July's Space Dirt 🚀 (month-end)

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

• 8 companies emerging from stealth

• 19! fundings

• 13 agreements, partnerships & contracts

• 4 pieces of content I think you might enjoy…

And a whole lot more.

Enjoy!

REAL ESTATE HIGHLIGHTS

Chaos Industries leased 56,247 SF at 128 Maryland St, El Segundo, CA. (source: Me!)

Metal Cross leased 1,500 SF at 138 Arena St, El Segundo, CA. This space was previously leased by Icarus and Neros. (source: Me!)

Varda leased 54,749 SF at 888 N Douglas St, El Segundo, CA. (source: Me!)

Saronic announced it has opened a new 80,000+ SF operations facility in downtown San Diego. The new facility will serve as a multi-purpose West Coast base, housing a combination of mission operations staff, business development teams, and office support functions. (source: Medium)

Samara has moved into its new headquarters at 2565 3rd St, San Francisco, CA, increasing its build space to 11,200 SF. (source: LinkedIn)

Hadrian leased 269,500 SF at 10101 E Pecos Rd, Mesa, AZ. (source: )

Joby Aviation has doubled the size and production capacity of its pilot manufacturing facility at 741 Neeson Rd, Marina, CA, as it races to commercialize eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles) by early next year. The now 435,500 SF facility will be able to produce 24 aircraft per year, and “nearly one” every other week once fully operational, according to Joby. The facility will also support federal certification, ground and flight testing, pilot training, and aircraft maintenance. (source: TechCrunch)

California Forever just announced the Solano Foundry: a 2,100-acre manufacturing site with plans for 40 million SF of industrial space, making it the largest advanced manufacturing park in the country. Backed by $1 billion+ in funding for the broader city project, the site aims to integrate R&D, prototyping, and production capabilities for industries like advanced transportation, robotics, energy, and defense. Located near Travis AFB in Solano County, CA, it promises fast permitting (90 days), renewable power, and rail-linked logistics to bring manufacturing back to California. (source: LinkedIn-Hardware FYI)

STEALTH NO MORE

Bedrock Robotics, led by a veteran of Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous tech unit, is emerging from stealth with $80 million and plans to make heavy construction equipment work around the clock without human operators. Boris Sofman, previously a star engineer at robotaxi leader Waymo, where he worked to automate trucks, teamed up with former Waymo colleagues Ajay Gummalla and Kevin Peterson, along with engineer Tom Eliaz, to start Bedrock Robotics. They’re starting with excavators, the ubiquitous machines that do the heavy digging. The San Francisco-based startup isn’t designing its own line of construction machinery, but instead plans to modify existing equipment with cameras, lidar, computers, and AI software that enables them to work around the clock–including in blistering heat when human workers would need regular breaks. Bedrock, which has also brought on former Uber Freight EVP Laurent Hautefeuille as COO, is emerging from stealth with $80 million in new funding and plans to begin commercial operations in 2026. (source: Forbes)

Adam Warmoth announced the launch of Chariot Defense on X. “After constantly battling power challenges while fielding advanced sensors and countermeasures at Anduril, and seeing the massive leap in technology happening at Archer and across the eVTOL industry, I knew I had to start Chariot to transform how we deliver power to the edge with a modern high-voltage architecture. We've already fielded systems across multiple large-scale DOD exercises, and are growing rapidly to meet the demand.” The new defense-focused energy and power startup came out of stealth this morning with $8 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst and XYZ, and a plan to change how energy and power are controlled and distributed on the battlefield. (source: Tectonic Defense)

Zane Hengsperger comes out of stealth via X (check out Zane’s memo) with YC company, Nox Metals, with the goal of building the fastest processing metals factory in North America.

Daniel Liss, co-founder of the social network Dispo and the dating app Teaser AI, is coming out of stealth with a stealmaking startup, Nemo Industries. Nemo will use AI to optimize the production of pig iron, modernizing an industry that Liss said is woefully outdated. Pig iron is an intermediate product that steelmakers use to make a range of different alloys. Nemo is also planning to build its own furnaces. The decision was driven by Liss’s conviction that companies that use AI from inception will have a “20% to 30% margin advantage” over competitors. Nemo has raised $28.2 million, according to PitchBook, and it is currently in talks with existing investors to raise a $100 million Series A. Michael DuBose is the Co-founder and President. (source: TechCrunch)

Hybron, an advanced manufacturing company that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in defense materials by revolutionizing composite manufacturing, came out of stealth via a LinkedIn post. “We’ve built a completely new process for producing advanced composites. We’re stronger, lighter, and orders of magnitude faster than legacy methods.” Brennan Lieu and Aaron Guo are the Co-founders. Lieu is the CEO.

