100 lb payload at ranges up to 1,000 miles." Ares is hoping to sell to multiple governments around the world, noting its products are "export-ready from day one".
Founded 2024, $3 million raised from Y Combinator, General Catalyst, D3 and Space Capital.
Guardian RF (Radio Frequency) “builds the American platform for counter-drone intelligence. Our systems are deployed across defense installations, law enforcement networks, critical infrastructure, and major public events." Guardian RF has been active in Ukraine, per the Ukrainian Drone Ecosystem Directory: "Their technology—developed from operational experience in Ukraine—includes compact handheld detectors and mesh RF sensor networks that perform classification, geofencing, operator-locating, and real-time alerting for hostile small UAS."
Together with Picogrid (also in this document), they have gained a security contract with Vandenberg Space Force Base: "Under the project, Guardian RF’s Scout passive radio-frequency sensors will be integrated with Picogrid’s Expeditionary Command and Control Nodes (ECN), linking drone-signal detection with a unified command-and-control framework to improve real-time airspace awareness."
Founded 2024, $197.2 million raised from Alumni Ventures, The Veteran Fund, Decisive Point, In-Q-Tel and Lockheed Martin.
HavocAI produces software to coordinate weapons systems: "The blueprint for building boats, drones, and vehicles exists. What’s missing is the ability for thousands of autonomous assets to work together. Havoc software enables one operator to task and supervise tens, hundreds, or thousands of autonomous assets across domains, and across the globe." Use cases include autonomous delivery of supplies, maritime domain awareness, defensive escort, and port security. Their vessels are described as modular with ultra-low build time of mere hours.
In September 2026, HavocAI signed an agreement with Taiwan's mega shipbuilding corporation, CSBC, "to pursue licensed co-production of autonomous surface vessels (ASV) for Taiwan's maritime security," with Havoc's CEO stating "Congress wrote co-production with Taiwan into law in the FY2026 defense authorization, and it named uncrewed systems specifically. Taiwan’s Self-Reliant Defense policy calls for platforms that are mass produced, maintained, and upgraded at home. That’s what this partnership delivers: American autonomy software, Taiwan-built platforms, Taiwan workforce, and a model we intend to bring to other partners."
Founded 2024, $880K raised from unknown investors.
Tactical Edge Systems states in its website that the company “delivers deployable energy and elevated connectivity that keep missions powered and coordinated when infrastructure is destroyed, contested, or absent" that have been "proven in Indo-Pacific and Africa pilots". It produces hydrogen from aluminum fuels to power fuel cells or combustion energies, supporting military operations in "remote, contested" areas without viable or friendly energy infrastructure. It is part of the NATO Defence Innovation Accelerator for North America, with the ultimate goal of "turning innovative technologies into operational capabilities for the NATO Alliance".
Founded 2023, $17 million raised from Silent Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Soma Capital, Quiet Capital and LMNT Ventures.
Swarmbiotics AI is creating ground swarm robotics – Attritable, Networked Tactical Swarms (ANTS). These systems are designed to work in surveillance, targeting, electromagnetic warfare, casualty evacuation, and military deception operations: "One operator. Multiple robots. Infinite tactical advantage." In February 2026, Swarmbiotics won a US Army contract for the1st Cavalry Division and is building anti-tank systems: "The anti-tank variant of the platform is called FireAnt — an inexpensive, lightweight UGV (universal ground vehicle) designed to detect, track, and engage heavy armored vehicles as part of a swarm."
Founded 2024, €13 million raised from Capnamic, Possible Ventures and Vertex Ventures.
Based in Germany, SWARM Biotactics is outfitting live Madagascar cockroaches and other insects with "backpacks" which carry sensors, AI and comms for use in military operations. According to their website, which features many images of cockroaches, manipulated inside a laboratory and secured with backpacks, "SWARM makes living organisms programmable. We deploy autonomous cyborg swarms — carrying sensors, edge AI, and secure comms — into any physical environment, at biological cost and scale. The result is persistent presence — low-signature, always-on ground truth across denied terrain, cluttered structures, and wide-area perimeters. Teams act faster, reduce risk, and protect people and critical infrastructure. Field-tested." Its use cases include access to "denied zones", intelligence gathering, and filling gaps in sensor coverage. The insect model is designed for "mass deployment" of the bugs.
Founded 2023, $73 million raised from In-Q-Tel, Decisive Point, Blue Collective, Veteran Ventures Capital, Lockheed Martin Ventures and NATO's Defence Innovation Accelerator (DIANA).
Vatn builds military autonomous underwater vehicle swarms which synchronise and thus make possible new types of battlefield operations. The swarms do not require a human operator. They are currently developing new sensor and data fusion techniques, and the swarm platform can be adapted to support a variety of military hardware; Vatn is currently focused on torpedos.
In summer of 2026, Vatn made a deal with Taiwan's government "to jointly develop artificial intelligence-enabled command-and-control systems and field autonomous underwater vehicles. Both entities will also explore the creation of a supply chain and sustainment support based on the self-governed island... Taipei’s latest collaboration is one of its efforts to counter China’s intensified deployment of military aircraft, warships, and coast guard vessels around the island to assert its claim of sovereignty."
Vatn has been profiled by Bloomberg in August 2026, "A Smart Torpedo Startup Looks to Make the Drones of the Sea", reporting that Vatn's underwater drone, S12, "is capable of navigating for 125 to 200 nautical miles on its own while submerged, and it can carry cameras and sonar equipment for surveillance, as well as small warheads. But its aggressive price is perhaps Vatn’s greatest differentiator. With prices starting in the mid-six-figures, the S12 is at least 50% cheaper than comparable systems... Vatn’s underwater drones are designed to be as important in the Strait of Hormuz as cheap aerial drones have proven to be in the Russia-Ukraine war. As the US conflict with Iran drags toward its sixth month, skirmishes in contested waterways are expanding potential use cases for products from companies like Vatn."
Founded 2023, $16.6 million raised from Silent Ventures, Quiet Capital, 1789 Capital (Donald Trump, Jr.), Valhalla Ventures, Vanderbilt University.
Aeon Industries is “Developing advanced tactical weapon systems" featuring lethal targeting, both automatic and manual. Zeus, its autonomous weapons system, is described as "a modular tactical weapon system with advanced capabilities." In fall of 2025, Aeon completed live-fire test of the Zeus missile for the U.S. Army. In spring 2026, they partnered with Global Technical Systems "to cook up new warhead designs for Aeon’s Zeus system and co-produce GTS’s low-cost cruise missile."
Founded 2022, $7.2 million raised from Andreessen Horowitz and Balaji Srinivasan.
ZeroMark creates anti-drone auto-targeting technology: “ZeroMark turns any weapon into a precision counter-drone system — deployed in minutes, effective against threats that jammers, lasers, and interceptors can’t stop.”
In 2024, a report described a ZeroMark product in development as an “AI-powered auto-aiming system, which is designed to modify standard infantry rifles into counter-drone systems”.
Also in 2024, the U.S. Marine Corps did a live-fire demonstration of ZeroMark in Hawaii. The company claims that it neutralizes drone threats in under 2 seconds, with "bolt-on components that work with any existing weapon, platform, or sensing system." They are partnered with Palantir, and Amazon's cloud computing platform, AWS.
Founded 2023, $1.1 billion raised from Sequoia, Bedrock, Marque Ventures, DCVC, Khosla Ventures, Ribbit Capital.
Mach's mission is to "develop and manufacture asymmetric aerospace and defense systems and components by the millions to deter war and advance prosperity." In May 2024, it was reported that the company’s efforts have been “hamstrung by technical challenges, safety hazards and a cavalier approach to leadership,” but the company appears to have corrected and resumed accelerated development since.
Its suite of products includes an "attack UAS [unmanned aircraft system]" with turbojet takeoff, glide munitions, long-range munitions, low-cost counter-drone operations, and a "pseudo-satellite capable of deploying communications, sensors, and effects from the stratosphere, thousands of miles from launch point."
In summer 2026, Mach Industry secured a contract from the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit, in collaboration with Whisper Aero, also profiled in this document. Mach Industries is currently in negotiations with Fort Worth, Texas, for a drone manufacturing plant, which would involve taking over a ~310,000 square foot building. Fort Worth is considering a 10 year, capped tax abatement to secure the factory, and the potential to generate 1,000 full time jobs at the factory. This dynamic illustrates how local governments are often eager to ink deals with even the most extreme elements of the venture capital portfolio, seeking economic re-vitalization and jobs for their community.
Founded 2022, $59 million raised from Susa Ventures, Quiet Capital, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, Alumni Ventures.
Swarm Aero is build a "new category of aircraft: "Our Gamera Group 5 UAS is the first UAS designed specifically for heavyweight, long range strike payloads. Gamera makes possible a 10X lower cost per effect for key missions." Like many of the venture capital weapons companies, Gamera is designed for mass scale production, and is designed to be deployed in swarms using artificial intelligence: "Swarm empowers small teams to mobilize thousands of uncrewed vehicles in communications-limited, contested environments."
Gamera is a Group 5 unmanned aerial system, a large platform of more than 1320 pounds, in the same category as the MQ-9 Reaper, and has chosen Honeywell to provide the engine. Multiple of these systems will be networked into a swarm formation. Swarm has been awarded a $10 million R&D contract from the Air Force Research Lab, and completed a teaming exercise for the 2026 U.S. Navy Fleet Experimentation. In February 2026, Swarm opened an 80,000 square manufacturing center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, "to accelerate development and deployment of aircraft at volumes not seen since WW II". However, Swarm Aero has faced ongoing backlash by Fayetteville residents. A previous essay by Swarm's co-founder on "Supercharging America’s National Defense With AI" can be found here:
"an affordable mass of AI-operated autonomous vehicles can get us to risky places we can’t go otherwise and can represent an unprecedented show of force in areas critical to our current and future military defense. Our existing ships and aircraft carriers in the South China Sea, for instance, are within range of China’s long-range missiles. Sending them closer only makes them more vulnerable. But swarms of thousands of long-range unmanned vehicles can introduce the “fog of war” to the aerial battlefield, overwhelming detection and air defense systems and allowing our most valuable assets to enter the fray. Representing an overwhelming level of force that would saturate China’s air and sea defenses, UAV swarms could be an effective deterrent to aggression in the region."
Founded 2022, $150.3 million raised from Decisive Point, The Veteran Fund, Silent Ventures, Lockheed Martin, Craft Ventures, JP Morgan, Booz Allen Ventures, Decisive Point, In-Q-Tel (IQT), Alumni Ventures.
Firestorm builds military unmanned aerial systems. Its products include Tempest, with a wingspan of 7 feet and able to carry a payload of 10 pounds, and a mobile "microfactory" to 3D print drones in military environments, testing the capability on a Navy ship in summer of 2026, during which they manufactured more than 1,000 components and assembled 12 drones, "demonstrating how military hardware could be produced during maritime operations... More than 20 crew-requested items were also manufactured. These included deck tie-down inspection gauges, reverse-engineered valve handwheels, electrical covers, cable hardware, door components, a Starlink deployment mount, and a nonconductive digging knife for explosive ordnance disposal teams."
One of the major elements of the venture capital military build-out is moving production of energy, weapons and supplies to the "edge" of the theatre of war -- remote bases, contested and conflict zones, and military platforms like warships.
Founded 2022, $1 billion raised from 8VC, Silent Ventures, Valar Ventures, Accel, Valor Equity Partners.
CHAOS produces radar systems for military use cases. Their products include a distributed early warning radar system and a long-range radar for extended-range surveillance, with at least two other products under development for drone inerception.
