August's Space Dirt 🚀 (mid-month)

Quick note before we get started - we’re over 2,000 subscribers now. THANK YOU for coming along for the ride. As always, I’m here to help when you need me.

-Erik

Along with our 18! real estate highlights, in this issue, we have:

• 3 companies emerging from stealth

• 13 fundings

• 3 agreements, partnerships & contracts

• 4 pieces of content I think you might enjoy…

And a whole lot more.

Enjoy!

REAL ESTATE HIGHLIGHTS

Space Kinetic leased 24,000 SF at 2041 E Mariposa Ave, El Segundo, CA. (source: Me!)

Durin leased 6,000 SF at 228 Nevada St, El Segundo, CA. This is Shinkei’s former spot. (source: Me!)

Andrenam leased 8,000 SF at 3429 W El Segundo Blvd, Hawthorne, CA. (source: Me!)

Outpost Space leased 16,616 SF at 12500 Beatrice St, Los Angeles, CA. (source: Me!)

Safire leased 12,000 SF at 9530 Jefferson Blvd, Culver City, CA. (source: Me!)

Apolink leased 3,829 SF at 2595 E Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA. (source: Me!)

Firestorm leased 55,544 SF at 9431 Dowdy Dr, San Diego, CA. (source: Me!)

Isembard opened its first U.S. factory at 1750 Briercroft Ct, Carrollton, TX. (source: X)

General Matter has leased land from the Department of Energy to construct a $1.5 billion enrichment facility in Paducah, KY. The facility will be built on a 100-acre parcel of land at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Construction is slated to begin in 2026, with operations expected to commence in 2034. (source: Business Facilities)

Tobe Hydrogen Electrolyzers moved into a new facility in Oklahoma City, OK. (source: X)

Tendeg has completed construction of Innovation Drive, a 120,000 SF facility at 1350 S 96th Street, Louisville, CO. Located in Colorado’s aerospace corridor, Innovation Drive is now entering operational build-out and will soon be supporting multiple active programs across defense, intelligence, and commercial space. (source: SpaceNews)

Brooklyn, NY’s Reflex Robotics has opened a San Francisco office. (source: LinkedIn)

Rockville, MD’s Quantum Space announced the opening of its new office in Huntsville, AL. (source: LinkedIn)

Helion, a Washington-based fusion energy company, announced that it has begun work on the site of its first fusion power plant, Orion, marking a major step in bringing fusion electricity to the grid. Located at 1476 Nixon Rapids Lane, Malaga, WA, the site was chosen for its ready access to transmission and legacy of energy innovation. The plant will begin delivering electricity from fusion to Microsoft by 2028. (source: Helion)

Anduril announced that it has officially opened its new full-rate solid rocket motor (SRM) production facility at 488 East McHenry Rd, McHenry, MS, which it says will be able to produce 6,000 tactical motors a year by the end of 2026. The company says it invested $75 million of its own capital in building the new facility, which took only 18 months to complete. In that time, Anduril says it has already test-fired 700 rocket motors and grown its Mississippi team from 40 to 100. The build-out was also supported by the DoD’s $14.3 million Defense Production Act (DPA) investment in Anduril to build out SRM production. (source: Tectonic)

Anduril announced that it’s officially opening a Taiwan office, teaming up with local partners including the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), and speeding up delivery of autonomous systems to the island. (source: Tectonic)

Quantica Infrastructure has introduced Big Sky Digital Infrastructure, its flagship development platform: a 5,000-acre energy and digital infrastructure campus outside Billings, Montana. Construction is planned to begin in 2026. The initial projected capacity is 500 MW of new renewable power and battery energy storage backed by firm grid power, expandable to 1 GW, to be developed by affiliates of BSDI. The site is expected to be connected to hundreds of miles of fiber-ready underground conduit, enabling diverse routes to major metropolitan areas. (source: LinkedIn)

The Arctic Training Centre (ATC) has opened. It bills itself as “the world’s most extensive and most diverse private testing, validation, and training environment, located in the heart of the Canadian North.” From technology validation and long-range patrolling to Arctic mobility, cold weather medicine, and RF-denied operations, ATC offers thousands of square kilometres of real northern landscapes and challenging RF spectrum — A premier proving ground for the next generation of northern technologies and security capabilities. (source: LinkedIn)

STEALTH NO MORE

Pinto Robotics came out of stealth at the California Restaurant Association show. Its mission is to safeguard the future of restaurants through robotics. Pinto’s first product is PODS, a countertop solution that automates sauce packaging to help restaurants save time. Gustavo Castillo is the Founder and CEO.