Co-founder and CEO of Thermopylae Aerospace, Yehor Balytskyi emerged from stealth with a simple LinkedIn post looking to hire more people (ML/RL engineer, Mech/Assembly, and PCB/Embedded, in case you’re looking). Hawthorne, CA-based Thermopylae is “bringing affordable air defense systems to Western armies. No renders, just pure DEFENSIVE capability.”

The Founder of Digital Metal, Connor James Kapoor, announced his company with a video on LinkedIn that you can check out here. Digital Metal “makes investment cast parts, fast. Upload your STEP file and get a quote instantly, order, and parts will be shipped starting at 72 hours.”

Cascade Space announced that it has raised $5.9 million in seed funding. The round included participation from Nova Threshold, Undeterred Capital, Y Combinator, Night Capital, Olive Capital, Valkyrie Ventures, Karman Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, Garage Capital, TRAC, Aurelia Foundry, Hawktail, MGV.VC, Pioneer Fund, Liquid 2 Ventures, and others. The funding will accelerate the development of the Cascade Portal, a platform for satellite communication system design. “Our mission at Cascade Space is to provide tools and infrastructure for spacecraft communication system design, test, and operations that will allow our customers to ship faster with the highest levels of mission assurance,” said Jacob Portukalian, co-founder and CEO of Cascade. Arlen Abraham is the other Co-founder. (source: Business Wire)

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REAL ESTATE CORNER

NOTABLE FUNDINGS

I loved this breakdown on Q2 funding, so I included the whole thing (see chart below, too):

Based on the latest Space IQ data, the top 10 funding rounds in the space economy accounted for $5.4 billion of investment in Q2.

North America (USA) accounted for 84% of the investment, while Europe (Germany) made up the other 16%.

82% of total capital went to the Satellites industry, accounting for half of the top 10 list, while defense emerged as a dominant theme, represented by six companies. Anduril Industries is now the world’s most valuable pure-play defense startup, while Helsing holds the top spot in Europe, ranking second globally.

Q2 was the third largest quarter on record for Emerging Industries, led by Impulse Space, which raised to meet surging demand for in-space mobility, and True Anomaly, which raised to support U.S. tactical dominance in orbit, aligned with the rollout of Golden Dome. (source: LinkedIn)

Hadrian announced $260 million in new capital and major expansions of its footprint in California and Arizona. The investment supports nearly five football fields' worth of new manufacturing space, expanded R&D capacity, and dedicated teams focused on shipbuilding and naval defense production. The raise includes $260 million in Series C financing led by existing investors Founders Fund and Lux Capital, and a factory expansion loan facility arranged by Morgan Stanley. This capital will accelerate Hadrian's ability to deliver not just precision parts but full mission-critical systems. (source: PR Newswire)

Armada announced a $131 million strategic funding round, which it will use to build a new “megawatt-scale” modular data center called Leviathan. New investors Pinegrove, Veriten, and Glade Brook joined the round, alongside returning backers Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Shield Capital, 8090 Industries, M12 (Microsoft’s venture arm), Overmatch, Silent Ventures, Felicis, and Marlinspike. This brings Armada’s total raised to over $200M, according to CEO Dan Wright. (source: Tectonic Defense and X)

Oxide raised a $100 million Series B, led by a new strategic partner in USIT with participation from all existing Oxide investors. Previously, in October 2023, the company closed a $44 million Series A round led by Eclipse, alongside participation from Intel Capital, Riot Ventures, Counterpart Ventures, and Rally Ventures. (source: Yahoo! Finance)

Mariana Minerals has closed its Series A funding, led by a16z, with continued support from seed investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Khosla Ventures, plus participation from strategic investors across the minerals industry. This round brings our total capital raised to $85 million. (source: Mariana Minerals)  