CHAOS is listed in an Army acquisition platform -- the Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate Marketplace -- to facilitate purchasing, and is collaborating with Forterra to build a robotic air defense system to detect and track small drones. In 2026, it acquired Atropos Group, to integrate Atropos' arial platform with its technology, with the LA Times reporting "CHAOS’ counter-drone radar and sensing systems are in production at U.S. facilities and deployed to protect critical infrastructure, both domestically and with global partners in the Middle East. The Atropos acquisition builds on that manufacturing base, bringing airframe production into the domestic supply chain and adding U.S. manufacturing capacity and jobs as the company scales."
CHAOS achieved two contracts at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida in 2025, one for a mobile radar system.
CHAOS' chief former strategic advisor and Chief Strategy officer, spanning more than two and a half years, was Will Hurd, former U.S. Congressman and CIA officer; writing in an op-ed for Defense Opinion on "The Golden Dome's Blind Spot" in 2025, Hurd stated: " The most immediate threats to the nation will come not from enemy missiles that are launched into space and then arc down toward us. They will come from the 'underlayer' — the low-altitude area where traditional radar coverage is weakest and terrain masking allows adversaries to approach undetected... Our enemies no longer need nuclear missiles to wreak havoc on our soil. A van outfitted with drones could threaten the power grid, a container ship in the Gulf of Mexico could launch cruise missiles at ports, or aircraft operating 500 miles off California could target our military bases. The capability exists. The question is whether we can see it in time." Hurd is now president of ICON Prime, another military startup covered in this document.
Antonio Gracias, founder of Valor Equity partners and former director at Tesla and advisor to DOGE, has joined CHAOS' board. He has coined the term "proentropic"; via TechCrunch: "a descriptor for startups designed to thrive in chaos and disruption... He said the world has been leaning toward chaos since at least the end of the last century as 'human populations [have] gotten bigger and technologies have changed.'"
Founded 2020, $200k raised from TenOneTen Ventures, SkyDeck Berkeley, Marque Ventures, Shield Capital, Mantis.
Rangeview is an aerospace manufacturing startup, leveraging 3D printing technology and robotics. Their website features a photo of a Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk. A profile notes that Rangeview "calls its factories Cyber Foundries. A new part is just a software update. A digitized line can pour a part for a nuclear reactor in the morning and an F-16 joystick in the afternoon. Time from order to pour-ready shell: about 12 days. The old way: closer to a year."
In 2026, Rangeview was awarded a contract with the U.S. Navy, to produce MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) replacement parts. Rangeview has partnered with Kratos, a defense company, "to develop advanced cast components for its advanced turbine engine programmes", and "strengthening efforts to expand U.S. manufacturing capacity for critical aerospace hardware."
Founded 2022, $1.1 billion raised from Riot Ventures, Champion Hill Ventures, Space.VC, United States Space Force, Narya Capital (JD Vance VC fund), Accel, Paradigm.
True Anomaly is focused on space defense and "space superiority". Its products include Mosaic, software for "precise, autonomous actions across spacecraft and multi-domain, combined-arms force packages", and Jackal, an autonomous orbital vehicle (AOV), "built from the ground-up for highly dynamic space superiority missions across any contested orbital environment," while stating "Every orbit is now contested".
They have AOVs in orbit and were awarded a $17.4 million Phase III Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command in 2023. In November 2024, True Anomaly announced a $30 million contract with Space Systems Command to take part in the VICTUS HAZE demonstration. The company achieved a critical milestone in 2026, stating "Our third flight test to date Mission X-3 demonstrated Jackal and Mosaic’s capabilities for end-to-end uncooperative rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO). Four years since founding, this milestone reflects what's possible when rapid development and test cycles are built around the pace that warfighters need to fight and win."
In a press release for its Series D fundraise of $650 million in April 2026, True Anomaly states:
"Iran and Ukraine are previews of the pacing and most dangerous threats. Against China or Russia directly, the requirement for space superiority expands to defending, reconstituting, and maneuvering a global space architecture under sustained attack by a peer adversary, while denying space capabilities to that adversary. Space superiority matters now because China and Russia have turned space from a sanctuary into a contested warfighting domain over the last twenty years, beginning in earnest with China’s 2007 direct-ascent anti-satellite test and accelerating into operational capabilities designed to hold U.S. and allied forces at risk."
True Anomaly is one contender to help build the "Golden Dome", and is among 12 companies selected to develop prototypes for space-based interception, with Bloomberg noting "The emphasis across the board is urgency — abandoning the typical strict requirements of military programs and letting companies decide the fastest and best way to the finish line." CNBC, covering True Anomaly's most recent funding round of $650 million, reported "True Anomaly is among 12 companies, including Anduril and SpaceX, chosen by the U.S. Space Force for up to $3.2 billion in contracts to support Golden Dome missile defense interceptors."
Founded 2021, $20 million raised from Sam Altman, Susa Ventures, Countdown Capital, Scout Ventures.
Beacon AI is an artificial intelligence piloting system, "R2-D2 for pilots," serving a variety of aircraft systems including government fleets, with leadership and team from military aviation backgrounds. It has completed a prototype and test for the U.S. Air Force, with "$4M of DoD and private investment funding to integrate Beacon's cutting-edge technology into the fleet." It has also signed a contract to produce a prototype for the U.S. Special Operations Command, valued up to $49.5 million; Beacon AI stating "The combined efforts represent a fleet of over 1,400 that benefit from Beacon’s technology."
Founded 2019, $56.6 million funding from Y Combinator, Space.VC, Seraphim Space, Soma Capital, Mitsubishi Electric, DARPA, In-Q-Tel
Array Labs builds radar satellites "designed for mass production". In 2025, Array Labs was selected by DARPA for simulations of its technology, with a press release stating "DARPA’s support brings the vision of a real-time 3D map of the world one step closer," and Array's CEO quoted: "We’re building to that standard: a sensing layer that doesn’t blink, delivering global domain awareness and real-time volumetric intelligence in places legacy systems can’t reach." One of the major goals of the venture capital military buildout is to create 24/7, real-time, high resolution satellite imagery of the earth, bringing in an entirely new level of surveillance globally.
Array Labs has contracts with the US Navy, the United States Air Force, and has partnerships with Mitsubishi Electric and Raytheon, "to create detailed 3D models of the Earth’s surface."
Founded 2021, $10.8 million raised from Morpheus Space, Moonshots Capital, The Veteran Fund, Capital Factory.
Proteus designs and builds satellite buses -- or the main body of the satellite -- that are purpose-built to adapt to each mission and payload. It claims its process offers 1000x more design options, is 8x faster, and requires 24x less labor compared to legacy development models. Its advisors and executives are primarily Air Force or ex Air Force, as well as Marines and NASA. They have a manufacturing center in Los Angeles.
In 2024, Proteus announced the first “AI-designed” ESPA low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite. Since then, NASA has worked with Proteus Space to demonstrate the use of 3D printing of space antennas; it launched as part of SpaceX's Transporter-15 mission in November 2025. According to its post-launch press release, the operation "marks the fastest timeline from a blank sheet design to a launch-qualified ESPA satellite, completed in only 9 months." In 2026, Proteus signed a multi-year agreement with Draper for "tailored, end-to-end rapid access to space services spanning rapid spacecraft design, assembly, integration and test (AI&T), licensing, launch brokerage, launch integration, and on-orbit commissioning and operations."
Founded 2019, $103.8 million raised from Stellar Ventures, Raytheon, Capital Factory, Draper & Associates, Decisive Point, 1789 Capital, State of Oklahoma (grant).
Firehawk makes military rocket motors running on 3D printed propellant. It has secured contracts with the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, and was selected for funding from the Department of War in 2026: "Propellant production remains one of the most significant bottlenecks in U.S. munitions manufacturing. Current legacy cast-and-cure processes are slow, labor-intensive, and difficult to scale at the levels required for DOW’s modern operational needs. Firehawk’s program directly addresses this challenge through a 22–month, $24 million prototype effort designed to deliver a rapid, scalable, and cost-effective propellant manufacturing capacity."
In an editorial, Firehawk's CEO wrote "drones can’t be decisive without weapons systems and munitions that deliver the full range of kinetic effects and lethality. Uncrewed systems are appealing to investors and media due to their visibility and impact in a regional conflict. They excel at ensuring security on the move, streamlining logistics, painting the C2 picture, and delivering offensive and defensive lethality. They are key to long-range theater-level conflicts. But looking beyond the current events in Eastern Europe, drones won’t be the silver bullet for any future conflict for the United States or our allies against a near-peer adversary. Simply put, they are part of the fight, but won’t win the fight on their own. What wins wars is not the volume of drones. It’s sustained volume of firepower. "
Firehawk has a facility in Oklahoma, and is expanding with a facility in Mississippi; Firehawk's CEO stated "While the current industrial base is built to produce thousands of rockets per year, we are building this site – and our broader manufacturing footprint – to operate at a much higher production tempo. With R&D in Texas, energetics production in Oklahoma, and now full system integration in Mississippi, we are designing for throughput measured in thousands per month, not years."
Founded 2020, $2.3 billion raised from Andreessen Horowitz, a16z crypto, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, 1789 Capital, JPMorganChase, Valor Equity Partners, Apollo.
Hadrian is building factories to manufacture precision components for the defense industry, leveraging AI. It creates factories "as-a-service", and operated by Hadrian, "to deliver at unprecedented speed, scale, schedule, and quality". It will build and operate dedicated facilities for its customers, removing overhead costs: "a model that allows defense primes and other industries to scale factories to meet existing or new Program of Record demand for parts, assemblies, or entire products." They also integrate with existing factories.
Use cases include building parts for rockets, satellites, jets and drones, citing competition with China's industrial base. It has partnered with Lockheed Martin to accelerate missile production through its "factory-as-a-service". They have a partnership with Fortastra to build advanced spacecraft, and with Anduril to supply precision parts for Anduril's systems.
In August 2024, Hadrian acquired Datum Source, a maker of procurement software. They currently have two factories in California, including a R&D facility and manufacturing facility, and a larger facility in Arizona, with a dedicated division for maritime defense, and the delivery of their "factories as a service": "a model that allows defense primes and other industries to scale factories to meet existing or new Program of Record demand for parts, assemblies, or entire products." It is planning an R&D hub in San Francisco. In August 2026, Hadrian raised $1.37 billion as it reached 3 million square feet of footprint.
Founded 2020, $87.3 million raised from Lux Capital, Menlo Ventures, Capricorn, Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development (via grant).
Whisper Aero creates quieter engines "without being heard by humans, or dogs", for drones, jets and other military aircraft. One application is a reduced noise footprint in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. They also seek applications in commercial aviation and products, advertising "the world's quietest high-performance handheld leaf blower." Their team has "past experience at NASA, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Joby Aviation, Kitty Hawk, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls Royce".
In March 2024, Whisper Aero proposed its concept for a 100-seat electric regional airliner. In 2024, they opened a flight test center in Tennessee. They have been awarded funding from NASA to design fans for spacecraft, "with the possibility of extending into additional space habitat environment applications". They've also partnered with Mach Industries (also profiled in this document) to develop "a hybrid-electric prototype aircraft intended to demonstrate how a recoverable, runway-independent unmanned system could launch and land from constrained maritime and expeditionary sites, including helicopter-sized operating areas on destroyer-class ships." The project is being sponsored by the Defense Innovation Unit. They have also received funding from the US Air Force to build "the largest aircraft in the CLA family of systems" -- "a new family of systems for contested logistics".
In 2026, Whisper Aero tested its engine in its first piloted flight. A video of the flight can be seen here.
Founded 2020, $134 million raised from Cantos, Boost VC, Draper Associates, Alumni Ventures, Lockheed Martin Ventures.
Venus Aerospace focuses on hypersonic rocket engine propulsion, building "the most efficient rocket engine ever built" and claiming "The Venus Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) is the first fundamental leap in rocket propulsion since the Apollo Program. Harnessing supersonic detonation waves, it delivers historic efficiency, reusability, and throttling—cutting launch costs and 3 mission flexibility across payload, speed, and range... The first fundamental improvement in rocket engine technology in 60+ years."