CEO and Co-founder Devan Plantamora announced via his LinkedIn that Bravo Ordnance (the company URL is one of the better ones I’ve come across: https://warhead.co/) emerged from stealth and closed a $3 million pre-seed round led by Paige Craig and Outlander VC with participation from 640 Oxford, The Veteran Fund, Pathbreaker Ventures, UA1 VC, and Plug and Play Tech Center. Bravo Ordnance designs, prototypes, and manufactures custom warheads and explosives using additive and advanced manufacturing. Anthony J. and Jacob Lambuth are Co-founders.

Co-founder and CEO Cameron Rowe announced Sentradel via a LinkedIn post. Sentradel specializes in cutting-edge autonomous defense systems engineered to neutralize modern drone threats with precision and scalability. Stefan Spain is the Co-founder and CTO.

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REAL ESTATE CORNER

NOTABLE FUNDINGS

Vulcan Elements raised $65 million in a new funding round to increase production of the rare-earth magnets crucial to everything from drones to electric vehicles. The funding signals the growing push to build up an industry in the U.S. and reduce dependence on China. North Carolina-based Vulcan was valued at around $250 million in the funding round led by Brad Gerstner’s Altimeter Capital. This tech-focused investment firm has backed companies such as OpenAI and Uber Technologies. One Investment Management, run by former SoftBank financier Rajeev Misra, is also an investor. (source: The Wall St Journal)

Silicon Valley startup xLight has raised $40 million, aiming to build the first prototype of a new class of laser that could shake up the global chip industry and reclaim U.S. leadership in a field that China is aggressively investing in. The financing round was led by Playground Global and joined by Boardman Bay Capital Management. Morpheus Ventures, Marvel Capital, and IAG Capital Partners also joined the round. (source: Reuters) 

Reveal Technology, a Bozeman, MT-based defense technology company, raised $30 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Ballistic Ventures, with participation from defy.vc, Booz Allen Ventures, Shield Capital, Next Frontier Capital, and Madison Valley Partners. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. The company is dedicated to providing warfighters with mission-critical tools that work offline, under fire, and in real time. (source: FINSMES)

Space Kinetic announced a $12 million raise to build a new paradigm for space superiority and missile defense. The seed round was led by Balerion Space Ventures with support from Industrious Ventures, Marque Ventures, UP.Abundance, Backswing Ventures, NM Vintage Fund, Abo Empire, and CerraCap Ventures — joining earlier supporters like 1517 Fund and California Innovation Fund. (source: LinkedIn)

Cambridge Terahertz announced its $12 million seed round, led by Felicis, with participation from Amazon, Tishman Speyer, Plug and Play Tech Center, Good Growth Capital, Stata Capital, Blue Sky Capital, MetaVC, Silicon Catalyst, Alumni Ventures, Mayfield, and others. (source: LinkedIn) 

Equatic announced the successful closure of its Series A funding round. The $11.6 million round was led by Catalytic Capital for Climate and Health (C3H), a catalytic vehicle by Temasek Trust, and Kibo Invest, a Singapore-based private investment office with a focus on climate technology. The funding round, with participation from a consortium of global investors, will accelerate the engineering scale-up and commercialization of Equatic’s patented seawater electrolysis technology. (source: Equatic)

Estes Energy Solutions announced that it has raised $11 million in Seed capital with investment from BMW i Ventures and Fortescue as co-leads, with additional support from New System Ventures and early investor DCVC. With $20 million raised to date, this latest tranche of capital enables Estes to finalize development of its breakthrough multi-chemistry battery pack platform capable of using either NMC and LFP cells, and establish manufacturing operations in the United States. (source: Globe Newswire)

Orbital Operations announced it has raised $8.8 million to build the next class of space vehicles. Initialized Capital led the round alongside significant investments from Harpoon Ventures, DTX Ventures, Rebel Fund, and TRAC.vc, Karman Ventures, and Immad Akhund. (source: LinkedIn)

Raise Robotics, developer of the Raise Robotics construction platform, today announced a $7.75 million seed funding round led by MaC Venture Capital with participation from Undivided Ventures and existing investors Cybernetix Ventures, Zacua Ventures, and Union Labs. The funding coincides with the successful completion of curtain wall layout for over 10,000 glass panels at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, demonstrating the platform’s measurable impact on cost, safety, and reliability. With this latest round, Raise has raised a total of $11.8 million. (source: Construction Dive)

