MENLO TIMES

Cambridge Aerospace, the air defence company led by Steven Barrett, Chris Sylvan, and Junaid Hussain, announced the closure of its Series C round with $300M dollars of investment at a $3.4B valuation, led by DFJ Growth and supported by Lux, Accel, Lakestar, Never Lift, Ora Global, and Elad Gil & Co. The financing will support Cambridge Aerospace’s continued growth by expanding manufacturing capacity to meet existing and new contracts, while advancing current products and deve

Hadrian, the advanced manufacturing company building highly automated factories for America, led by Chris Power and the team, has announced $1.37 billion in new equity financing co-led by WCM Investment Management, Washington Harbour Partners, Valor Equity Partners, 137 Ventures, and Baillie Gifford. JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group joined as anchor co-lead, investing through the firm's Security and Resiliency Initiative, a program dedicated to strengthening the ind

Array Labs, designing, building, and operating the world’s most advanced radar satellites, led by Andrew Peterson and Jose Isaac Robledo, has raised $21 million in an oversubscribed strategic investment round, anchored by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, one of Japan's largest defense and aerospace companies, with continued participation from Catapult Ventures, Kompas VC, and Y Combinator. As part of the financing, Array Labs and Mitsubishi Electric have entered into a partne

Singularity, the defence tech startup building a safer world, led by Jack Oswald and the team, has emerged from stealth with an $80M Series A led by Khosla Ventures and Felicis, a $400M valuation, and a mission to deploy “low-cost air defence systems at scale.” Seed investors AE Ventures and NEA participated in the round, alongside Harpoon, Menlo Ventures, New Vista, Decisive Point, Y Combinator, Long Journey, and others. Like many next-generation defense startups, Singularit

Helsing, providing Artificial Intelligence to protect its democracies, led by Dr. Gundbert Scherf, Niklas Köhler, and Torsten Reil, has raised $1.8bn in a Series E, valuing the company at US$18bn. New and existing investors participated in the round, including Dragoneer Investment Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Disruptive, Iconiq, Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, JPMorgan Chase, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), General Catalyst, Plural,

Kraken Technology, a British-founded maritime defence company led by Mal Crease and the team, has announced the closure of its Series B funding round led by DTCP and supported by other British and European backers, including the British Business Bank, NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Rheinmetall, Inocea Group, as well as Venture Capital (VC) firms HICO, Thesiger Capital Group, BOKA Capital, Supernova Invest and Hakluyt Capital. Early investors in the company such as NIF, the UK’s

Quantum Systems, building the unmanned future, led by Florian Seibel, Sven Kruck, and Dave Sharpin, has announced the signing of its $1.2 billion Series D financing round, valuing the company at ~ $8 billion on a post-money basis. The round was co-led by Blackstone, Noteus, Airbus and Advent, and supported by a high-calibre syndicate of crossover and long-term institutional investors including BOND, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Wellington Management, A.P. Moller H

Six Robotics, an Oslo-based company developing swarm autonomy as a force multiplier, led by Christian Fredrik Eggesbø, Mathias Nedrebø, Cecilie Hammer, Ole Jørgen Seeland, Oscar Heyden, and Kristine Angeltvedt, has raised a €12 million equity financing round led by DTCP, with participation from EIFO (Export and Investment Fund of Denmark) and Scale Capital, alongside other private investors. The funding will accelerate product development, expand customer deployments across E

STARK, delivering the defence systems that Europe and NATO need now, led by Uwe Horstmann and the team, has announced a €500 million financing round to accelerate defence research, development, and manufacturing across Europe. The financing brings together investors from across the defence, technology, and institutional finance sectors, including Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, the NATO Innovation Fund, Project A, Air Street Capital, 201 Ventures, Advent, and Döpfner Capital.

