Project A’s Post

ARX raised €9mn Seed Funding to fill NATO’s robotics gap - led by our trusted investors NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Discovery Ventures and Project A, we are proud to announce that this is the largest European defence-tech Seed Round! Europe and the Western Allies are lacking mass autonomous unmanned systems to future-proof their armed forces in a rapidly changing technological environment. We are committed to filling this gap by providing robust and scalable unmanned ground systems capable of supporting and protecting troops in mission-critical tasks. We are thankful to have new investors on board that share our values and are confident that we are perfectly positioned to fulfil our mission of contributing to European tech resilience and sovereignty. Our next steps will be to expand the team with more top-talents from tech, robotics, and engineering and scale our production capabilities in Europe. "The armies of Western democracies are not prepared for robotic warfare. To significantly enhance the capabilities of our armed forces and serve as a force multiplier, an interconnected critical mass of autonomous unmanned ground systems is required. These systems must be simple to manufacture in a decentralized manner and deployable in critical mass. ARX is committed to contributing to European technological sovereignty by scaling up the production of these systems, generating software-defined systems, and developing adaptive hardware to meet the demand for robust and autonomous unmanned systems", says Marc A. Wietfeld, CEO and Co-Founder of ARX Robotics. The entire ARX team could not be more excited for the journey ahead - please reach out if you are interested to become part of it! Read more: https://lnkd.in/e_jmQe3w #seed #defencetech #fundraising #europeanresilience #robotics

Shield AI announces a successful $200M Series F funding round, led by U.S. Innovative Technology Fund and co-led by Riot Ventures, with participation from ARK Invest, Disruptive, and Snowpoint Ventures. This oversubscribed round brings Shield AI's valuation to a stellar $2.7 billion. The company, known for its cutting-edge AI pilot Hivemind, is on a mission to ensure air superiority and prevent conflict. With this funding, they are set to scale their products and deploy their V-BAT Teams product globally. Hivemind allows intelligent aircraft to operate autonomously in high-threat environments, a critical advancement in today’s increasingly drone-dominated battlefields. Shield AI continues to innovate in the defense technology sector, with significant strides in integrating Hivemind into uncrewed fighter jets, marking a new era in autonomous aerial capabilities. #ShieldAI #SeriesF #DefenseTech #AI #AutonomousAircraft #VentureCapital https://lnkd.in/exT8Ax4j

A new #DefenseTech unicorn 🦄 💫 The Big Pic: The defenstech trend continues to boil. Dual use technologies, such as #AI, #Robotics and autonomous systems attract attention as they play a major role in the battlefield. 💫 1 Big Thing: Saronic Technologies develops and manufactures Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASV). Their capacities have a game changer potential as an autonomous fleet and / or man-unmanned teaming. 💫 By the numbers: Saronic Technologies secures $175M in series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, placing the company's valuation at $1 billion. 💫 Great confidence: This round includes participation from both new and existing investors, including 8VC, Caffeinated Capital , Elad Gil and NightDragon and others. 💫 Dive deeper: https://lnkd.in/dRrZruwA #innovation #technology #dualuse

Dutch software company Avalor AI has successfully raised a seed round of €2 million, led by Keen Venture Partners, to accelerate autonomous capabilities of unmanned military systems. Envisioning ‘multi-domain distributed mission autonomy,’ Avalor AI’s Nexus™ platform enables unmanned systems across various domains (air, land, sea) to autonomously plan, coordinate, and execute complex missions cooperatively through a single human-machine interface. The company’s hardware-agnostic artificial intelligence software allows for the integration and operations of unmanned systems from different OEMs and countries. The investment reflects the growing importance of venture capital’s role in funding defence technology innovation, particularly in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. With the support of Keen Venture Partners, Avalor AI will use the funding to accelerate the development and deployment of their innovative solutions, and expand further into the European market by targeting strategic partnerships and deployments within key NATO allies. https://lnkd.in/e5PPHxsU

#California-based #defensetechnologycompany #Shield AI secures $200m in series F round funding. This funding, led by U.S. Innovative #Technology Fund (USIT) and co-led by Riot Ventures, with participation from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest and returning investors Disruptive and Snowpoint, values Shield AI at $2.7 billion.  Shield AI builds an AI pilot called Hivemind, which enables teams of intelligent aircraft to operate #autonomously in high-threat #environments on the edge, without the need for remote operators, command inputs, or GPS. The technology approach is similar to those in the #selfdriving car industry and its software stack is aircraft agnostic, allowing Shield AI to provide autonomy to a variety of form factors across the #aerospace industry. Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a #venture-backed defense technology company whose mission is to protect service members and #civilians with intelligent systems. In #pursuit of this mission, Shield AI is building the world’s best AI pilot. Its AI pilot, Hivemind, has flown a fighter jet (F-16), a vertical takeoff and landing drone (V-BAT), and a quadcopter (Nova). 