Radical AI, a New York City-based company developing autonomous labs for materials R&D, has raised $55 million in Seed funding to scale its operations and accelerate development. Led by CEO Joseph F. Krause and co-founder Jorge Colindres, the company is focused on building a unified scientific intelligence platform that autonomously discovers, designs, and manufactures advanced materials, aiming to eliminate the fragmentation in traditional R&D. Backers in the round include RTX Ventures, Nvidia, noa, Eni Next, Infinite, Alleycorp, and others. (source: Traded)

BrightAI, a San Francisco-based pest control startup, raised $51 million in Series A funding to accelerate that mission. The round was co-led by Khosla Ventures, an early backer of OpenAI known for supporting breakthrough technologies that transform industries, and Inspired Capital, whose team brings deep expertise in scaling complex, operationally intensive infrastructure businesses. They’re joined by BoxGroup, Marlinspike, Rsquared VC, Cooley, VSC Ventures, and other strategic investors. (source: BrightAI)

Firestorm Labs has secured $47 million in Series A funding. The new round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and includes participation from prominent defense-focused investors, including Lockheed Martin Ventures, Decisive Point, Washington Harbour Partners, Booz Allen Ventures, and others. The total includes $12 million in venture debt from J.P. Morgan. The new capital, rapid growth, and multiple U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) contracts secured by Firestorm, signal investor confidence and build upon the initial $12.5 million seed round. These investments enable Firestorm to advance its additive-manufacturing platform by adding engineers, opening a larger production facility, and broadening its partnership program. The new funds will also accelerate in-theater production of versatile, affordable UAS and other mission-critical platforms to meet the evolving needs of U.S. and allied defense organizations. (source: Firestorm)

Rune Technologies announced its $24 million Series A funding round. Led by HUMAN CAPITAL, new investors Pax Ventures and Washington Harbour Partners LP, and continued support from existing partners Andreessen Horowitz, Point72 Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, and Forward Deployed Venture Capital. This funding will enable Rune to accelerate TyrOS deployment across multiple military services, transforming how logistics operations function even in contested environments where traditional connectivity cannot be guaranteed. With our edge-first architecture and proven battlefield implementations, this is military logistics at the speed of need. (source: Linkedn)

Asylon, Inc., a Philadelphia, PA-based provider of robotic perimeter security technology, has raised $24 million in Series B funding. The round was led by global software investor Insight Partners, with participation from Veteran Ventures Capital, Allegion Ventures, and the GO PA Fund. The company intends to use the funds to expand its engineering, operations, and go-to-market teams, accelerate product development across its robotic platforms, and deepen partnerships across defense, logistics, and critical infrastructure. (source: FINSMES)

Cambridge Terahertz raises $12 million in seed funding to help Amazon see inside boxes using 3D imaging. The funding was led by Felicis, with Amazon’s $1 billion Industrial Innovation Fund also joining in. The investment is part of Amazon’s push to support technologies that can plug into its massive logistics machine. (source: TechStartups)

The Pittsburgh, PA-based mining technology company Mine Vision Systems has raised $11.5 million in later-stage equity funding at an undisclosed valuation, according to a July 3 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The raise, which began on May 27, includes 18 undisclosed investors, according to the SEC filing, and will be used to hire more talent in the Pittsburgh area, according to CEO Mike Smocer. (source: Technical.ly)

Diode Computers announced its $11.4 million Series A, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with the continued support of Y Combinator, Caffeinated Capital, and BoxGroup. “We are working with Fortune 100 companies and fast-growing startups to design and manufacture their circuit boards faster than ever.” (source: LinkedIn)

Auriga Space raises $6 million to shoot rockets off an electromagnetic launch track. With a previously undisclosed $4.6 million seed round that closed at the beginning of the year and $1.4 million in new AFWERX and SpaceWERX contracts. The capital round was led by European firm OTB Ventures, with participation from Trucks Venture Capital and Seraphim Space. Auriga has raised $12.2 million across VC and DOD grants to date. (source: TechCrunch) 

Baxter Aerospace, a St. George, UT-based aerospace system integrator, raised $6 million in Series A funding. DoD Accelerator fund made the investment. The company intends to use the funds to support rapid production of both the Dragonfly Unmanned Aircraft and the Deployable Communications Kits, and expand field operations. (source: FINSMES)

