April's Space Dirt 🚀 (mid-month)

Just under 3,800 words… let’s go:

• 6 Real estate highlights

• 7 Companies emerging from stealth

• Real estate corner - the relationship business

• 16 Notable fundings

• 12 Agreements, partnerships & contracts

• What I’m consuming

Enjoy!

REAL ESTATE HIGHLIGHTS

Northwood Space leased 180,269 SF at 18500 Crenshaw Blvd, Torrance, CA. (source: Me!)

Antora Energy more than doubled its space, expanding to about 101,000 SF of space in North San Jose, CA, in the Zanker Road area. The company also occupies a building totaling 50,300 SF at 2350 Zanker Rd. (source: The Mercury News)

Firehawk had a ribbon-cutting at its 640-acre facility in Crawford, Mississippi. Firehawk will be rebuilding the rocket-manufacturing base. Currently, the facility is home to a bunker that can store 50,000 pounds of one energetics, an 8,000 SF integration facility, and a 4,000 SF office, and we’re creating plans to expand on it. Firehawk plans to invest “tens of millions” in Crawford, according to the CEO, to scale production up to “125,000 in the near future.” (source: Tectonic)

Firehawk also broke ground on Great Plains Arsenal, a new $100M, 340-acre 3D-printed propellant plant in Lawton, Oklahoma. (source: X)

Roncelli Technologies is expanding its U.S. operations with the launch of Roncelli Carbon Systems in Henderson, NV. The facility is focused on precision machining and assembly of carbon, graphite, and composite components for mission-critical aerospace, defense, and space programs. (source: LinkedIn)

Leap, a Lafayette, CO-based company, leased 5 acres at 34495 E Quincy Ave, Watkins, CO to test its new product. Leap is building a rocket that it hopes will deliver goods anywhere on the planet within 40 minutes. The land the company leased is mostly empty space, with a concrete pad to test rockets and a small hangar. The company will add a containerized command center for testing. The land is part of a former 478-acre corporate campus built out by Orica, an Australian mining explosives firm that also performed testing on-site. Orica sold the property last year to three different buyers for a combined $8.8M, but has leased back around 14 acres from one buyer, according to public records. Leap’s lease comes as it prepares to launch its first fully operational rocket, called Bullfrog, this winter. (source: The Denver Post)

STEALTH NO MORE

CavilinQ is building the photonic interconnects that let multiple quantum processors talk to each other as a single unified system. Right now, quantum computers are effectively isolated — each processor operates alone, which puts a hard ceiling on what they can do. CavilinQ's approach is to link them together using light, treating quantum processors the way modern data centers treat servers: as modular, networked components rather than standalone machines. The company is a University of Chicago spinout, led by CEO Shankar Menon alongside co-founders Brandon Grinkemeyer, Mikhail Lukin, and Hannes Bernien. It raised an $8.8M seed round led by QVT, with participation from Safar Partners, MFV Partners, Serendipity Capital, and Harper Court Ventures. The capital goes toward lab expansion in Cambridge, prototype development, and team growth. (source: LinkedIn)

Anvil Robotics raised $6.5M to build what it describes as a composable platform for Physical AI — the shared infrastructure layer that robotics teams are currently forced to rebuild from scratch. The round was led by Matter Venture Partners and Humba Ventures, with participation from Supercharge.vc, Spacecadet, and Position Ventures. The pitch: every team working on Physical AI — robot arms, controllers, grippers, teleoperation, data collection — is starting from zero. Only the best-funded labs can afford to get the full stack right. Anvil wants to make that stack accessible to any team, including early-stage labs and grad students. On the hardware side: modular, transparent, no black boxes. On the software side: composable controllers, flexible teleoperation (including VR and leader-follower modes), and reliable data collection pipelines. Founder and CEO Mike Xiang has spent eight years shipping hardware across multiple companies. (source: Crunchbase)

Dispatch is building the return trip for the next generation of space manufacturing. The premise: some of the most valuable materials that can be made — perfect semiconductors, specialized pharmaceuticals, 3D-printed biological structures — can only be produced in microgravity. Companies are starting to race toward in-space manufacturing. But there's no good way to get products back to Earth. NASA currently pays twice as much to return ISS cargo as it costs to send it up, and the ISS is aging with no clear successor. Dispatch is starting with reentry vehicles and plans to scale toward uncrewed space stations. The team recently tested a full-scale heat shield in the Mojave — built at roughly 1/100th the cost of incumbent solutions — and it worked as designed. The company went through YC's P26 batch. Founders Payton Case and Andrew Mello spent four years together at Astranis building geostationary communications satellites before starting Dispatch. No funding figure has been disclosed. (source: Y Combinator)