Complementing investment from Lockheed Martin, the companies are partnering to leverage Venus' technology for long-range precision fires. Venus Aerospace completed its first U.S. flight test in 2025, and completed a hot-fire detonation test in partnership with CycloKinetics in September 2026, through a research program of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
Founded in 2021, $579 million raised from Founders Fund, Lux Capital, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Air Force Research Laboratory (grant), Space Capital.
Varda provides hypersonic flight testing for the military, to "reproduce the most challenging hypersonic and reentry flight environments without building a costly dedicated representative test vehicle." Its orbital capsule enters the atmosphere at 18,000 miles per hour, achieving Mach 25+ speeds. They describe themselves as "a microgravity-enabled life sciences company that processes materials in orbit and returns them to Earth." The ultimate mission is to advance manufacturing in space, and “establish the first scaled industrial operations off our home planet.”
It has offices in Washington D.C. and a production facility in El Segundo. It announced a partnership with Anduril in 2025, and completed its sixth reentry mission in early 2026. Varda has been selected by the Department of Defense to accelerate hypersonic flight tests.
Varda has partnered with United Therapeutics Corporation, a publicly traded company, "to explore the use of microgravity to develop improved formulations of treatments for rare pulmonary disease... The companies will utilize microgravity's influence on the structure and crystallization properties of therapeutic compounds in pursuit of novel formulations that may improve stability, bioavailability, and other delivery characteristics. The first compounds to be analyzed onboard Varda spacecraft will likely be focused on therapies for patients living with life-threatening pulmonary diseases... Decades of research on the International Space Station have shown that microgravity allows molecules to assemble more slowly and uniformly, producing highly ordered crystal structures that are difficult or impossible to create on Earth. These differences can have meaningful implications for how medicines behave in the body... space-based manufacturing is emerging as a powerful new tool for industries ranging from materials science to pharmaceuticals." More information on these efforts can be found in the MIT Technology Review.
This followed the successful manufacture of an HIV/AIDs medication, ritonavir, in a Varda capsule in 2024; per Space.com: "The W-1 mission sought to test the feasibility of making therapeutics in space, testing Varda's hardware off Earth for the first time. During its time in orbit, the W-1 capsule successfully crystalized the metastable Form III of the antiviral drug ritonavir, which then survived its return to Earth... While pharmaceuticals have been processed in microgravity on parabolic flights and the International Space Station, Varda Space's method aims to be more efficient and cost-effective, using uncrewed capsules that serve dual purposes as a mini-factory and a reentry vehicle."
Founded 2019, public company traded under NYSEMKT:UMAC. IPO in February 2024.
Unusual Machines makes drone components, aiming to reduce reliance on China in favor of American manufacturing. In 2024, Unusual Machines acquired Fat Shark, which makes video goggles for drone pilots, and Rotor Riot, an e-commerce platform for drones. Following the 2024 election, Unusual Machines appointed Donald Trump Jr. to its board, causing the stock to rise over 100%.
In 2025, Unusual Machines won a contract to supply the U.S. Army with 3,500 drone motors, with The New Republic reporting "the Pentagon indicated that it would order an additional 20,000 components in 2026," the company's CEO saying "that the first son’s public endorsement made it easier to get meetings with potential partners, allowing the company to raise more than $80 million from investors" in 2025.
The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2026 that:
"The Trump administration is pursuing funding deals with a group of drone companies as part of its effort to increase domestic production and lower the costs of the increasingly vital weapons, people familiar with the matter said...
Among the companies the Pentagon has identified for possible funding are Performance Drone Works, which won a contract to supply the Army with reconnaissance drones; Unusual Machines, a drone components supplier that counts Donald Trump Jr. as a shareholder and advisory board member; and Neros Technologies, a Sequoia Capital-backed startup building small first-person view drones, some of the people familiar with the matter said...
The Pentagon-led deals would be the strongest signal yet from the U.S. military that it is committed to supporting drone startups.
Before Trump’s second term, Pentagon sales accounted for less than 2% of all the commercial and government drone system sales each year in the U.S., according to the Defense Innovation Unit, a branch of the Defense Department that works with startups."
BlackRock holds a 7.3% stake in the company as of writing.
Founded 2017, unknown funds raised from YCombinator, J2 Ventures, RRE Ventures, Abstract.
Ravn is creating a heads-up display for soldiers that displays video feeds from cameras attached to military guns, drones and robots. Ravn is currently in stealth mode; little additional information available and the company may have been sunsetted. Not all startups make it, but they are still part of trajectories towards larger venture capital goals, often providing research and development and talent development.
Founded 2019, $127 million raised from 8VC, Veteran Ventures Capital, Alumni Ventures, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Vanderbilt University.
Cambian creates high-performance materials for aviation and space exploration. They manufacture laser eye protection (LEP) for pilots, and have conducted testing with military users, explaining "Laser eyewear protection is vital in high-risk environments where directed energy attacks threaten military personnel, pilots, and first responders." Cambian stated in a press release, "Weaponized laser strikes are also being used against military personnel and civilian personnel at sea and on the ground. For far too long this threat factor in the field has been minimized, largely because luck, not protection, has prevented a catastrophe." It obtained a contract with the US government for this technology in early 2026.
Cambium also manufactures structural materials for high-temperature environments, i.e. for creating flame-resistant structures, and thermal protection systems. Cambium high-temperature materials were used for a rocket component that successfully launched into space in partnership with the University of Southern California Rocket Propulsion Laboratory.
Cambium has a manufacturing center in North Carolina and headquarters in El Segundo. They have additional contracts with DARPA "to accelerate discovery of novel extreme-temperature materials". They are partnered with the U.S, Navy to create thermal protection systems for hypersonic systems, and have a development contract with the Department of Defense.
Founded 2019, $955 million raised from Lux Capital, RSE Ventures, Booz Allen Ventures, Alumni Ventures, U.S. Office of Strategic Capital
Performance Drone Works is a drone manufacturer, offering a quadcopter, attritable strike drones, a simulator and an operating system, "built at scale for troops in contact" and "large-scale combat and crisis response". They claim 125 combat deployments by team members, with 384 total years of military service across its employees. They are using the tagline "scale at the new speed of war".
Performance Drone Works has engineering locations in Denver and Boston, as well as headquarters in Alabama. It went on a "delegation" to Ukraine in 2026, "where the team met with operators, engineers, manufacturers, and members of the country's rapidly evolving defense technology ecosystem. The purpose was straightforward: to better understand how innovation is happening, how operational requirements continue to evolve, and which battlefield lessons can help inform the next generation of capabilities being developed in the United States."
In November 2024, Performance Drone Works drones were selected – along with Anduril – to supply the U.S. Army with small unmanned aircraft systems through the Replicator program. The Replicator program is “aimed at rapidly putting thousands of drones in the hands of the military.” Its technology has been tested with the Coast Guard and is in use by the Texas Department of Public Safety: "At Texas DPS, the broader UAS [unmanned aircraft systems/drones] program reflects how deeply drones have become integrated into the department’s operations... the department has more than 400 pilots and roughly 400 aircraft, making it one of the largest law-enforcement UAS programs in the United States." It has a contract with the U.S. Airforce for its multi-mission drones, and has tested its technology with the U.S. Army. The company is building its lobbying capabilities.
Performance Drone Works acquired Vanteon, an RF and communications company, in 2026. Also in 2026, it received a conditional loan of up to $820 million from the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital to expand its manufacturing capacity and reduce defense reliance on China; the Department of War's Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering is quoted as saying: "Achieving Secretary Hegseth's mandate for drone dominance requires a secure and resilient industrial base here at home. The Office of Strategic Capital is strengthening the domestic supply chain for critical drone components to ensure American manufacturers can deliver the lethal capabilities that our warfighters need".
Founded 2019, $150 million raised from Innovation Endeavours (Eric Schmidt), Insight Partners, Shield Capital, Pallas Ventures.
Rebellion Defense's mission is to provide protection for critical assets, such as data centers and military installations: "An INTELLIGENCE SHIELD™ for critical assets combining next-gen radar, AI fusion, and full operational software and support."
From the mission statement on the site:
"ARGUS, our miniature, multi-band AESA radar sees what current systems can’t, including drones, hypersonics, sea states and weather. Paired with the remainder of our full stack OS, it will allow operators to build a shield around their facility, built not of iron or of steel but of data and intelligence.
As each asset is protected, the number of shields and the quality of that intelligence is multiplied into a larger protective network like a Roman testudo, until that shield of shields spans the country, creating vigilance that eliminates our vulnerability, and allowing critical assets—and all of us who depend on them—to remain forever fearless."
Its systems include sensors, and an AI system to integrate all sensor data and produce threat alerts. In May 2024 Rebellion Defense was selected by the U.S. Air Force to “strengthen cyber resilience of mission applications.” Rebellion Defense has a large contract with the U.S. Navy for target recognition and battlespace awareness, which was expanded in 2025.
Founded 2018, $46.5 million raised from 8VC, Booz Allen, Air Force Research Laboratory (grant), Shield Capital, Ballistic Ventures.
Reveal Technologies creates battlefield AI to provide military intelligence; "We are bringing mission planning and execution together in one platform, purpose-built for contested and disconnected environments. Reveal’s suite of products connect people, AI, sensors, and autonomous systems and are built for the environments where the fight happens and for those doing the fighting."
Their flagship product combines "3D terrain data, sensor-collected imagery, AI, and edge processing so that Airmen, Marines, Sailors, Guardians, and Soldiers understand the operating environment and make timely decisions." Use cases listed on their site include agile targeting, "detect and destroy enemy drones and their operational networks", "mission planning and execution together in one platform", "train forces with realistic rehearsals and simulations", and "Modernize how the military collects, identifies, and shares biometric identity intelligence".
In a statement on its Modern Warrior blog, Reveal talks about the Ukraine/Russia war, saying:
"Five years ago today, Russia invaded Ukraine.
The 20th Century is over. The peace we hoped would extend from the ‘90s deep into the new millennium is gone, and a new 21st Century Cold War is here.
We find ourselves in a new winter.
And war has entered its next era.
Ukraine didn’t just adapt. They showed us what’s coming. Cheap garage drones can destroy million-dollar armored vehicles. The next IED doesn’t sit under a road. It flies...
Authoritarian states, nonstates, and failed states are armed with data, Al, and autonomous weapons systems with the capability to subvert Western governments and undermine global stability. We and our friends face possible conflict on every continent against adversaries with weapons of war that are increasingly faster, more intelligent, less expensive, and more lethal. We have to adapt.
The truth is America isn’t ready.
For decades, America failed to invest in the infantry. We know because we are those Warriors. We fought the Global War on Terror with what we had, not with what we needed.
We will be in a shooting war in this decade.
American Warriors will heed the call and fight, and many will die.
We need to give them the tools to win and come home, and we need to do it yesterday, years ago, and right now. We will not allow the same mistakes to be made again. We will not send America’s youth into harm’s way with gear that fails in contested environments: paper maps, outdated radios, frail networks, and empty promises that billion-dollar platforms will save them."
They have contract with the U.S. Special Operations Command and with the U.S. Air Force. In January 2026, it acquired Anomaly Six, a mission intelligence startup.
Founded 2018, $34.4 million raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, XYZ Venture Capital, Gradient.
Air Space Intelligence creates AI engines for complex military operations. It features predictive awareness, real time data communication, a unified operating picture and visualization, for "predicting and simulating the battlefield". It also has commercial use cases in aviation, energy and supply chains.