TRIC Robotics announced a $5.5 million seed round led by Version One Ventures to transform how farmers protect our food. Other participants included Version One Ventures, Garage Capital, Lucas Venture Group, Todd and Rahul Capital, Valor Equity Partners, the founders of Clearpath Robotics, Undeterred Capital, Embark Ventures, Spacecadet, Redstick Ventures, Central Coast Ventures, SoundBoard Venture Fund, and Shep Investments. (source: The Robot Report)

Pilgrim Labs raised $4.3 million from investors including Cantos VC, Day One Ventures, and Peter Thiel's family office. Pilgrim is developing battlefield-ready biotech, with plans to sell to the military and eventually to civilians. (source: Business Insider)

Black Sand Solutions has been selected for funding for a NASA SBIR to design and build the next generation of robotics for space operations. This includes smarter robotic arms and AI hardware for new versions of free-flyer robots like Astrobee aboard the International Space Station, as well as future spacecraft and space stations aligned with NASA’s Artemis program. “With this award, we're building the future of in-orbit autonomy, where robotic teammates can assist astronauts with tasks, inspections, logistics, and more.” (source: LinkedIn)

Defense and security-focused Forward Deployed Venture Capital announced that they have raised a $45M Fund II, backed by 150 LPs from companies including Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX.  FDVC General Partner Mark Scianna—who worked at Palantir for 11 years himself—told Tectonic that they’ll use the new pile of cash to write early-stage checks to companies building tech he called “mission-critical.” Many of the investors in the new fund are engineers and people still working at the defense tech giants. (source: Tectonic)

AGREEMENTS, PARTNERSHIPS, & CONTRACTS

Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement with Blade Air Mobility (NASDAQ:BLDE) to purchase Blade’s leading urban air mobility passenger business. Blade's Medical division, which was not included in the transaction and will remain a separate public company, is to partner with Joby on medical transportation. The acquisition includes all of Blade’s passenger business, including operations in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the Blade brand. Under the terms of the agreement, Joby will pay Blade stock or cash, at Joby’s election, up to $125 million, subject to customary indemnity provisions and inclusive of $35 million of holdbacks, which will be released subject to the achievement of certain performance milestones and retention of certain key employees. (source: Joby)

Antares announced that it has signed two new contracts with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to support the next phases of its reactor development. The first contract is a $40 million+ agreement, one of the largest partnerships in INL history, to build and demonstrate the Antares R1 microreactor in an existing facility at INL. This agreement puts Antares in a position to be America’s first privately funded electricity-producing advanced reactor as soon as 2027. The second contract moves Antares towards establishing and siting a permanent testing facility at INL. When complete, this facility will allow Antares to test and operate microreactors on-site prior to providing power for military and commercial applications throughout the country. (source: LinkedIn)

USA Rare Earth announced that it has signed a joint development agreement with ePropelled to develop a strategic supply and purchase relationship of the company’s sintered neo magnets for use in ePropelled’s state-of-the-art motors, which are used in a multitude of uncrewed air, land, and sea vehicles (commonly referred to as drones). (source: Nasdaq)

WHAT I’M CONSUMING (AND ENJOYING!) 

📝 Applications close for the next 5050 cohort on August 18th. To find out more info and to apply, go here.

🎙 Ti Morse interviewed Elliot F. Poirier, co-founder of Watoga. Watoga is building the AI operating system for the mining industry.

🎙 Molly O’Shea interviewed Vulcan Elements founder, John Maslin, on Sourcery.

🎙 Smack Technologies Co-founder and CEO, Andrew Markoff, went on the ANOMALY podcast to discuss military command and control systems, lessons from urban warfare, and preparing for potential conflict with China.

HOW I CAN HELP YOU

Some people only know me as “that Space Dirt newsletter guy.” Although I love that moniker, here are 3* ways I can help with your hard tech real estate when the time is right.

1. A new home for your growing business. The good news - you’re growing! The bad news - you need to move, and you don’t know the hard tech real estate market. I can help. And I come with strong references.

2. Sublease your space. You’ve outgrown your space and need to move but don’t want to pay two rents? I got you.

3. Time to renew your lease? Want to make sure you’re getting a fair deal from your Landlord? In my experience, you can never be too certain. (BTW, I recommend starting the lease renewal process 12 months out at a minimum.)

*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] 
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