Clippership announced its $4.6 million raise to advance autonomous maritime freight. “A huge thank you to the Fifty Years team for going all in on the vision, and Founders Factory for your participation.” This capital will be used to: 1. Build its next-generation prototype, a 10-ton offshore-capable vessel that will be used to test its autonomy and wing-sail technology in open-ocean conditions. 2. Design and build its 23.9-meter autonomous cargo vessel, capable of transporting 80 pallets between Europe and the U.S. (source: LinkedIn)

Omni Instrument raised a $4 million round led by Shield Capital and Afore Capital to accelerate the development of AI Manufacturing Tools. (source: LinkedIn)

Paradigm Robotics raised a heavily oversubscribed $3.95 million pre-seed round. “We’re grateful to partner with an incredible group of investors: our lead, Active Capital, with significant and strategic participation from Boost VC, Leo Lion Limited, Unruly Capital, Higher Life Ventures, Earthling VC, and several others.” Paradigm Robotics builds rugged, scalable ground robots for mission-critical operations in hazardous environments. (source: LinkedIn)

Spear AI raised $2.3 million from AI-focused venture firm Cortical Ventures and private equity firm Scare the Bear. Founded in 2021, the company has been self-funded and has about 40 employees. The funding will be used to double the company's headcount to support its government contracts and commercial business prospects, such as monitoring underwater pipelines and cables. The U.S. Navy this month awarded Spear AI a $6-million contract for its data-labeling tool. (source: Reuters)

Droneforge announced its $2.5 million pre-seed led by Outlander VC, with participation from First In Capital, Tofino Capital, and Shor Capital. Alongside a group of early angels. (source: LinkedIn)  

AGREEMENTS, PARTNERSHIPS, & CONTRACTS

SES has finalized its acquisition of Intelsat, creating a combined entity with a 120-satellite fleet across geostationary and medium Earth orbits. The deal, valued at $3.1 billion, positions the merged company to deliver integrated multi-orbit connectivity solutions according to SES Space and Defense. The merged company, with about 60% of revenue coming from high-growth sectors, is expected to generate around $4.28 billion in revenue. (source: SES)

Anduril announced that they’d been awarded a $99.6M, 11-month OTA contract to spearhead a next-generation command and control (NGC2) prototype for the 4th Infantry Division of the Army. The defense megalith will lead an all-star team—including heavyweights like Palantir, Govini, Microsoft, and Striveworks—in building an end-to-end system that “modernize[s] the service’s communications and networking technologies,” according to the company. (source: Tectonic Defense)

Epirus announced a $43,551,060 contract from the U.S. Army's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO). The base contract includes delivery of two Integrated Fires Protection Capability High-Power Microwave (IFPC-HPM) Generation II (GEN II) systems, along with associated test events, support equipment and spares with options for additional tests, components and support. The IFPC-HPM GEN II systems will build upon the four IFPC-HPM systems Epirus delivered to U.S. Army in May 2024 and leverage the company's solid-state, high-power microwave (HPM) Leonidas technology platform, developed internally for counter-electronics and critical asset protection using weaponized electromagnetic interference. (source: Epirus)

Two key players in AI-powered ag robotics have joined forces this week, with San Jose-based Bonsai Robotics acquiring farm-ng for an undisclosed sum. Existing shareholders of both companies will retain ownership stakes in the newly combined entity. Brendan Dowdle, former CEO of farm-ng, is the chief business officer of the new company, which has also brought on industry heavyweight John Teeple (former director of technology at John Deere) as COO, and Gary Bradski (a key figure in the evolution of computer vision and founder of OpenCV) as chief science officer. (source: Ag Fund News)

Cloud-seeding startup Rainmaker is partnering with Atmo, an AI-powered meteorology startup. The two operate on complementary ends of the weather system: Atmo studies atmospheric patterns to forecast weather events, while Rainmaker digests such data in an attempt to squeeze more precipitation out of weather systems. Under the partnership, Atmo will use its deep learning models to help Rainmaker identify clouds that have potential for seeding. The forecasting startup will also offer Rainmaker’s cloud-seeding services, deployed via small drones, to its customers. For its part, Rainmaker will contribute data from its proprietary radar system to determine how much rain the clouds produced. (source: TechCrunch)