A manifesto on their website states:
"we deliver solutions that transform logistics into a parallel kill chain: one that operates alongside, and in constant interaction with, the traditional kinetic kill chain. This is the Logistics Kill Chain. If adversaries seek advantage by targeting our sustainment, then we must seek advantage by finding, fixing, tracking, targeting, engaging, and assessing logistics friction faster than it can degrade operations. In this model, port congestion becomes a detectable target. A fuel shortfall becomes a forecastable vulnerability. A disrupted transportation route becomes a mitigable constraint. Sustainment decisions inform operational targeting and are informed by it. This is not about weaponizing logistics. It is about operationalizing it."
Air Space Intelligence has a $875 million contract with the FAA, for use in air traffic control, as part of an FAA strategy to improve air traffic operations with AI systems, as reported by Politico. This also involves a partnership with Joby Aviation. Air Space Intelligence technology is used by Alaska Airlines.
Air Space Intelligence also has a contract with the Defense Innovation Unit "to configure and implement advanced logistics decision-support for leaders operating in complex, multi-domain operational environments." They have also partnered with the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command, and with energy company National Grid, for "a range of critical grid challenges, including resilience planning, outage detection, and energy storage deployment, helping reduce costs and time in the field." The company is headquartered in Boston.
Founded 2018, $111.4 million raised from Moonshots Capital, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Disney Accelerator, US Air Force.
RED 6 develops augmented reality technology for the military. Their technology has been used by the Air Force to train fighter pilots against virtual enemy warplanes. Their mission is to “[unify] all warfighters within the battlespace to create a common operation picture.” On the battlefield, they offer a headset for augmented reality with a full-color, wide view, high resolution display.
In July 2024, the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom awarded a contract to BAE Systems to “conduct an in-flight demonstration of the RED 6 Advanced Tactical Augmented Reality System (ATARS).” They have a contract with the U.S. Air Force to "revolutionize" F-16 pilot training, and have integrated its systems with the Apache attack helicopter. The systems have also been integrated with the T-38, MC-130 and British Hawk T2, and the company has previously partnered with Boeing for augmented reality training on its TA-4J tactical aircraft. They are partnered with SNC.
In a 2025 interview with Axios, Red 6 CEO stated that the world should be watching "The South China Sea. The Chinese Communist Party has a stated geopolitical intent; they’ve not made it a secret to anyone. We are faced, for the first time in a long time, with a genuine peer adversary."
Founded 2018, $2.4 million raised from Scout Ventures, Techstars. Acquired by AeroVironment in 2023.
Tomahawk makes systems that support unmanned systems from many manufacturers, bringing together an AI-powered “single pane of glass”. Its products include controllers, data links, and edge devices. It integrates with products from Booz Allen Hamilton, Raytheon and others.
In a press release from AeroVironment,
"The acquisition will enable deeper integration of both companies’ technology, leading to enhanced interoperability and interconnectivity of unmanned systems through a singular platform with similar control features. This will ultimately enable warfighters to operate various connected robotic solutions in the battlefield and share information between multiple domains with one common controller."
Founded 2018, $27 million raised from Khosla Ventures, Initialized Capital, Kindred Ventures, Alumni Ventures.
Adyton provides mobile solutions for the battlefield and front line, stating, "The next conflict will be won by organizations that convert data into action fastest." Use cases include managing military personnel in the field, coordinating battlefield action, and data collection and analysis. It says the "Adyton Operations Kit," "a suite of mobile defense products that digitizes and automates operational and organizational processes, like logistics, personnel management, and communication, in garrison and HQ environments", is in use in "all Special Forces Groups".
Adyton's software has been "deployed to thousands of users across the Department of Defense", including the U.S. Navy for naval aviation and installations, the US Air Force for special operations and security operations, and the U.S. Army for Special Forces and IET brigades. It is also in use by the Air National Guard. It was a finalist in a U.S. Air Force initiative to create the “base of the future” and is used by the Marines.
Founded 2018, $537.6 raised from 8VC, Bedrock, General Dynamics Land Systems, National Science Foundation (grant), Manhattan Venture Partners, Oppenheimer & Co.
Epirus is co-founded by Joe Lonsdale. Epirus builds counter-drone and counter-drone swarm systems, using weaponized electromagnetic interference: "Epirus combines the latest in solid-state, long-pulse high-power microwave systems with software and advanced electronics to protect and sustain civilization."
Their systems can be integrated into many form factors, including unmanned surface vessels or as part of a convoy, and drones themselves. In a 2025 demonstration, Epirus systems disabled 100% of the 61 drones used in testing. Epirus has a contract with the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army. One potential application is in the Golden Dome project. It also has a memorandum of understanding with Singapore to counter unmanned aerial systems.
Profiling the company, Fast Company reports:
"A high-powered microwave is a type of directed-energy weapon that generates a cone of electromagnetic interference to disable the electronics of drones and missiles. In contrast to a high-energy laser weapon, which generates a narrowly-focused beam of energy to literally burn targets out of the sky, a microwave weapon can deliver effects across a much wider area, making them more effective at engaging multiple fast-moving drones simultaneously, according to a 2023 Congressional Research Service report.
'At the moment, there aren’t any really good options for defeating large swarms of 100 or more drones that are simultaneously attacking a target,' Epirus CEO Andy Lowery tells Fast Company. 'Today, we not only have a good system for short-range air defense against those types of threats, we believe we are the only effective program solution to counter large swarms.'"
Epirus has collaborated with General Dynamics Land Systems and Kodiak AI on a autonomous vehicle for counter-drone operations. Further, it is partnered with Palantir to deploy Palantir manufacturing software into its systems. and with Anduril to integrate Epirus with Anduril's command and control system.
Founded 2018, $48.8 million raised from Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Techstars, Tribe Capital; grants from UK Space Agency and European Space Agency.
Orbit Fab focuses on space refueling of military assets and spacecraft like satellites, space stations, war planes and rockets. They have current missions and planned missions involving refueling satellites and space craft, and had SpaceX as a mission partner. Orbit Fab has been selected by NASA to support its Lunar Gateway space station, and was awarded a contract with the UK Space Agency and European Space Agency "to lead a European consortium advancing next-generation satellite refueling technology."
Starburst Aerospace Accelerator
Founded 2012, $1.4 million raised; grants provided by the U.S. Small Business Administration and US Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration.
Starburst is a startup accelerator and strategic advisory practice for military startups. Their portfolio includes 150 startups it has seed funded, and has over 60 corporate and government partners, including Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, NASA, NATO, and Singapore Airlines. It has a global presence in Germany, Israel, France, Spain, Washington D.C. and others. They run a number of accelerator programs for startups, ranging from six weeks to one year, including the 7-month Astra accelerator in Israel, among other Israel-based programs.
Starburst facilitates contracts from the military and venture funds from larger venture firms, to fast-track the development and growth of defense startups. Starburst is also partnered with IAI North America, part of Israel Aerospace Industries, to “foster cooperation between IAI and American startup companies."
Starburst Accelerator companies include multiple Israeli startups, including C4 Systems (augmented reality for pilots), Sightec (navigation and analytics for drones), Infinidome (anti-GPS jamming), Magellanic (cybersecurity), Climate Eyes and NOAH (satellite systems), and others. A large number of its startups are founded and based in France. Their portfolio includes spacecraft refeuling, new spacecraft, deep space exploration, electric air taxis, rocket engines, drone and counter-drone startups, jet engines, blockchain, and fuel cells.
Founded 2017, $58.1 million raised from Y Combinator, Starburst Accelerator, Capital Factory, Defense Angels.
Skyways says it is "building the largest unmanned aircraft fleet in the world", focusing on autonomous, long-range cargo aircrafts. Its current production craft can carry 30 pounds with a range of 450 miles, and is developing another craft that can carry a larger load and travel more than 1000 miles: "Same-day delivery to remote, high-risk field operations are a reality." It is designed for military applications for recon and surveillance, and resupply, stating "Today’s military relies on large and expensive systems to deliver critical supplies at a moment’s notice. Tomorrow’s warfighters will benefit from an attritable and durable platform to handle these mission critical supply needs." Another application is in the oil and gas industries.
Skyways has contracts with the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy. It is building a logistics backbone for remote islands in Japan, and in 2025 conducted "Germany’s first long range offshore drone delivery trial to wind turbines at Arkona Windfarm". In 2026, it is increasing its lobbying position in Washington D.C.
Founded 2016, $239 million raised from DCVC, Spark Capital, US Innovative Technology Fund.
Cappella Space creates Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites for earth observation and surveillance. Its differentiator is visibility despite atmospheric conditions such as cloud covering, and its "sensors penetrate clouds, fog, darkness, and smoke—delivering reliable data from low Earth orbit in any condition." Customers include the U.S. Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. Cappella has a partnership with Rocket Lab to launch its satellites. In October 2024 Capella Space was awarded a contract to participate in the Hybrid Acquisition for Proliferated LEO (HALO) project from the Space Development Agency.
Capella Space was acquired by IonQ in 2025, the announcement post reading: "IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), a leading commercial quantum computing and networking company, today announced the completion of its acquisition of Capella Space Corporation, an American space tech company with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and satellite solutions for government and commercial applications. The closing marks a significant step in IonQ’s mission to develop the world’s first space-to-space and space-to-ground satellite quantum key distribution (QKD) network, enabling quantum-secure global communications."
Founded 2016, $12.5 million raised from In-Q-Tel, Pylon Ventures and "other thought-leading investors."
Immersive Wisdom is designed to work in “Denied, Degraded, Intermittent, and Limited-Bandwidth (DDIL) environments”, “a remote collaborative ops center platform for distributed & disaggregated operations that allows geographically dispersed personnel to effectively work together and act without having to be physically present, even in severely bandwidth-limited environments, using existing desktops and laptops.” Use cases include agile combat employment, drone management, mission planning and command, space operations, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and intelligence analysis, including "pattern of life" intelligence.
Immersive Wisdom has a contract for the Missile Defense Agency Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD), under the Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency, in support of the Golden Dome project. In fall 2025, its contract with an unnamed "key U.S. Special Operations Customer" was extended, along with a contract with Pacific Air Forces. It also holds a contract with Air Force Special Operations Command for its "digital war room software", "further accelerating the worldwide cross-DoD use of Immersive Wisdom software to support disaggregated communications in contested environments."
Founded 2016, $99.7 million raised from Boeing, Lockheed Martin Ventures, DCVC.
Fortem builds attack drones to counter enemy drone systems. One of its main platforms is the DroneHunter F700; Fortem highlights that it can defeat Iranian Shahed-136 drones, and is already used in military bases and airports. Their complete "SkyDome System" combines radars, cameras, the DroneHunter, and a shed. Fortem's use cases include prisons, law enforcement and energy installations. DCVC states the DroneHunter interceptor "can fire a rapidly expanding net to ensnare targets, including the large Class 2 drones often used by rogue militants and terrorist groups."
In 2026, Fortem has been selected as a prime contractor with the Department of Homeland Security’s Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems program: "The award means that any DHS component – including Customs and Border Protection, Secret Service, Federal Protective Service, Coast Guard, and others – can now issue task orders directly" to Fortem's systems, with subcontractors Microsoft and Lockheed Martin. Lockheed is not only an investor, but "advances a jointly developed, integrated approach to counter-UAS that is moving into broader operational deployment." In a test with Lockheed Martin, Fortem Technologies was used to intercept a Shahed-style drone.
Fortem has put together a "Government Advisory Board", made up of former U.S. military leaders. It has been selected to protect the Farnborough International Airshow, and U.S. FIFA World Cup Venues, from drone threats.
Founded 2015, $2.6 million funding from Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Root Ventures, DCVC.
ApolloShield is described in the Y Combinator portfolio: "Developed by experts from Israel Defense Forces and currently serving more than 25 countries, ApolloShield is the world leader in detecting and blocking drone intrusions, as well as tracking down and arresting unauthorized drone operators." A 2018 article in CyberScoop notes that the company's founders come from Israel's Unit 8200, also writing "ApolloShield’s engineers build out and maintain an arsenal of radio frequency jamming techniques, denial-of-service attacks and zero-day exploits that either brick the drone, trick it or take it over completely."