Comand AI, building an AI-native command for defense and security operations, led by Loïc Mougeolle, Marie I., Quentin Le Pape, and Paul Mustière, has announced a €32 million Series A funding round at Eurosatory, led by Blossom Capital, with strategic investment from Saab, and with Expeditions renewing its participation in the company. The round will support the expansion of Comand AI’s AI-native command-and-control platform, Prevail, across NATO markets and into new operatio

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will purchase more than 200 Extended Range Sentry Towers (XRST) from Anduril to expand autonomous situational awareness across a much larger portion of the Southwest Border. The $363 million contract builds on more than seven years of collaboration between Anduril Industries and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, during which Anduril has delivered and supported hundreds of autonomous systems. Scaling Autonomous Border Surveillance. B

Destinus, a European defence manufacturer with a particular focus on scalable strike and air-defence systems for European and allied armed forces, led by Mikhail Kokorich, has announced the accelerated start of the RUTA Block 3 program, developed for a 2,000 km-class long-range precision strike capability and extending the operationally validated RUTA family. The flight-test campaign is planned to begin in 2027. RUTA Block 3 builds on the existing RUTA architecture, which has

Sweden Ballistics, securing Europe's explosives supply, led by Joakim Sjöblom, Carl Duforce, Sebastian Reismer, and the team, has raised a €30 million funding round to complete construction of its TNT manufacturing facility in Nora, Sweden. The €30m strategic investment is made up of several investors. Firstly, Sweden’s ex-Chief of Army, Major General (ret) Karl Engelbrektson. In 2023, Karl took on the position of Head of Advisory Board at Finserve Global Security Fund (GSF).

Scale AI, building reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions, led by Alexandr Wang and the team, has announced that the U.S. Department of War's (DoW) Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) has expanded its enterprise agreement with Scale AI, increasing the total potential value from $100 million to $500 million. The five-fold ceiling increase follows strong demand for the Production OTA agreement, with projects across computer vision, gene

Intelic, creating trusted Mission Autonomy for military uncrewed systems, and unifying them with intuitive intent-based Command & Control, led by Maurits Korthals Altes, Jeroen Lappenschaar, and Marc Derksen, has launched Intelic BASE that links drone makers with defense ministries. At launch, the platform connects drone and unmanned systems manufacturers across Europe, including France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Portugal, Latvia, Luxembourg, Lith

Anduril, transforming defense capabilities with advanced technology, has recently added 5G Comms to its Sentry Family of Systems. Dependable communications are critical for military and commercial operations, especially as data volumes surge. The challenge is greatest in remote, austere environments where connectivity and infrastructure are absent. Although 5G offers higher speeds, lower latency, and greater device connectivity than legacy systems, its reliance on fixed infra

Scout AI, building the robotic foundation model for defense, led by Colby Adcock and Collin Otis, has raised $100 million in Series A financing to accelerate development of Fury, its foundation model for unmanned warfare. The round was co-led by Align Ventures and Draper Associates. The round also included participation from Decisive Point, Booz Allen Ventures, BVVC, Neman Ventures, Evolution VC Partners, Heraclitus Capital Management, Sigmas Group, Disruptive Founders Fund,

Kelluu , the Finnish deep tech company operating the world’s largest autonomous airship fleet, led by Janne Hietala, has raised €15 million in Series A funding led by the NATO Innovation Fund with participation from Keen Venture Partners , Gungnir Capital , and Tesi . This follows Kelluu’s successful completion of two phases of NATO’s DIANA (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic) program. Kelluu delivers 24/7 monitoring across vast areas using unmanned airs

EGIDE , a French defence technology startup building the next generation of affordable defence systems, led by Florian AUDIGIER, Simon CALONNE, and the team, has raised an €8 million seed round co-led by Expeditions, Eurazeo , and Heartcore Capital , with participation from Galion.exe and Kima Ventures . At the Paris Defence and Strategy Forum, strengthening Europe’s defences has taken priority, as recent conflicts highlight the need for scalable, cost-effective systems to

Gecko Robotics , combining advanced robotics and AI-powered software to build, operate, and modernize the world’s most critical infrastructure, has been awarded a five-year IDIQ contract from the U.S. Navy and GSA with a $71 million ceiling to deploy artificial intelligence and robotics to assess and maintain the health of military assets. Gecko will start work with 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet with the initial award worth up to $54m over a five-year period. Customers