American Hardtech Weekly Roundup #14

Shield AI had a huge week. It agreed to buy Kirkland, Washington’s Echodyne, a maker of compact counter-drone radars, for up to $5.3B while raising $2.5B at a $28.8B valuation, and it unveiled the first full-scale prototype of X-BAT, its jet-powered drone fighter that takes off and lands on its tail.

Munitions makers kept building. The Army awarded a $4.17B contract for 11 firms to compete to design and build new government-owned ammunition plants, Lockheed will put $420M into its missile plant in Camden, Arkansas, Raytheon is ramping its ESSM ship-defense missile from about 45 to 65 a month, and Kratos plans to produce up to 3,000 small jet engines in 2027.

Drone money got bigger. Axon agreed to invest about $1.2B in San Mateo’s Skydio and become its exclusive public safety distributor, South San Francisco’s Zipline raised $1.5B at a $21.5B valuation as Walmart added 300 delivery sites, and Oshkosh will help build Grid Aero’s large autonomous cargo drone, its first aircraft.

Space builders scaled up. AST SpaceMobile will build its own reusable rocket on Firefly engines in a roughly $1.3B deal, Austin-area CesiumAstro raised $730M at a valuation above $4.5B for a planned 737-satellite constellation, LA’s Northwood Space raised $375M for satellite ground stations, and El Segundo’s Varda ran three missions in orbit at once while bringing a capsule home.

The Pentagon’s lending office had a busy week. The Office of Strategic Capital offered conditional loans of up to $450M to LA’s Neros to build 1M drones a year by 2028, up to $250M to 6K for a battery cathode plant in Tennessee, and up to $150M to LeoLabs for two factories building radars that track objects in orbit.

AI chip deals got bigger, even as chip stocks fell sharply Thursday. Marvell agreed to buy laser and optics maker Lumentum in a deal valuing it at about $115B, onsemi agreed to buy power-delivery startup Ferric for up to $775M, and AMD’s data center revenue nearly doubled as it ramps Helios, its full-rack AI system.

Data centers faced new limits as power deals grew. Texas’s governor-elect pledged a pause on new data centers until lawmakers set protections, at least 14 Ohio communities passed bans or limits, and Georgia voters reshaped their utility commission. Meanwhile, PPL’s venture with Blackstone agreed to terms for 2 GW of dedicated power for a QTS campus in Pennsylvania.

Nuclear supply chains advanced. Urenco USA produced the West’s first commercial batch of LEU+, a richer reactor fuel, in New Mexico, Centrus posted a record $7.0B backlog tied to its Ohio enrichment expansion, NuScale moved into physical production of its first commercial reactor module, and X-energy picked Fluor to engineer its first Amazon-backed plant in Washington.

Robots hit the public markets. Agility Robotics began trading on Nasdaq as AGLT after raising about $465M, Boston-area Tutor Intelligence raised a $75M Series B led by a16z, Humble Robotics raised $51M for a cabless electric truck, and Palo Alto’s Syncere raised an $11M pre-seed for a home robot lamp.

New networks took shape. SpaceX picked Qualcomm to supply chip platforms for a nationwide ground-based 5G network for Starlink Mobile, New Mexico’s Sceye signed a five-year deal to fly stratospheric airships that beam broadband to phones across Japan for SoftBank, and the Space Force picked Viasat to build the operations center for its Space Data Network.

Startups kept forming around hard problems. New England’s Corridian launched with a $38M seed to build cargo-hauling underwater drones, Austin’s Aeon Industrial won a $13.8M SOCOM contract for its shoulder-fired Zeus missile, South Carolina’s Aformic raised $6.95M for factory robots, and San Francisco’s Nyquis raised $6.3M for sensors that catch wildfire-prone grid faults.

Heavy industry and materials moved forward. U.S. Steel broke ground on a $1.9B iron plant in Osceola, Arkansas, MP Materials began saleable deliveries of U.S.-made rare earth magnets to GM, Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production in Texas to make room for its Cybercab robotaxi, and solar hardware makers ARRAY and Shoals agreed to merge.

Euronaval showcased Europe’s naval drone push. France launched a pact with industry to field naval drones faster, Naval Group unveiled a drone ship and a concept warship with a drone bay, Saab won about $200M to equip Sweden’s new frigates, and the Royal Navy said it launched BAE’s Nyan strike drones from HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Allied missile builders raised and built. Anglo-German Hypersonica raised a €100M Series B co-led by Lightspeed and General Catalyst for hypersonic strike missiles, Europe’s MBDA plans to fly its Hydis hypersonic interceptor demonstrator by 2029, and Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace broke ground on its first overseas guided missile plant, in Poland.

Allies moved on critical materials. Belgium’s Solvay signed a binding deal for about 70% of the magnet rare earths from a planned mine in Brazil, Australia’s Sunrise Energy Metals approved a scandium mine backed by up to $400M in conditional Pentagon loans, and the UK’s FluoRok raised $30M to make battery salts without toxic hydrogen fluoride.

Canada’s new budget adds a capital gains break for startup founders and investors modeled on the U.S. QSBS rule, C$2.3B for a defense drone initiative, support for sovereign medium-lift rockets, and a C$25B sovereign wealth fund.