Its products include RF sensors and jamming, an RF gun that blocks autonomous drones, a system that can be mounted on vehicles, and a software command center.
Founded 2016, $55.4 million raised from In-Q-Tel, Starburst Accelerator, Allied Minds.
Orbital Sidekick runs a fleet of satellites to allow governments and commercial customers to "Monitor and analyze activities anywhere on earth with sophisticated hyperspectral intelligence for objective analysis and geospatial understanding." Explaining hyperspectral imaging, Orbital Sidekick states "Hyperspectral imagery is the highest dimensional way of seeing. From space, this technology allows for frequent collection of data to build detailed analysis and insight around a given location. Most optical imagery platforms capture only a few color bands and cannot distinguish material composition or molecular makeup. OSK captures over 500 narrow contiguous color bands and reflectance features in the visible and infrared light spectra." Its satellites are launched on SpaceX rockets, and leverage NVIDIA AI.
Orbital Sidekick has use cases across industries and defense, such as monitoring energy plants, detecting pipeline leaks, surveillance of sensitive sites, mining and lithium exploration, monitoring the health of crops, and monitoring forests for wildfire prediction. In the military setting, Orbital Sidekick can assist in situational awareness, target detection and tracking, and detecting chemical weapons and plume signatures.
Orbital Sidekick is a commercial data provider to NASA, stating "Orbital Sidekick, Inc. operates a three-satellite constellation carrying identical hyperspectral instruments that deliver high-resolution (8-meter) hyperspectral imagery across 472 spectral bands to support a range of Earth science applications, including the detailed analysis of biodiversity, ecosystem health, and surface geology; greenhouse gas detection; and detecting solid chemicals related to pollutants."
SpaceNews reports that Orbital Sidekick has revealed information on damage to Iran’s Fordow nuclear fuel enrichment plant following a massive strike by the United States and Israel. A white paper from Orbital Sidekick documenting the findings stated: "We are actively engaged in similar projects within the Defense and Intelligence (D&I) communities."
SHIFT (now Designing America)/ Reindustrialize Conference
Founded 2016, $4.5 million raised from Andreessen Horowitz.
Shift was a “military talent exchange for America”, focused on integrating military personnel into startups or VC firms for fellowships; these programs have brought intelligence officers, active military, special forces, and other “warfighters” into venture capital firms and accelerator and defense startups.
Its original website now re-directs to Designing America, which is behind the Reindustralize conference, a chief venue pushing the American Dynamism platform and investment in defense, aerospace and energy. Sponsors of the event include J.D. Vance's Narya Capital, Sam Altman's energy company Oklo, and military startup Hadrian, also profiled in this document. Additional sponsors and partners include DCVC, Boeing, General Catalyst, Palantir, GE Aerospace and the University of Michigan.
The NY Times, covering the 2025 Reindustrialize conference, wrote:
"Investors from Silicon Valley and senior officials in the Trump administration descended on a convention hall in downtown Detroit last week for a conference committed to spurring a 'techno-industrial renaissance' in the United States.
In some ways, it looked like a normal convention. The makers of everything from carbon brushes to boat propellers milled around a large hall, looking at a flying boat, a customizable electric truck, an air taxi and a humanoid robot. But at times, it turned into an urgent and literal call to arms as discussions moved from manufacturing to national security.
'You will help us forge a future where we can build and sustain an industrial base that can deliver the critical weapons we need, fast and at scale,' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the participants in a video message. 'Time is short.'...
Speaker after speaker emphasized that military power flows from industrial power, which they said had been eroded by the offshoring of factories and an overemphasis on software, apps and financial products...
Nearly every session waxed nostalgic for World War II, when Detroit’s car plants were quickly converted into munitions factories that helped achieve victory. But today, Americans have fallen behind China in the mass-production of things that would matter in a war, senior administration officials warned...
Other Trump administration officials who attended included Kelly Loeffler, administrator of the Small Business Administration; Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative; John Phelan, the Navy secretary; and unnamed representatives of the Central Intelligence Agency, who held a private round table with industry people....
The idea for a Reindustrialize conference sprang from a factory tour of Atomic in March 2024, said Ms. Donohue, the board member. In addition to the tour, Atomic held a discussion with policymakers and investors about how to revitalize manufacturing with tech and new government policies. Ms. Donohue is also a partner at Narya, an investment firm that Vice President JD Vance co-founded in 2019...
But not everyone was impressed with the conference. A group called Engineers Against Apartheid protested with megaphones against Palantir, whose software has been used by Israel to conducts its war in Gaza."
More about Engineers Against Apartheid can be found on their website.
Founded 2015, $237 million raised from Lux Capital, In-Q-Tel, DCVC, US Innovative Technology Fund
Primer is a military and intelligence AI system "helping national security teams make sense of massive volumes of data and move from information to action faster." Its "Primer Command" monitoring platform "helps mission teams keep track of narratives, track evolving topics, and detect emerging threats across global news and social media... so you don’t miss key shifts in the narrative landscape." It uses agentic AI, natural language processing and "advanced information retrieval".
One use case is detecting drone threats through sensor data, field reports and "open source intelligence". For the intelligence community, they offer "intelligence analysis acceleration": "Intelligence teams can surface, understand, and synthesize information across sources in minutes, not hours or days, while maintaining full source traceability and analytic rigor."
Primer is partnered with Palantir, Microsoft and Amazon AWS, where it is deployed in the AWS "Secret Region", Amazon's cloud platform for classified information and workloads from the U.S. Intelligence community, DoD, U.S. defense contractors and others.
Primer is a key example of how the CIA, through its In-Q-Tel venture capital firm, is funding startups that directly serves their intelligence missions. Its federal advisory board includes former high level officials from the CIA, U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, Defense Intelligence Agency and others.
Founded 2015, $329.7 million raised from In-Q-Tel, TPG and SAP National Security Services.
Sayari is an AI platform "mapping the world's shadow economy", claiming "2B+ entity relationships across 250+ jurisdictions, sourced from petabytes of primary documents, continuously updating. The foundation no generic AI has access to." It was founded "by people from the intelligence community, financial crime investigation, and data engineering".
Sayari markets itself as part of a "sovereign AI" strategy aimed at Europe, partnering with DataExpert to offer Sayari to "government, law enforcement, defence, and financial intelligence agencies in eight countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden... Sayari's sovereign AI can run in an agency's own environment - its cloud, a private enclave, or classified cloud." In 2025, Sayari "officially" launched in the Middle East, "beginning with the United Arab Emirates as its strategic hub. This approach focuses on bringing Sayari’s proven global strategy into alignment with local priorities in the Gulf Region, while empowering those partners to bring their business to global markets."
Sayari is aimed at both commercial and government, defense and intelligence use cases. For corporations, Sayari can help with compliance and procurement, while "legal teams use Sayari to screen counterparties, trace ownership, and build audit-ready evidence – across every risk domain, from a single platform." Use cases include compliance with sanctions and export controls, screening for supply chain risk (including defense), monitoring "negative news" about clients, and tracking shell companies; clients include "Fortune 1000 manufacturers", "Top 35 global banks", "Big 4 advisory firms" and "Global insurers & asset managers".
In the defense space specifically, applications include monitoring subcontractors and suppliers: "Foreign government ownership, control, or influence rarely appears at the Tier 1 subcontractor level. It’s embedded in the corporate structure two or three layers up – where standard screening doesn’t look... Sayari’s world model covers Chinese military-civil fusion entities, Russian state-owned defense enterprises, Iranian government-controlled companies, and their global subsidiary and affiliate networks... Air-gapped, on-premise, and private cloud deployment options for classified and sensitive defense intelligence programs."
In 2024, Bloomberg reported:
"Some Russian banks appear to have maneuvered around a ban on shipping dollars and euros to the country by trading gold in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, according to research from a financial-intelligence company.
The sanctions on the export of banknotes were introduced after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. The report compiled by Sayari found that in the first quarter of 2023, the financial institutions — which include Lanta Bank JSC, whose owners control gold miner GV Gold, and at least one lender that is not sanctioned — imported more than the equivalent of $82 million in euros, dollars and UAE dirhams. The data shows that several of the same entities used to ship cash to Russia also imported gold from Russia within similar timeframes."
Case studies listed on their website include assisting Ukraine law enforcement in tracing assets tied to money laundering; a US federal defense agency screening missile defense supply chain risk; and a major bank adapting to new sanctions on Russia. Sayari claims to serve "government customers across the UK, EU, Australia, Japan, and Singapore – deploying across the full range of national security and regulatory missions"; use cases include counternarcotics, counterintelligence, and trade and sanctions enforcement. It maintains an engineering office in Israel. In 2025, Sayari acquired Israeli startup Mirato, an AI risk management company.
Sayari has contracts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and ICE specifically, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. It has an agreement in the UK to enable "the National Crime Agency (NCA), Ministry of Defence (MOD), HM Revenue & Customs, Serious Fraud Office, HM Treasury and other agencies to accelerate deployment of Sayari’s commercial risk intelligence platform"
Founded 2015, $26.8 million raised from Decisive Point, Veteran Ventures Capital, Alumni Ventures, Insight Partners, Bosch Ventures.
Asylon provides robotic security systems, including the ground DroneDog, an aerial drone, and operations software. The DroneDog is an all-terrain robot, providing "unmatched situational awareness with cutting-edge sensors, precision optics, and AI-assisted navigation"; the robot can climb stairs and get through tight spaces. It is a collaboration with Boston Dynamics, leveraging a modified Boston Dynamics Spot robot. In 2022, it partnered with ZeroEyes, profiled in this document, to integrate AI gun detection software, for use in active shooter situations.
Asylon's aerial drone offers "rapid alarm response, automated perimeter patrols, and real-time intelligence... Equipped with EO/IR payloads, automated battery swaps, and powered by DroneIQ software", and claiming "45,000 automated patrol or alarm response missions completed".
For governments, their technology can be used for base and perimeter security, ports, national security assets, and force protection and readiness. It is used by the U.S. Air Force. Its leadership team comes from "Lockheed Martin, L3 Communications, Boeing Aerospace, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, U.S. Air Force Security Forces, and MIT."
In 2025, United Airlines CIO Jason Birnbaum was appointed to Asylon's board. In 2026, Germany's Bosch Ventures invested in the company. Also in 2026, Asylon announced a partnership with NVIDIA to "to develop next-generation AI-powered analytics for autonomous robotic security systems".
In a 2024 article, WIRED discussed the military competition in robot dogs, noting:
"In October 2022, Chinese defense company Kestrel Defense published a video showing an unmanned aerial vehicle air-dropping a quadrupedal ground vehicle affixed with a 5.8 x 42-mm QBB-97 light machine gun on a roof during an urban warfare experiment. The company had previously released footage of robot dogs outfitted with combat systems that included everything from smoke grenades to loitering munitions. And as recently as this March, Chinese researchers claimed that tests involving robot dogs outfitted with an unidentified 7.62-mm rifle (likely a variant of the Type 56 assault rifle that’s based on the ubiquitous Soviet-made AK-47) yielded marksmanship that rivaled trained Chinese sharpshooters, according to the South China Morning Post.
China’s demonstration clearly rankled international observers, prompting at least one American lawmaker to call on the US Defense Department for a report on 'rifle-toting robot dogs' and their potential national security implications. But if the Chinese military is pioneering the weaponization of robot dogs, then the United States military isn’t far behind."
Use cases of Asylon outside of military spaces include patrolling crops, stadiums, large solar sites, and corporate installations.