York Space Systems' parent company is acquiring Atlas Space Operations, a move designed to enhance York's vertically integrated capabilities by providing direct access to a global communications network. This acquisition will allow York to offer more comprehensive solutions for space missions, combining satellite manufacturing with ground-based communication infrastructure. ATLAS will play a key role in York's Golden Dome architecture. (source: PR Newswire)

Orbit Fab landed an $870,000 ESA contract—as part of the agency’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) program—to work with telecom operators in GEO to integrate xenon refueling technology. The company also unveiled its next demo mission, which will build flight heritage for the new high-pressure variant of Orbit Fab UK’s RAFTI refueling hardware supporting xenon fuel. (source: Payload)

SpaceWorks Enterprises unveiled the details of its first in-orbit demo reentry flight. The mission, funded in part through NASA’s $500,000 TechLeap Prize, will bring Astral Materials’ semiconductor crystal manufacturing payload to orbit aboard SpaceWorks’ RED 25 reentry capsule. With the help of a NASA-selected orbital transfer vehicle, the capsule and payload will operate on-orbit for three to 12 months. The capsule will then reenter the atmosphere and splash down in the ocean, where SpaceWorks will attempt to recover it. (source: Payload)

Smack Technologies has been awarded two prototyping contracts from the Joint Fires Network (JFN) and the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL). The JFN and MCWL contracts total over seven figures in revenue and mark a significant milestone in our mission to bring Decision Dominance to the U.S. and Allied armed forces. Both contracts underscore the Department's recognition that the current kill chain is vulnerable to disruption and too slow to adapt in high-tempo, multi-domain operations. Smack’s core tech stack, Omega, directly addresses this fragility by introducing resilience and speed into Joint Fires execution. (source: Smack Technologies)

Uncrewed surface vessel builder Saronic Technologies and shipbuilder Vigor Marine Group announced a strategic partnership focused on rapidly advancing the delivery of autonomous maritime capabilities and strengthening operational support for defense and commercial customers. Under the agreement, Vigor and Saronic will work closely to identify opportunities to advance the priorities of core U.S. government and commercial maritime customers. (source: WorkBoat)

Picogrid announced an integration with Echodyne, a leader in advanced radar systems for base defense, ISR, and counter-UAS. By joining Picogrid's partner ecosystem, high-fidelity data from Echodyne radars will be readily available to any customer of Legion, the company's API-first data platform, unifying disparate elements into a secure, common operating picture. Echodyne's EchoGuard radar is immediately available in Legion, with EchoShield available later this year. (source: PR Web)

Shield AI is partnering with Northrop Grumman on Beacon—a next-gen autonomy testbed ecosystem designed to accelerate and validate mission autonomy at scale. (source: X)

Merlin, a developer of assured, autonomous flight technology for fixed-wing aircraft, announced an agreement with Northrop Grumman to integrate the Merlin Pilot onto its next-generation testbed ecosystem, Beacon™. This collaboration with Northrop Grumman accelerates next-generation uncrewed systems, reduces risk, and reinforces Merlin’s platform-agnostic strategy, marking a pivotal step toward adding the Scaled Composites-built Model 437 Vanguard to its growing portfolio. (source: BusinessWire)

JOB BOARD

Jetson put the word out on LinkedIn, hiring for Electronics Technician, Software Engineer, and Junior Technician. Here’s its career page.

CX2 is hiring for a bunch of product & engineering roles.

WHAT I’M CONSUMING (AND ENJOYING!) 

🕹 In his recent Substack, Nathan Mintz points out that just because drone systems “worked” in Ukraine, it doesn’t justify accepting that as sufficient evidence of effectiveness. Instead, he suggests the U.S. create a new verification and validation process for the “attritable” weapons category that drones fall in - firmly rooted in ensuring they can operate in an EW dense environment.

⬆️ Orbital Ops explains why it went with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for its propulsion system, particularly since hydrogen is tough to work with.

🎙 Ti Morse interviews Garrett Scott, Co-founder of Pipedream. The interview and all of the timestamps are here on X.

📺 Scott Nolan, Founder & CEO of General Matter (& Partner at Founders Fund), joined Molly O’Shea as part of Sourcery’s “Made in America” mini-series to explain why the US does <0.1% of global uranium enrichment.

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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