Sonibel Instruments analyzes weld acoustics in real time using edge-deployed machine learning, flagging defects as they happen without disrupting welder workflow. The target: critical welds held to exacting standards like AWS D1.1, across high-demand sectors including energy infrastructure, data centers, and shipbuilding. Every failed weld triggers a cycle of rework and re-inspection. Sonibel catches the problem before the weld cools. Sophia Millar is a Co-founder and CEO. Her co-founders are George Hollo and Hooman Pirouz. Sonnibel also announced it has closed a $1.6M oversubscribed pre-seed, led by Maple VC with participation from Champion Hill Ventures, Dorm Room Fund, and strategic angels. (source: LinkedIn)

Merino Energy emerged from stealth with a single product: the Merino Mono, a $3,800 all-in-one heat pump that installs in under an hour. CEO and Co-founder Mary-Ann Rau (former Apple, Quilt) and Co-founder Brad Hall (former Gradient, Square) built it to remove the two biggest barriers to heat pump adoption — cost and installation complexity. The company is currently installing 48 heat pumps at the Civic Center Apartments, a low-income development in Richmond, California. For now, it’s focused on California as its initial market, although it has plans to expand to other states like Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. So far, six installers have signed up in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. The company is taking preorders now for delivery later this year. The Mono combines indoor and outdoor components into a single wall-mounted unit, plugs into a standard 120V outlet, and requires no refrigerant handling on-site. Funding is approximately $1.77M per PitchBook, though the founders declined to confirm the figure publicly. (source: TechCrunch)

Askari Defense has been building quietly on $1.7M in pre-seed funding. The mission, in their words: unlimited kinetic defense. More specifically, total robot denial — the software and hardware infrastructure to detect and neutralize autonomous systems in the field. The company's backers include Knoll Ventures, Brickyard VC, Blackwing VC, the Georgia Tech Foundation, Overline VC, and Teamworthy Ventures. The team has not disclosed its composition publicly beyond the fundraise. Robbie van Zyl is a Co-founder and CEO. Benjamin Airdo is the other Co-founder. (source: LinkedIn)

Gander Robotics raised $1.1M in pre-seed funding to build autonomous systems for one of maritime's most dangerous and time-sensitive scenarios: man overboard. The round was co-led by Impellent Ventures and Underscore VC. The flagship product is the Autonomous Rescue Swimmer — a device designed to be hand-tossed into the water during a man-overboard incident. Once deployed, it uses AI-powered sonar to locate the victim and delivers flotation, signaling, and tracking tools autonomously. No diver required, no delay waiting for a rescue swimmer to suit up. Man-overboard fatality rates are high precisely because the response window is so narrow and the operating conditions are so hostile. Current rescue protocols depend on human swimmers entering the same dangerous water. Gander is removing that dependency with a system that can be in the water in seconds The company was founded by Michael Autery, a Navy veteran and licensed professional engineer, and robotics expert Lael Ayala. It spun out of MIT. (source: LinkedIn)

REAL ESTATE CORNER

PARTNER WITH SPACE DIRT🚀

Get your product or service in front of a community of 3,200 hard tech executives, entrepreneurs, and investors.

If you’re interested in partnering with Space Dirt, email us here to see if we’re a good fit.

NOTABLE FUNDINGS

Arxis Inc., a manufacturer of electronic and mechanical parts for aerospace and defense firms, is seeking to raise up to $1.06B in its US initial public offering. The Bloomfield, Connecticut-based company plans to list Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol ARXS, and will offer 37,735,849 shares for $25 to $28 each, according to the company’s announcement. At the top of the price range, the company would have a market value of $11.2B based on the outstanding shares listed in its concurrent SEC filing. (source: Yahoo! Finance)