Business Insider reported that robot dogs may be replacing security guards, offering cheaper alternatives than human guards, with Futurism reporting "Often deployed to help property owners reduce insurance premiums, the role of security guard is an important source of income for some 1.3 million people. According to a report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, about 60.8 percent of those roles are filled by people of color, while 27.8 percent of guards are 55 or older. It is, however, a difficult job to make a living on, with the median annual wage of just $38,390 as of 2024. That being the case, the industry faces a high degree of turnover, which tech companies are all too happy to exploit."
Founded 2014, $199 million raised from Northrop Grumman, Lux Capital, Bill Gates.
Echodyne creates radar systems for the military, focusing on metamaterials electronically scanned array (MESA) radar systems, to "enhance warfighter lethality and safety." Its radars are used in counter-drone systems, for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, and detection and tracking across land, water and air. Echodyne is also designed for "border security": "Detect and track what matters: low‑profile movement, such as walkers." A large array of use cases on the company's website include defense for critical infrastructure (data centers, ports, prisons), and oil and gas installations.
In September 2026, the U.S. Army awarded a contract to Echodyne and other counter-drone systems "supporting Domestic Shield, a Department of War effort to improve counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) protection for risk-prioritized DoW facilities and assets within the United States." Other recipients of the award include SmartShooter and DroneShield.
It is partnered with KONGSBERG, a weapons manufacturer located in Norway, to integrate Ecodyne's technology with KONGSBERG's remote weapons stations; it has also partnered with Germany's Argus Interception. It has won contracts from the Australian Department of Defense. Caliber reported in September 2026 that "An Australian-made anti-drone technology titled Slinger has reportedly been spotted in Ukraine... For target detection, the system uses an electro-optical station together with a compact Echodyne EchoGuard radar." Echodyne is working with Poland's Military Institute of Armored and Automotive Technology, and is said to be considering a production facility in Europe. It has also partnered with Axon: "Under the partnership, Echodyne’s advanced radar technology will continue supporting Axon’s growing ecosystem of public safety drone solutions, enhancing low-altitude airspace awareness for authorized drone operations while helping agencies detect and respond to unauthorized or malicious drone activity."
Echodyne CEO Eben Frankenberg said in a 2026 interview:
"There is a rush of interest globally for counter-drone... The Ukraine war made it obvious to everyone that drones had changed the face of warfare, but the Iran war made it obvious that everything’s at risk... The more traditional defense-radar companies make amazing radars... But they all cost half a million dollars or a million dollars a face. If you have a million cheap, lethal drones, you can’t have one battlefield-wide system at $5 million or $10 million. You have to have a ton of inexpensive, yet highly effective systems.”
Echodyne is active in Ukraine, and was awarded with a $14.9 million contract through the United States Department of State to provide radar systems to Ukraine. Echodyne claims "Hundreds of Systems Supplier, Integrator, and End User customers from Defense, Government, Critical Infrastructure Protection, C-UAS, and UAS/AAM markets in 40+ countries." It has opened a new, 86,350-square-foot factory in Washington state, where it has plans to manufacture more than 30,000 radars annually.
In a 2026 profile in The Times:
"The phone has not stopped ringing at Echodyne. The question for Eben Frankenberg, though, is not whether his company’s radar systems can detect the slow, low-flying 'dark drones' of Iran, but whether he can make enough of them.
The Gulf monarchies are leading demand for defences against Iranian drones, which are engineered to avoid enemy systems and threaten chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, Frankenberg, Echodyne’s chief executive, said during a visit to London to discuss the role of defence firms in the Middle East crisis.
Demand is so high that Echodyne is building a factory in the US that can build 30,000 radar systems a year. 'The phones are ringing off the hook,' he said. 'It’s a lot of panic ‘I need stuff immediately’ kind of situation.'...
Iran’s decision to target Gulf states with drones and missile attacks in response to Operation Epic Fury is creating soaring demand for munitions, missile defence and counter-drone capabilities...
'It’s a rinse-repeat situation,' he said. 'We are pre-ordering a whole bunch of the equipment as we think we are going to have to go faster. We keep setting a plan and we have to go faster than that.' He said drones would 'change the face of war forever' so 'militaries all around the world are trying to figure out how to prepare themselves for it'”.
Albert Vidal, research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: 'We are starting to see signs of how this war has put missile defence and counter-UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) capabilities firmly at the top of the Gulf states’ procurement list.'
He said Gulf states would need to restock the hundreds of missile interceptors they had used and accelerate the delivery of signed contracts for missile defence systems, including Thaad for Saudi Arabia and South Korea’s Cheongung-II, a medium-range surface-to-air missile system for Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 'They will also buy additional batteries, with potential suppliers being the US, Israel, South Korea and European countries,' he said...
To strengthen their counter-drone capability, Vidal said Gulf states would purchase hundreds of new air-to-air missiles and request accelerated deliveries of existing orders. The US, for instance, recently approved the emergency sale of 400 AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles to the UAE.
Gulf states have also shown interest in buying counter-drone interceptors. The UAE received US approval last month to buy FS-LIDS, a fixed-site, low, slow, small unmanned aircraft system. The system, developed by Raytheon, is designed to detect, track, and destroy enemy drones."
Founded 2014, $58.3 million raised from DCVC, Union Grove Venture Partners, Ajax.
Descartes Labs is a geospatial intelligence company for detecting patterns in the physical world. It gives military and intelligence agencies analytics and insight over large amounts of data, addressing ground surface movement, geopolitical engagements, crisis response, and threat forecasting. It is partnered with DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory. In October 2024, EarthDaily Analytics acquired Descartes Labs for an undisclosed amount.
Founded 2014, $732.5 million raised from Y Combinator, 8VC, United States Air Force (grant), SV Angel, Bessemer Venture Partners, ARK Investment Management, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, Michael Moritz and Paul Graham, Hydrazine Capital, NEOM Investment Fund.
Boom manufactures supersonic engines and planes for the military and defense, along with a commercial component. Their planes include the XB-1, operating at Mach 1 speeds in numerous test flights. Its Overture supersonic airliner reached Mach 1.7 cruising speed and will carry 60-80 passengers; Boom says it has 130 orders and pre-orders including from United Airlines, American Airlines and Japan Airlines.
They are aiming to develop supersonic flight that does not create the audible sonic boom: "When in Boomless Cruise, speeds are 40-50% faster than conventional airliners. A New York to San Francisco flight can be 2 hours faster, and Los Angeles to New York can be less than 3.5 hours. Overture's advanced autopilot continuously optimizes speed based on real-time atmospheric conditions. Boomless Cruise is possible at speeds up to Mach 1.3, with typical speed between Mach 1.1 and 1.2."
It lists partners including Honeywell, Amazon AWS, Leonardo, Universal Avionics and Northrop Grumman, and have a strategic partnership with the United States Air Force. They also have a Defense Advisory Board which features a number of retired generals of the Air Force.
In 2024, Boom Supersonic finished construction on the first supersonic airliner factory in America, located in North Carolina; however, the project has not worked out as expected for the state, with the News & Observer noting:
"In January 2022, the Colorado startup Boom Supersonic selected Greensboro as the home for its first manufacturing and testing plant. Boom put forth an ambitious objective: to revive the kind of supersonic passenger travel not seen since the Concorde airliner stopped flying in the early 2000s. It envisioned its inaugural Overture aircraft would cruise at approximately 1,300 mph over water, roughly twice the speed of today’s commercial planes.
North Carolina sweetened its incentive package to attract Boom over a competitive Florida offer. In addition to awarding the jet maker tax breaks if it reached certain hiring and investment milestones, the North Carolina General Assembly (upon the urging of the state Commerce Department) allocated nearly $107 million for the airport factory upfront. This included $35 million for the N.C. Department of Transportation to connect a public road to the site, $15 million for the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority to grade and ready the site, and $56.75 million to reimburse Boom for construction costs...
If Boom employs fewer than 500 workers in Greensboro at any time after Dec. 31, 2026, the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority can end its lease and market the building to other companies... It’s safe to say Boom won’t meet this hiring mark in time. The company has yet to test or build any aircraft in Greensboro. It finished testing its X-B1 demonstrator jet after breaking the sound barrier in California early last year, and Overture remains unfinished — as does the 'Symphony' engine Boom hopes will one day power its jet. After deals with engine manufacturers fell through, Boom is now creating Symphony in-house — which has contributed to delays."
At the end of 2025, Boom announced that it had secured a contract to provide its "Superpower" natural gas turbine to Crusoe, an AI infrastructure provider, for datacenters: "Unlike legacy power turbines which lose generation capacity when it gets hot outside, Superpower leverages extreme temperature technology to maintain its full capacity—even in demanding locations. Superpower does not require water—a substantial advantage for AI data centers where water is often a constrained resource. Crusoe, an energy-first AI infrastructure leader, has ordered 29 Superpower turbines to power its advanced AI data centers." However, the partnership ended by September 2026, with Boom stating it will continue to pursue the data base market. Prior to the ending of the relationship, CEO Blake Scholl had discussed the business strategy: "The revenue and the profits from our Superpower turbine pay for the development of the supersonic jet, and we actually have all the financial resources that we need to build a supersonic airliner."
Boom Supersonic and other companies developing in the market have benefitted from a White House Executive Order from Trump in June 2025, "Leading the World in Supersonic Flight", which stated:
"For more than 50 years, outdated and overly restrictive regulations have grounded the promise of supersonic flight over land, stifling American ingenuity, weakening our global competitiveness, and ceding leadership to foreign adversaries. Advances in aerospace engineering, materials science, and noise reduction now make supersonic flight not just possible, but safe, sustainable, and commercially viable. This order begins a historic national effort to reestablish the United States as the undisputed leader in high-speed aviation. By updating obsolete standards and embracing the technologies of today and tomorrow, we will empower our engineers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries to deliver the next generation of air travel, which will be faster, quieter, safer, and more efficient than ever before."
The FAA is engaging in regulatory processes to support supersonic flights over land, which had been banned since 1973; it aims to finalize reforms by mid-2027.
Boom Supersonics is weathering a number of challenges at this time, having taken on a more ambitious strategy than it has been able to execute; however, significant backing from elite venture capital firms, which have invested an amount approaching $1 billion in the company, means it is unlikely to simply collapse.
Founded 2014, $1.9 million raised from Decisive Point, Catapult Ventures, United States Air Force (grant).
Flightwave developed long-range VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) drones and accompanying sensors, including a "military grade tricopter" for "extended short-range mapping, inspection, surveillance, and reconnaissance". In 2024, the company was acquired by Red Cat, a military robotics company: "The acquisition officially brings the Edge 130, FlightWave's Blue UAS approved military-grade tricopter, into Red Cat's family of low-cost, portable unmanned reconnaissance and precision lethal strike systems."
Founded 2013, seed funding raised from Resolute Ventures, Social Starts.
Onai focuses on artificial intelligence, cryptographic technologies and machine learning, and says it has worked with "DARPA, NASA, NOAA, and the Army, on networks and AI, including work for low-resource languages." A major theme of their work is integration and analysis across data silos, a key area in venture capital portfolios, supporting the ongoing data grab. Onai focuss on heathcare data, payment systems, and corporations, in addition to their military work. Projects they have done include work on drug discovery and public government datasets to "improve US competitiveness."
Founded 2013, $347.1 million raised from Founders Fund, Joe Lonsdale, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Mark Cuban, Palumni VC (invests in Palantir alumni startups), US Innovative Technology Fund.
Gecko creates AI robots that monitor and evaluate critical infrastructure like nuclear power plants, missile silos, aircraft, and military ships. "Already deployed across the U.S. Defense Industrial Base," their customer list includes the Navy and U.S. Air Force, as well as Siemens Energy, Georgia Pacific, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Mitsubishi Corporation, NAES, and others.
