This Week in Dual-Use

NEWS

Saildrone begins anti-submarine warfare

Saildrone announced a new class of uncrewed surface vessel (USV), Spectre, designed for anti-submarine warfare and vertical rocket launch. It has dispensed with the sail for ‘Stealth Strike’ variant, in order to minimise the radar signature.

Anti-submarine warfare used to be the preserve of frigates. And firing missiles (presumably Tomahawk or similar) was only possible from a destroyer or a submarine. The new Saildrone vessel is a glimpse into the future of naval warfare.

I don’t (yet) see an outlook where crewed ships are entirely replaced with USVs. There will still be a usefulness to force projection from a political perspective. Sending a carrier group is a nice statement of intent.

But the unbundling of a ship’s capabilities will continue as technology matures. If sensing, persistence, and strike can be distributed across autonomous platforms, the logic of concentrating capability in exquisite vessels begins to break down.

It would be difficult to replace an aircraft carrier like-for-like with a USV. But a world where a carrier is accompanied by a fleet of autonomous vessels is certainly imaginable. Each might provide a discrete function, functions which were previously packaged into a destroyer, frigate, minesweeper or attack submarine.

The next question, of course, is how might the effect of a carrier be delivered by other means. Part of the answer to that probably lies in China’s effort to create a drone carrier, specialising in launching and recovering uncrewed aircraft. It will be interesting to see if other countries look to innovate in similar ways.

Blue Origin succeeds and fails

Blue Origin’s latest launch of its New Glenn rocket was a success but also a failure for Jeff Bezos. Although the booster returned safely to Earth - a feat achieved only by SpaceX so far - the payload (a satellite) was deployed into an incorrect orbit. It will now have to be taken out of orbit.

As I wrote recently, Bezos is playing catch up to Musk. This is obviously a setback he didn’t need. SpaceX is not just ahead in technology, it is ahead in cadence. It launches more and, seemingly, learns faster than competitors.

What’s interesting is the differing approach to distrubution. Instead of packaging complementary capabilities into the same company, like Musk, Bezos has Blue Origin focusing on launch and Amazon creating a Starlink-esque LEO constellation, called, somewhat confusingly, Leo. It recently accelerated that strategy by agreeing to buy Globalstar, a satellite communications company, for roughly $11.6B.

Bezos’ bet is that distribution trumps everything. Leo will just be an another product in the suite of offerings available to billions of Amazon customers. That could be enough to win.

Meanwhile, Tesla, a different Elon Musk company, just invested $2B in SpaceX ahead of its historic IPO. And back in February, Musk arranged for SpaceX to buy his AI lab xAI, which had launched a pretty good frontier model last year, but has since lost all of its founders.

Norway and Ukraine to jointly build mid-strike drones

Ukraine and Norway have announced joint production of thousands of Ukrainian-designed mid-strike drones. Manufacturing will take place in Norway and the finished systems will be transferred to Ukrainian forces.

Mid-strike drones sit between attritable FPVs and long-range cruise missiles. They are designed to hit high-value targets in the enemy's near rear, typically 50-200km from the front line.

Norway is paying for this on top of the $7B in military support it has already pledged to Ukraine for 2026. It also plans to spend more than $1.5B this year procuring Ukrainian-made weapons for Ukraine's armed forces. Per capita, Oslo is now arguably the most generous backer of Kyiv anywhere.

The structure of the deal is interesting. Ukrainian designs, Norwegian factories, Ukrainian end-users. It’s a kind of reverse Lend-Lease.

Norway picks up a domestic industrial base in strike drones, skilled engineering jobs, and a hedge against the day its oil revenues taper. Ukraine gets manufacturing capacity outside the reach of Russia. Strategic depth, by another name.

What we are watching is the construction of a European defence industrial map in which Ukraine sits at the centre rather than the edge. I suspect this is the first of many such arrangements.

FUNDRAISING

True Anomaly, an American developer of space interceptors and autonomous orbital systems, raised a $650M round at a $2.2B valuation. The deal was co-led by Eclipse and Riot Ventures.

Sateliot, a Spanish developer of satellite IoT connectivity, raised a €116M Series C led by Indra.

Skydio, an American drone manufacturer, raised a $110M Series F at a $4.4B valuation. The round was led by existing investors.

Scout AI, an American company that trains AI models to control autonomous vehicles and drones, raised a $100M Series A round co-led by Align Ventures and Draper Associates.

Firestorm, an American developer of containerised drone microfactories, raised an $82M Series B led by Washington Harbour Partners.

Quantum Art, an Israeli startup that developer of quantum computing systems using multicore trapped-ions, raised a $40M Series A extension.

Univity, a French developer of satellite internet infrastructure, raised a €27M Series A.

Atmos Space Cargo, a German developer of orbital reentry vehicles, raised a €25.7M Series A co-led by Balnord and Expansion Venture Capital.

Fortem, an American developer of counter-drone technology, received a $25M investment from Lockheed Martin.

Pursuit, an American developer of software to help companies find and win government contracts, raised a $22M Series A led by Builders VC.

Rilian, an American provider of cyber defence capabilities for governments and enterprises, raised $17.5M in seed and seed extension financing co-led by 8VC, First In, and Tamarack Global.

Zapata Quantum, an American developer of software for quantum computers, raised a $15M round led by Triatomic Capital.

Skyfire AI, an American developer of software for drones, raised an $11M seed round led by Mucker Capital.

Bubble Robotics, a Swiss developer of autonomous underwater robots, raised a $5M pre-seed round co-led by Episode 1 Ventures, Asterion Ventures and Norrsken Evolve.

Rhea Space Activity, an American developer of space-based optical navigation software, raised a $6M Series A.

SBQuantum, a Canadian developer of quantum navigation technology, raised a $4M Seed round led by Quantonation and Quantacet.

QMatter, an American developer of quantum compression technology, raised a $1.2M round led by 55 North.

Orbital, an American developer of on-orbit AI data centres, raised an undisclosed (sub $1M) funding round led by a16z Speedrun