Hermeus, a defense aviation company developing high-Mach unmanned aircraft, today announced it has closed $350M in Series C financing. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with continued support from Canaan Partners, Founders Fund, RTX Ventures, Bling Capital, and In-Q-Tel. Joining as new investors are Cox Enterprises and their venture fund Socium Ventures, Destiny Tech100, Georgia Tech Foundation, 137 Ventures, GSBackers, among others. Debt capital is being provided by Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank, Pinegrove Venture Partners, Hercules Capital, and Trinity Capital.  This round brings Hermeus’ total capital raised to over $500M, reaching a $1B post-money valuation. This financing, comprising $200M in equity and $150M in debt, accelerates Hermeus’ path toward becoming a leader in defense aviation. (source: Hermeus)

Seattle-based Starfish Space announced it closed a Series B round led by Point72 Ventures, raising more than $100M. Activate Capital and Shield Capital co-led the round, with major participation from Industrious Ventures and NightDragon. Several other new and existing investors were also part of the funding round. The company says the funding will enable it to scale up production of its Otter line of spacecraft designed for in-space servicing of other spacecraft. (source: SpaceNews)

Rivet Industries, a defense tech startup, has raised $57.5M to expand its AI-powered wearable devices for military and industrial use. Investors included Snowpoint Ventures,
Point72, Palantir Technologies & Duquesne Family Office LLC. Building on a previous $12.57M seed round and momentum from a $195M U.S. Army contract under the Soldier Borne Mission Command program, Rivet is developing lightweight “face-worn computers,” such as its Hard Spec smart glasses, that integrate real-time data, night vision, and AI applications to enhance situational awareness. The funding comes amid a broader surge in defense tech investment and will help Rivet scale production as demand grows for more agile, integrated systems for frontline personnel. (source: LinkedIn)

Antaris has closed a $28M Series A to continue development of its AI-powered platform to help satellite operators plan hardware decisions and missions—before cutting any metal. WestWave Capital led the round, with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures and other new investors. (source: Payload)

Portal Space Systems, a next-generation spacecraft manufacturer developing rapidly maneuverable vehicles for operations across and between orbital regimes, announced it has raised $50M in Series A funding. The round was led by Geodesic Capital and Mach33, with participation from Booz Allen Ventures, ARK Invest, AlleyCorp, and FUSE. The financing comes as a broader shift is taking hold across the space ecosystem: while access to orbit has improved significantly, the ability to move on orbit remains limited. As orbital activity increases and mission requirements become more dynamic, maneuverability is becoming a defining capability for how space is used, secured, and commercialized. (source: Portal Space Systems)

Critical Loop, a Long Beach, CA-based industrial power solutions company, has raised $26M in a Series A funding round led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover. The round also saw participation from Better Ventures, Climate Capital, Adapt Nation Capital, and Cyrus Ventures. The raise brought the total amount to $49M. The company plans to use the funds to speed up its work with partners, including San Diego International Airport, supported by a supply agreement for U.S.-made batteries with LG Energy Solution Vertech. (source: LinkedIn)

Hybron—an advanced composite manufacturing startup producing carbon fiber components to replace steel and other raw materials in everything from jet engine blades to 155mm shells—announced that it’s raised a $25M seed round. Marque Ventures led the round, with participation from First In, DTX Ventures, Veteran Ventures Capital, Ultratech, Bravo Victor Venture Capital (BVVC), Gaingels, and others. Hybron produces carbon fiber products at up to 100x the speed and a fraction of the cost of traditional composites manufacturing by replacing a legacy process that takes hours to days with an innovative solution that takes just minutes. The capital from the seed round enables Hybron to scale its manufacturing, expand its team, and execute a growing portfolio of programs, providing the United States and its allies with a sustainable path to rebuild depleted stockpiles and strengthen national security. (source: Tectonic)

Foundry Robotics has officially announced over $19M in total seed funding to develop the "Everything Factory"—an AI-first, software-defined, end-to-end manufacturing stack. Backed by investors including Khosla Ventures, Red Glass Ventures, Zero Shot Fund, and Hanabi Capital, the startup aims to rebuild American manufacturing with a team from Tesla, Blue Origin, and Scale AI. (source: LinkedIn)

Citra Space, a space technology company developing space object identification (SOI) capabilities, announced a $15M Series A financing led by Washington Harbour Partners, with participation from Industrious Ventures, Reliable Properties, and existing investors including Scout VC, Squadra Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Flex Capital. The funding will be used to support the development and deployment of Citra's technology among commercial and government partners. (source: PR Newswire)