In 2022, they were contracted by the U.S. Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, implementing “capability to rapidly assess concrete and steel liners in Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch facilities.” It has also partnered with NVIDIA to on AI security for autonomous systems, and with Trident Maritime Systems to support Navy manufacturing.
Gecko Robotics' CEO gave an interview to CNBC where he discusses the large financial opportunity offered to VC-backed companies stemming from the Iran War, and increased collaboration between American startups and the Gulf states: "Jake Loosararian, CEO of US-based Gecko Robotics, remains bullish on the Middle East region. He sees opportunity for the firm to deploy its robots as companies review the extent of damage caused by the Iran war."
From an interview with the National News:
"Mr Loosararian said the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, with which Gecko has several partnerships, is making the most of robots and artificial intelligence to help drive GDP growth.
'They're a technology company that happens to make oil and gas,' he said. He said Adnoc has used Gecko robots and other products to perform various tasks while also providing data to enhance workflow.
'That's where the UAE is leading in this application of robots to drive GDP growth,' Mr Loosararian said.
He said that in his view, the UAE is among the top five countries in the world in terms of robotics, and that companies such as Adnoc have embraced technology and refined how it is used at an incredibly fast pace...
In 2025, Adnoc and Gecko Robotics signed three deals to use robotics and AI across the oil company's operations to boost efficiency, and to train Emiratis.
Several years earlier, Gecko established an international base in the UAE under the Ministry of Economy’s NextGen FDI programme."
Gecko has a partnership with Anduril to accelerate submarine production: "The partnership will support Anduril's Arsenal-2, a new software-defined shipyard in Baltimore County, Maryland, announced as part of the company's $3.7bn investment to expand production for the Virginia-class submarine program. Gecko's technology will be deployed at Anduril's new 160,000-square-foot protofactory in Orange County, California, where key submarine components will be manufactured." It is also opening a new 10,000 square foot manufacturing facility near its headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Founded 2012, $299.5 million raised from Lux Capital, Google.org, Eric Schmidt's Schmidt Family Foundation, Google.org, Lockheed Martin.
Saildrone makes autonomous water drones (USVs, uncrewed surface vessels) to support intelligence operations: "wide-area detection, classification, and tracking—delivering the decision advantage required to secure national and global maritime interests." Their platforms are designed to support weapons systems, leveraging "customer- and partner-furnished kinetic and non-kinetic payloads... including strike and loitering munitions, precision-guided interceptors, torpedoes, and mine-laying systems."
They have partnered with Lockheed Martin, one of their investors, to integrate "operationally proven commercial autonomous platforms with combat-tested payloads to deliver mission-ready firepower." They also have a partnership with Palantir.
Saildrone is working with Navies in the Middle East, stating in early 2026 that "For over five years, Saildrone has maintained a persistent presence in the region"; and in a 2025 release: "As conflicts rage in the Middle East, the waters are becoming tougher to operate in. This complex environment makes it all the more vital for the US Navy to have unmanned assets deployed around the region to serve as the 'eyes and ears' of the fleet. However due to recent regional events, GPS jamming and spoofing have hindered unmanned operating systems in the area. Following an intensive development and testing period, Saildrone engineers have created a resilient positioning system that allows its unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to operate autonomously in GPS-denied or spoofed maritime environments."
Use cases include "Wide-area tracking across EEZs [Exclusive Economic Zones], chokepoints, and remote maritime zones". Their USVs include a 170 foot drone, "to support anti-submarine warfare payloads"; and a 33 foot USV that can go 100 days between stops "for homeland security".
It is also expanding through Europe, including "the official opening of Saildrone’s EU headquarters in Copenhagen and three separate build contracts in Norway, Poland, and the Netherlands", announced in summer 2026: "We are proud to announce not one, but three large construction projects. The first European-built 52-meter Saildrone Spectre will be built at Van Der Valk Shipyard in the Netherlands; the next generation of the Saildrone Surveyor will be produced at Umoe Mandal in Norway; and Southern Spars will produce Surveyor wings in Poland”.
Saildrone has done operations with the Navy to "counter drug trafficking" and build "a network of unmanned systems, networks, and Al tools to detect abnormal maritime behaviors and cue manned ships to respond." They have also worked with the Coast Guard domain awareness in the Pacific Ocean, and partnered with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to patrol the US/Mexico maritime border, stating: "Each year, criminal organizations smuggle hundreds of tons of illicit drugs and thousands of individuals into the United States by sea, often using small, hard-to-detect vessels." They claim 30,000 "detections".
Saildrone also does ocean mapping, including a NASA project to inspect condition in the Arctic and upper ocean temperature, a research project on white sharks, mapping corals in the Gulf of Maine, and others.
In 2026, Saildrone sued the U.S. Navy after being passed over for a prototype program, alleging that "the Navy didn’t follow its own selection criteria and passed over the two companies for consideration for the MUSV program." This strategy follows similar aggressive moves by venture capital and big tech, such as Anthropic suing the Pentagon to protest its high-profile blacklisting, Palantir successfully suing the U.S. Army, and Amazon suing the Pentagon over a major cloud computing contract that went to Microsoft. These are best conceived as negotiations that are part of venture capitals' aggressive takeover of the U.S. military and government.
Founded 2012, unknown funding raised from Decisive Point, Lockheed Martin Ventures, RTX Ventures.
EpiSci is a software platform for drone swarms, tactical fighter aircraft and other aerial systems. They announced a contract with the US Air Force in 2023, for “heterogeneous swarms of uncrewed aircraft in contested environments under denied communication and navigation conditions.”
EpiSci was acquired by Applied Intuition, also covered in this document, in early 2025: "This strategic move positions Applied Intuition’s defense business as the premier autonomy software developer for use cases across all domains—land, air, sea and space... Applied Intuition Defense will integrate EpiSci’s tactical AI-powered solutions into its suite of simulation, validation and data management software".
Founded 2012, $48.5 million raised from Founders Fund, Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz,
GoTenna is a command and control system, leveraging mobile tactical communications for combat operations in off-grid zones. It includes software-integrated hardware solutions that “enhance command-level decision-making and teamwide situational awareness with access to real-time soldier information…[including in] caves, tunnels and underground structures.” In October 2024, GoTenna was given a 16-month follow-on contract with the U.S. Navy. (this is from their old website so just leave it up because it shows what they were doing before they were acquired).
GoTenna was acquired by Forterra in 2025, the announcement stating: "Forterra, a leader in autonomous mission systems, today announced its acquisition of goTenna, the pioneer in tactical mesh networking solutions. This acquisition will accelerate the deployment of decentralized situational awareness at the tactical edge. goTenna enables Forterra’s mission to deliver fully integrated autonomous mission systems to provide secure, resilient communications for disconnected, denied and contested environments."
Founded 2025, $25 million raised from Lux Capital, Silent Ventures, Craft Ventures, Steve Blank, founders from Anduril Industries and Erebor.
"Traysar calls itself the world’s first 'subterra' defense tech company. Rather than building systems for the skies or seas, it’s developing autonomous platforms that can tunnel underground, map subterranean networks, breach hardened infrastructure and deliver payloads beneath the Earth’s surface. It’s there that it says modern warfare is increasingly being conducted in places like Iran, with its underground nuclear bunkers; Gaza, which has a vast Hamas-built subterranean tunnel network; and Ukraine, which has moved more of its military infrastructure beneath the surface to protect it from aerial drone threats.
The startup, whose founding team includes former engineers from SpaceX and The Boring Co., is developing two autonomous underground systems. The first is an excavator-type robot designed to navigate, map and breach tunnels from within, giving military operators a way to explore or disable underground networks without sending in troops.
The second is a high-speed burrowing platform that drills new underground access points and can carry payloads — from explosives to sensing equipment — beneath the surface, bringing tunnel-boring technology to the battlefield."
Traysar's website says "Using the crust of the earth to protect US command posts and critical infrastructure at home and on the battlefield... Using the crust of the earth as a three-dimensional maneuvering space for people, signals and effects... As drones and autonomous systems saturate the air and surface, those who command the subterranean domain can bypass defenses, breach front lines, strike hardened targets, and shape how wars end."
In September 2026, Traysar announced a partnership with Armanda,
"the leader in sovereign AI, to bring sovereign AI infrastructure underground, creating a new class of hardened, distributed compute engineered for environments where traditional facilities are vulnerable, disconnected, or impossible to deploy. The partnership brings together Traysar’s expertise in autonomous underground systems and infrastructure survivability with Armada’s infrastructure layer for sovereign AI: modular data centers that can be delivered and operational in months, the Armada Platform that keeps every deployment under the customer’s control, and the Sovereign AI Grid that connects deployments into a resilient distributed system."
Posts published on the site include "Why Subterranean Warfare Will Play a Pivotal Role in Modern Conflict", "How the West is Losing the Underground War", and "Iran's Underground Fortress Engineering: Why Airpower Alone Can't Decide the Subterra War".
ICON Prime
Founded 2017, $772.8 million raised from Capital Factory, Citi Impact Fund, Vulcan Capital, NASA, Sand Hill Angels, 8VC, Tiger Global Management, Norwest, Moonshots Capital, BlackRock.
ICON Prime is a new line of business out of the original ICON company, whose "Codex" program is building 3D-printed homes: "An architectural catalog of pre-vetted and thoughtfully curated designs ranging from affordable housing to high-end, purpose-built for precision robotic construction." It has partnered with Wells Fargo to offer mortgages to purchasers of the 3D printed homes.
ICON Prime was launched in April 2026, "a dedicated defense and space tech business unit focused on deploying ICON's robotic construction systems for the U.S. military and NASA. The new business unit allows ICON to focus efforts on the specialized needs and demands of efforts like modernizing military construction and developing robotic systems for delivering infrastructure and buildings on the Moon."
They appointed Will Hurd, "a former CIA clandestine officer", as president. "To date, ICON has been awarded more than $360 million in government contracts, delivering projects and research initiatives in partnership with the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Space Force, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). ICON's 3D-printed military structures are in operation across installations today, and the company has completed more than 240 homes and infrastructure projects worldwide including military barracks, robotics labs, simulated space habitats, vehicle hide structures and innovation centers." They are also partnered with In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm.
ICON Prime uses robotics and AI systems to do military construction for barracks and national security infrastructure, stating "Our robotic construction systems enable rapid, secure deployment of sensitive facilities. By combining automated construction, precise digital planning, and reduced on-site labor requirements, we enable our intelligence partners to build highly controlled environments faster while maintaining strict security protocols; and has done "work developing off-world construction systems for NASA." They are also working on underwater robotic construction sites, "unlocking new possibilities for building marine infrastructure."
Their homepage states: "ICON has partnered with the Department of War since 2020 to demonstrate and validate advanced construction technologies for military applications. From development of a vehicle hide for the U.S. Marine Corps and collaborating with the U.S. Army to develop localized material mixes that enables autonomous construction in remote environments, our robotic construction technology makes building in remote and challenging areas not only possible but cheaper, faster, and easier than traditional construction."
ICON has completed 3D-printed military barracks in Fort Bliss, Texas, stating "The speed advantage of ICON’s automated construction technology translates directly to cost savings. Compressing a $62.8 million project from a 24-month conventional timeline to nine months, including contracting and construction, saved an estimated $5.6 million in overhead alone, more than the cost of a single barracks building. The structures replace temporary facilities that had exceeded their intended service life, providing durable, energy-resilient permanent housing with reduced lifecycle costs." It is building similar facilities at Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) and Fort Polk, Louisiana. Axios reports that ICON Prime plans to build "900 barracks" over half a decade.
They are developing a space-based construction system for moon exploration, and a commercial lunar construction program: "designed and engineered to construct landing pads, roadways, non-pressurized structures, and pressurized habitats." Their technology shipped on a space flight with Blue Origin in early 2025. In an interview with Fox Business, Will Hurd said they will contribute to permanent moon bases.