Greensea Systems Inc. has announced its transformation into Greensea IQ, a strategic move that unites its former subsidiaries, Bayonet Ocean Vehicles and Armach Robotics, into a new business entity. To introduce this transformative shift to the public, Greensea IQ will unveil its new identity and showcase the companies’ combined capabilities at the upcoming Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) show in London, UK. The event, scheduled from 12-15 September, will serve as a platform to highlight Greensea IQ’s vision and the groundbreaking products it offers. Read more >> https://hubs.la/Q021fw2w0 Greensea IQ CEO, Ben Kinnaman, articulated the driving force behind this transformation, stating, "The three arms of Greensea IQ collectively embody the overarching idea of maximising the capabilities of ocean robotics. This empowers us to explore deeper into the world's oceans, enhancing both persistence and reach, all while ensuring efficiency, safety, and productivity." This shared ethos forms the cornerstone of Greensea IQ's new identity, and serves as the guiding principle that binds its components together in a collaborative pursuit of oceanic advancement. Find out more: https://hubs.la/Q021fw2w0 #defense #dsei #military #dsei2023 #robotics #automation #defensesystems

Dutch software company Avalor AI has successfully raised a seed round of €2 million, led by Keen Venture Partners, to accelerate autonomous capabilities of unmanned military systems. Envisioning ‘multi-domain distributed mission autonomy,’ Avalor #AI’s Nexus™ platform enables unmanned systems across various domains (air, land, sea) to autonomously plan, coordinate, and execute complex missions cooperatively through a single human-machine interface. The company’s hardware-agnostic artificial intelligence software allows for the integration and operations of unmanned systems from different OEMs and countries. The investment reflects the growing importance of venture capital’s role in funding defence technology innovation, particularly in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. With the support of Keen Venture Partners, Avalor AI will use the funding to accelerate the development and deployment of their innovative solutions, and expand further into the European market by targeting strategic partnerships and deployments within key NATO allies. https://lnkd.in/eEqyRvUZ

Firestorm Labs announces $12.5M in seed funding led by Lockheed Martin Ventures and other prominent defense VCs Firestorm is building the future of modular, open-architecture unmanned aerial systems, supporting the warfighter's needs. Firestorm meets the needs of a changing operational environment, where traditional "manned" solutions will no longer be available. "Self-supported" is a new reality, and platforms must fill many more mission areas than typical UASs: ISR, EW/SI, and Kinetic solutions integrate seamlessly into a sleek, low-cost system that 3D prints in under 9 hours. https://lnkd.in/e7w6CJQ8

On her visit to Ukraine last week, Dutch Minister of Defence Kajsa Ollongren was joined by a delegation of Dutch commercial high tech AI startups. Several of them, including Avalor AI, returned home with newly signed contracts with drone manufacturers to integrate Dutch AI-driven software into Ukrainian hardware to create deadlier weapons systems. It is exactly these partnerships between the Dutch MoD and private commercial high tech companies, including Avalor AI, that IRW’s Lauren Gould, Linde Arentze, and Marijn Hoijtink examine in their latest chapter ‘Assembling the Future of Warfare: Innovating Swarm Technology within the Dutch Military-Industrial-Commercial Complex’ in the edited volume ‘Beyond Ukraine: Debating the Future of War’ published by Hurst/Oxford University Press this week: https://bit.ly/499i0yt In the chapter, the IRW authors explore how new and commercial high tech partners are drawn into what they coin the ‘military-industrial-commercial complex’ in the Netherlands and elsewhere, how aware the actors involved are of the potential use and lethality of the technologies they innovate, how questions and concerns are managed by the MoD, and with what consequences for transparency, democratic oversight, and accountability over the innovation and deployment of AI-driven military technology. Find out more now: https://lnkd.in/gBuCfyxT #MilitaryAI #Ukraine #SwarmingTechnology