Sora Fuel, a climate technology company that makes jet fuel from just air, water, and renewable energy, today announced it has closed a $14.6M round. The round was co-led by Spero Ventures and Inspired Capital, alongside super pro-rata investments from Engine Ventures and Wireframe Ventures. (source: PR Newswire)

Helix Earth, a Houston, TX-based company developing a proprietary liquid-gas chemistry platform, has raised $12M in a seed funding round led by Veriten. The round also saw participation from Rua Ventures, Carnrite Ventures, Skywriter LLC, Textbook Ventures, and others. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. (source: StartupRise)

Anvil Robotics, an eight-month-old startup that aims to be the “Legos for robots,” has raised $5.5M in a seed funding round. Matter Venture Partners and Humba Ventures led the raise, which included participation from DNX Ventures, Superhuman founder Vivek Sodera, Spacecadet Ventures, and Position Ventures. Anvil had previously raised $1 million in pre-seed capital from Matter in 2025. The San Francisco-based startup builds custom robots for businesses and describes itself as a hardware, software and manufacturing platform. (source: Crunchbase)

Strata Robotics has raised an oversubscribed $5.2M round led by Founders Fund to bring robotics to construction sites. We’re building rugged autonomous systems for outdoor job sites and heavy industry. (source: LinkedIn)

Monaire has raised $4M. The round was co-led by Founder Collective and Innospark Ventures. This new capital will accelerate its product development and customer expansion, helping them better serve existing customers and reach new ones with its AI automation for commercial HVAC and refrigeration. (source: LinkedIn) 

Plume (YC S24), a San Francisco-based geospatial data startup focused on infrastructure development, raised $3.9M in funding led by AENU, with participation from Y Combinator, Kima Ventures, RAISE Phiture, Better Angle, and Collab Fund. Founded in 2024, the company has built an AI-powered platform that lets developers interact with geospatial data using natural language to identify optimal sites for renewable energy projects. Plume will use the new capital to expand its operations and grow its footprint across European and North American markets. (source: LinkedIn)

Join over 3,200 of the best & brightest in the hard tech community and subscribe to the only commercial real estate hard tech newsletter, Space Dirt.

AGREEMENTS, PARTNERSHIPS, & CONTRACTS

Kratos has been awarded an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) with a total potential value of $446.8M, contingent on the exercise of all options. Kratos will serve as the prime contractor supporting the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command for the Ground Management and Integration (GMI) agreement on the Resilient Missile Warning and Tracking (MWT) program. This program is a critical initiative to develop, deploy and sustain the ground infrastructure required to operate Resilient MWT satellites in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). Kratos will serve as the system integrator, leading a team including Northrop Grumman, Auria, ASRC Federal Systems Solutions, and Rise8, to establish fully operational primary and backup mission operations capabilities. (source: Kratos)

Darkhive, a veteran-led company, landed a major Pentagon contract and is expected to help by scaling its production lines and communications technology for U.S. troops. The $49.7M contract is the largest awarded so far under the Pentagon’s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies, or APFIT, program. The program is designed to leverage proven technology and research, enabling it to reach the market faster. (source: Yahoo! News)

The Space Development Agency awarded a contract worth up to $49M to Capella Space to build two satellites for a demonstration of space-based military communications. (source: SpaceNews)

Beehive Industries, a Colorado-based 3D-printed jet engine startup, snagged a $29.7M Air Force contract to complete vehicle integration and flight testing, and qualification of their Frenzy 8 engine—designed as a lower-cost alternative for small cruise missiles and loitering munitions—and accelerate development of their smaller Frenzy 6 jet engine. (source: Tectonic)

Saab Inc. was awarded a $23.9M contract modification for 10 Giraffe G1X radars in support of building partner capacity for the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by U.S. Army. "The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $70,081,820. Work will be performed in East Syracuse, New York, with an estimated completion date of February 28, 2027. (source: X)

X-Bow Systems announced a $12.2M contract with AEVEX to produce rocket-assisted take-off (RATO) kits for AEVEX's 200lb Disruptor drone. X-Bow will deliver hundreds of production kits and thousands of SRMs and components between March and August 2026. (source: PR Newswire)

Avalanche Fusion, a Seattle-based fusion startup making teeny tiny desktop-sized fusion reactors, snagged a $5.2M contract from DARPA to turn nuclear radiation into electricity for nuclear batteries under the Pentagon research agency’s Rads to Watts program. (source: Tectonic)