In its latest funding announcement, ICON states "The financing will fuel the manufacturing and deployment of ICON’s robotic construction systems, open a large-scale R&D facility in Austin, Texas, advance its next-generation construction technologies, including Titan and Olympus, and rapidly expand ICON’s footprint across Texas, Florida, Washington D.C., and new U.S. markets."
Founded 2018, $107.4 million raised from Natoma, Legion Capital, AFWERX (grant, Air Force), Intel Capital, Alumni Ventures, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
ZeroEyes adds threat detection to security cameras, "from visible firearms and knives to intruders, in real time - dispatching human-verified alerts often in a matter of seconds." It claims to have contributed to almost 150 apprehensions and over 1,000 gun detections as of January 2026. It offers a military/defense and government line, "specifically engineered for federal agencies... Utilizing advanced computer vision, the system provides continuous, real-time monitoring to identify visible firearms, including rifles and pistols, proactively alerting personnel before a shot is fired," detecting "Guns, people, drones, vehicles, maritime vessels, and mobile phones." It can also be integrated with drones. The company claims "Strategic deployments at multiple government and military installations". It advertises use cases in "shorelines, deserts, perimeters, and other austere locations."
ZeroEyes was founded by Navy SEALS. They have hired a lobbying firm to expand in defense and homeland security, and is being rolled out in police departments like the Dover Police Department and the Camden Police Department. It is being used in a number of school districts as a preventative approach to school shootings.
Their headquarters are in Pennsylvania, where they plan to hire 100 veterans, and they have an operations center in Hawaii.
Valthos
Founded 2024, $30 million raised from OpenAI, Lux Capital and Founders Fund.
Valthos came out of stealth in fall 2025, with Tectonic Defense reporting:
"biosecurity software startup Valthos came out of stealth with $30M in funding, a whole slate of big-time backers, including OpenAI, Founders Fund, and Lux Capital, and a promise to save us all from AI-engineered bioweapons.
'Today, it’s faster to weaponize biology than to advance new cures,' the company wrote in a blog post. 'Leaders in AI have identified this as one of the largest threats of our time. Our future hangs in the balance'...
If we’ve learned one thing from funds like Forward Deployed VC and companies like Adyton and Gallatin, it’s that the Palantir mafia likes to stick together. Valthos is yet another case in point.
The company’s nine-person team—helmed by co-founder and CEO Kathleen McMahon—boasts alumni from Palantir, DeepMind, the Broad Institute, and the Arc Institute, and says they’re working towards a 'future where any threat to human health can be immediately identified and neutralized, whether the origin is external or within our own bodies.'
'We build AI systems to rapidly characterize biological sequences and update medicines in real time,' the company wrote in its launch announcement. 'This strengthens biodefense today and lays the groundwork for the adaptive, precision therapeutics of tomorrow.'...
Valthos says it will build AI-powered tools that can pull together all of this biological data from government and commercial sources and detect bio threats before they become, say, global pandemics that keep us all locked in our houses for a year.
The company will also work with pharmaceutical companies to build and distribute “medical countermeasures” (i.e., engineered counter-threats and treatments) that can help treat threats that do emerge before they proliferate. A little bit of defense, a little bit of offense."
Valthos states its "founding team comes from Anduril, Palantir, DeepMind, OpenAI, the Broad Institute, the developers of Evo at the Arc Institute, and we're actively hiring." In a brief on their site called "AI Is Proliferating Biological Capability", the company states:
"Historically, advanced biological weapons capabilities have remained concentrated within a handful of state programs and sophisticated institutions, tracked annually by the Department of State1. This concentration made deterrence a tractable strategy. AI proliferation is changing that calculus by eroding one of the greatest barriers to entry: access to highly specialized, PhD-level expertise in virology and experimental know-how. As this expertise becomes broadly available, capabilities once confined to state programs may move within reach of far less capable adversaries, including non-state groups...
In 2025, OpenAI’s o3 outperformed over 94 percent of expert virologists on questions relating to highly technical laboratory procedures in their own areas of specialization. More recent evaluations show the same broader progression: frontier models exceed PhD-level baselines on critical open-ended biology questions, generate feasible virology protocols, and outperform human-expert baselines on troubleshooting tasks...
Achieving biological response superiority requires strengthening the entire defensive chain. That means: detecting threats; rapidly characterizing their likely effects and selecting existing medical countermeasures, or developing new ones; and deploying them before damage compounds."
Considering the founders and funders of this startup are all fascists, the pro-social applications of such a technology should be questioned.
Air AI (formerly Govini)
Founded 2024, $174.5 raised from Accel, Hercules Capital, Accel, Salesforce Ventures, Bain Capital (raised before rebrand to Govini)
Air is an AI company: "When frontline needs outpace what the national security enterprise delivers, readiness fractures. We call this the Readiness Gap. Air Enterprise Readiness platform closes this gap by connecting operational demand, industrial capacity, and supplier risk, enabling government agencies and industrial suppliers to meet mission objectives across steady-state and dynamic operations. " Use cases include supplier risk analysis, Navy maintenance, and delivery of parts "across contested theater operations in days instead of months."
In a manifesto posted on their site, Air states:
"This past year, dozens of government officials sat before members of Congress, providing testimony to historically low readiness rates. These lamentations differed little from previous years, other than to demonstrate the situation is worsening. Headlines run daily reporting on low aircraft availability, shipbuilding delays, unmet production demands, absent parts and raw materials, and punted modernization programs.
If our national security enterprise does not adopt a new paradigm for readiness, the U.S. fleet will become the world’s most expensive military museum. The most capable and sophisticated weapons systems and platforms humanity has ever seen: now available for nothing other than display in depots around the globe...
We believe the only way to return to a maximally ready, globally dominant national security enterprise across government, allies, and industry is to manage readiness in this way. We also believe our warfighters deserve this."
Air gives as an example: "Every day the enterprise cannot execute at the speed of the mission is a day adversaries gain ground. By one estimate, a conflict in the Taiwan Strait would exhaust available U.S. munitions inventories within three weeks. The cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of accelerating readiness."
They state "Delivering supplies, assets, and personnel across contested environments and global distribution networks puts logistics and sustainment operations under constant pressure. Adversary targeting, bottlenecks at strategic distribution nodes, and reactive demand signals drive resupply delays, depleted forward stocks, and frontline operators waiting on critical assets. Air Enterprise Readiness platform synchronizes logistics, distribution, and operational deployment to maximize the availability of the assets and infrastructure the mission relies on."
Air situates itself in the cold war with China, stating in a policy brief:
"From raw minerals to advanced weapon systems—from rock to rocket—there lies a reality: America’s military superiority increasingly depends on China... Antimony, gallium, germanium, tungsten, and tellurium each play specialized roles in military applications, ranging from flameresistant gear and advanced semiconductors to nuclear detection and hypersonic weaponry. These materials are indispensable for modern defense infrastructure, yet their supply chains remain vulnerable to geopolitical risks... Addressing this challenge requires comprehensive mapping of material precursors and tax incentives that encourage private sector investment in domestic refining capabilities. While there has been progress—such as DoD investing $59.4 million under the Defense Production Act in February 2024 to support reserves in Idaho in an effort to boost domestic antimony production—there are still no domestic sources for gallium, germanium, or tungsten... Addressing this challenge will require reimagining critical supply chains within America’s borders and among trusted allies. Increasing domestic production capabilities, effectively leveraging mineral companionality, and significantly expanding strategic stockpiles are essential first steps."
In 2026, Air was awarded a $200 million contract with the Department of War, as well as a $31 million contract with the Department of War "to support the U.S. Air Force's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) enterprise, which comprises the integrated military, industrial, and technological systems required to develop, test, maintain, and operate the Air Force's ICBMs." They announced a project with a U.S. nuclear supercarrier, "What once required hundreds of hours of manual compilation was delivered in minutes, instantly uncovering hidden maintenance gaps and giving leadership clear visibility into operational risks across the warship... This dramatic reduction in administrative overhead translates directly to lethality at sea: every hour reclaimed from data entry is an hour reinvested in crew training, tactical execution, and warfighter readiness." It is working with Fathom5 on efforts to modernize the U.S. Navy's readiness capabilities.
It has added Matthew Steckman, president of Anduril to its board of directors. It has offices near Pittsburgh, where it has a 10-year expansion project underway. Its CEO has spoken about the defense supply chain concerns stemming from the US/Israel attacks on Iran.
Founded 2024, $73.5 million raised from Starship Ventures, Drover Ventures, Draper Associates.
Poseidon Aerospace creates drones that can carry thousands of pounds of cargo and payloads. It offers several aircraft, "to carry thousands of pounds over 1,000 miles", and "drive operating costs as low as possible." More information on its product line can be found here. It also offers an apparel line, part of building a cool/edgy military culture inside of the tech industry.
A profile in the Free Press, covering Poseidon CEO David Zagaynov, writes:
"...Poseidon, which raised $11 million in November [2025], is producing machines that can do things in the real world. The seaplanes are named after birds—there’s a Seagull, a Heron, an Egret—and they can be used to ferry food to islands in an archipelago, or supplies to an oil rig. Or even weapons to an aircraft carrier. (The planes are remotely operated, via Starlink.) The government could theoretically store and launch drones from a Poseidon plane that floats miles offshore. In fact, the company’s website has an entire section dedicated to 'POSEIDON DEFENSE,' which includes a map that shows how a plane in the sea around the southern tip of Japan could reach Taiwan, Guam, and our allies in South Korea. It is overlaid with text that reads: 'BRINGING AMERICA’S ARSENAL TO OUR ADVERSARIES’ DOORSTEP.'
When I met Zagaynov, he told me that for the past few decades, 'We’ve been fighting a lot of sand wars in the Middle East, and not a lot of water wars.' But since then, recent developments in the Persian Gulf show that—to quote Zagaynov—'The sea is hot right now.'"
As the war against Iran escalated in March 2026, the reporter states:
"I checked in with him this week—since the U.S. launched missiles at Iran, setting off a conflict that’s engulfed the Middle East—and Zagaynov spoke as if Poseidon’s moment had come. Planes like his become critical, he said, when airports are under attack or destroyed. All they need for a runway is water, which means they’ll always have somewhere to land.
'You can’t bomb the ocean out of existence.'"
Founded 2025, $454.2 million raised from Ballistic Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Accel, 8VC, Kleiner Perkins, Menlo Ventures, In-Q-Tel (IQT), Redpoint, Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures.
Via Crunchbase, this young, yet well-funded start-up:
"develops an AI-native cybersecurity platform that helps organizations identify and validate exploitable security risks through continuous offensive security testing. Its platform uses autonomous AI agents to perform activities such as attack-surface reconnaissance, adaptive probing, exploitation, lateral movement, and validation of potential attack paths."
In an article for Pulse 2.0:
"The company said AI is increasingly compressing the time between the discovery of a vulnerability and development of a working exploit, creating challenges for traditional approaches such as periodic penetration testing. Armadin is designed to continuously approach an organization’s environment from an attacker’s perspective.
Its technology deploys an autonomous swarm of specialized AI agents that reason across an organization’s attack surface like a skilled adversary. Rather than evaluating individual security findings independently, the agents attempt to connect weaknesses together into validated attack paths...
Only seven months after launching from stealth, Armadin said it is already running agentic attack campaigns in production for Fortune 500 enterprises and government customers."
According to Armadin's official website, "the attacker of the future is already here" and "the AI invasion has already begun," claiming, "Human-scale security was never designed for machine-speed adversaries. Autonomous adversaries discover, adapt, and exploit before human defenders can respond."
In September 2026 Armadin partnered with NVIDIA "to deploy NVIDIA Open Agent Safety Platform technologies", explaining that "The platform is built similar to the way autonomous vehicles are built: layered controls with redundancy at every level, and a shared-responsibility model across software, hardware, and compute."