CX2 announced that its Wraith “airborne EW system” and another yet-to-be-announced product have been selected for Design Reference Mission 3 under the Defense Innovation Unit’s Project G.I. for adoption by a unit in INDOPACOM. (source: Tectonic)

Mariana Minerals announced a partnership with Pronto, a startup that’s developed self-driving systems for haulage trucks and other off-road vehicles used at construction and mining sites. It’s the first deal that Pronto has struck since being acquired by Atoms, the new robotics venture run by Uber Co-founder Travis Kalanick. The acquisition reunites Kalanick with Pronto founder Anthony Levandowski, the former star Google self-driving project engineer and controversial entrepreneur behind Otto, which Uber acquired in 2016. The partnership with Pronto will see autonomous haulage trucks begin operating next week at Copper One, a formerly idled copper mine in Utah that Mariana purchased last year. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. (source: TechCrunch)

Phantom Space Corporation, a leader in responsive space transportation, announced it has completed the strategic acquisition of Thermal Management Technologies (TMT), a pioneer in advanced satellite thermal components. The acquisition strengthens Phantom's vertical integration strategy and directly supports the rapid development of Phantom Cloud, the company's orbital data center constellation. (source: PR Newswire)

X-Bow Systems and UNION announced a partnership to build adaptive, surge–capable manufacturing capacity for propulsion systems across the defense industrial base. The collaboration brings together X–Bow's modular propulsion–manufacturing architecture and UNION's software–defined factory stack to create manufacturing networks that can reconfigure rapidly, scale elastically, and operate as distributed production nodes. The companies aim to enable a new class of resilient, data–driven propulsion manufacturing suited to modern defense needs. Targeted outcomes of the partnership include a modular manufacturing architecture engineered to shorten changeover cycles, an energetics–production approach intended to reduce bottlenecks, a node–based model that supports enhanced throughput and distributed capacity, digitally orchestrated production modules for synchronized execution, and smaller, standardized footprints suitable for rapid deployment. (source: PR Newswire)

Military shipbuilder HII said it will collaborate with GrayMatter Robotics to begin integrating physical artificial intelligence into its shipbuilding operations. The companies signed a memorandum of understanding to explore ways to accelerate throughput, strengthen the maritime industrial base and augment HII’s shipbuilding workforce. GrayMatter’s technology will primarily focus on automating HII’s surface preparation, coating, and inspection processes, according to a news release. The companies did not disclose financial details around their partnership. (source: Manufacturing Dive)

WHAT I’M CONSUMING (AND ENJOYING!) 

✈️ I enjoyed this LinkedIn article by Jake Ohira at GITAI, Hermeus, Boom, and the Split in America’s Supersonic Flight Bet.

 🇺🇸 CX2’s Nathan Mintz lays out Iran’s strategy for surviving the war and why the U.S. and Israel must finish what they started.

🔊 Pax VC’s Founder, Michelle Volz, shares why the U.S. should reframe the way it thinks about - and promotes - AI, beyond "beat China,” in order to effectively build the future of the country.

📈 This Reuters piece sheds light on the aftermath of the Pentagon's growing animosity toward its top AI provider, Anthropic, as it has opened opportunities for smaller rivals, who have long sought a foot in the door at the most lucrative government contractor in the world. Firms like Smack and EdgeRunner report accelerated contracts and meetings with military branches. Pentagon pushes for rapid AI deployment, aiming to diversify providers and cut procurement delays.

🏇🏻 Cantos Partner Grant Gregory shares how to penetrate typically resistant software markets - use hardware.

HOW I CAN HELP YOU

Here are 3* ways I can help when the time is right:

1. Find a new home for your growing business. You're scaling fast, and you don't have time to become a CRE expert. I do this every day.

2. Sublease your space. Outgrown your office, but don't want to pay two rents? I'll help you find a subtenant.

3. Negotiate your lease renewal. Want to make sure you’re getting a fair deal from your Landlord? In my experience, you can never be too sure. Start 12 months out, so you're not scrambling at the last minute.

Strong references available. Let's talk.

*Not an exhaustive list 💪

Thanks for reading.

If you’d like your office and/or manufacturing space or business profiled - or even your city! - let me know. It’s always fun to explore and share the different components of the hard tech industry.

Erik Stiebel
Founder and Vice President
CA DRE License #02080746
424.241.4795 | [email protected] 
Follow me on 𝕏