March's Space Dirt 🚀 (month-end)

Hard tech valuations and funding continue to soar to the point that a unicorn valuation is starting to feel normal. This issue’s notable funding section is very different from what it was when I started Space Dirt about 3 years ago.

Here’s all that funding news and more:

• 7 Real estate highlights

• 5 Companies emerging from stealth

• Real estate corner - success loves speed

• 23 Notable fundings

• 7 Agreements, partnerships & contracts

• What I’m consuming

Enjoy!

REAL ESTATE HIGHLIGHTS

K2 Space leased 48,586 SF at 1355-1365 W Storm Pkwy, Torrance, CA. (source: Me!)

DeepWater Exploration leased 3,381 SF at 6215 Ferris Sq, San Diego, CA. (source: Me!)

Hadrian’s Factory of the Future 4 in Cherokee, AL, is open. Hadrian formalized a historic public-private partnership with the U.S. Navy: $2.4B total ($1.5B in private capital + $900M Navy investment). Factory 4, a 2.2M SF physical AI-powered factory in Cherokee, will mass-produce critical components for Virginia and Columbia-class subs, solve bottlenecks, create 1,000+ high-skill Alabama jobs, and accelerate the Golden Fleet. (source: X)

Standard Nuclear broke ground in Idaho on its third fuel production facility, further expanding its capacity to meet growing demand for advanced nuclear energy. (source: X)

Critical materials mining startup Kunin relocates from El Segundo to Chattanooga, TN, to partner with a manufacturer specializing in polymer ion-exchange materials, a critical component of the company’s technology. (source: Teknovation)

The US Army has conditionally selected Carlyle Group and CyrusOne to develop large-scale data centers at installations in Texas and Utah, advancing efforts to expand computing capacity for artificial intelligence (AI). For the effort, Washington-based Carlyle will manage work on 1,384 acres (560 hectares) at Fort Bliss, while CyrusOne, headquartered in Dallas, will develop 1,201 acres (486 hectares) at Dugway Proving Ground. Both companies will fund, build, and operate the facilities under long-term leases on the sites with no upfront taxpayer cost. The military expects initial operating capability at Fort Bliss in 2027 and at Dugway by 2029. Associated lease negotiations and technical oversight will be coordinated with the US Army. (source: TheDefensePost)

Brinc Drones, the Seattle-based maker of public safety drones for first responders, is moving its HQ and factory space to a 35,000 SF space at West Canal Yards, in a former fish cannery along the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Queen Anne. The company plans to grow to 50,000 SF in a single building and perhaps acquire more space down the line. Brinc will move in later this fall, doubling its production footprint and positioning the company to scale manufacturing significantly. (source: GeekWire)

STEALTH NO MORE

Airbase emerged from stealth with $5M to modernize the infrastructure that almost nobody talks about, and almost everything depends on: radio frequency spectrum licensing and coordination. The round was led by a16z, with participation from Squadra Ventures and Founders You Should Know. The company already has an active U.S. government contract and is in negotiations on its first DoD deal. Founders Ari Rosner and Millen Anand built Airbase after watching satellite constellations, autonomous systems, and defense capabilities get delayed not by engineering problems but by paperwork. Anand previously worked on RF payloads at Boeing and Planet Labs. Rosner comes from True Anomaly. Their core argument is that the systems managing spectrum access today run on manual workflows, decades-old databases, and static PDFs. Federal regulators are already using Airbase's software to analyze and coordinate spectrum access. (source: X)

Constellation Space is building the autonomous ops layer for satellite constellations that are growing too fast for humans to manage. Their product, ConstellationOS, ingests over 100,000 telemetry messages per second from satellites, ground stations, and weather systems, uses physics-informed ML to predict link degradation three to five minutes in advance with over 90% accuracy, and reroutes traffic automatically before a single packet drops. The whole response happens in under two seconds, with no human in the loop. The founding team comes from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and NASA — people who managed constellation health for Starlink and handled deep-space communications. They built ConstellationOS to solve a problem they kept running into firsthand: by the time reactive monitoring catches a degrading link, the data is already gone. They also announced the close of our oversubscribed $6.5M seed round to build the OS for space networks. Kamran Majid is the Founder and CEO. The other founders are: Laith Altarabishi, Raaid Kabir, and Omeed Tehrani. The company went through YC's W26 batch. (source: Y Combinator)

Navi AI emerged from stealth with $6.7M to fix a training system that, by most measures, is failing. FAA pilot certification is supposed to take 40 flight hours. It averages 80. Roughly 80% of pilot trainees wash out. The U.S. is 2,000 pilots short every year. Navi's answer: turn every training flight into a structured data event. The platform installs a small device in the aircraft that ingests cockpit audio, telemetry, weather, and traffic data during flight. After landing, it produces a detailed debrief — 40 to 50 key insights, phase by phase from engine start to shutdown — and lets trainees drill into their own performance with an AI assistant grounded in FAA regs and their school's specific syllabus. Instructors get fleet-level visibility into where pilots and aircraft are struggling. The model was trained on over 100,000 real flight hours. Founder and CEO Nikola Kostic spent 15 years as a pilot before starting the company in 2024. The $6.7M came from United Airlines Ventures, BVVC, New Vista Capital, Raptor Group, I2BF, and a $1.27M DoW grant to adapt the platform for the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is both a deployment partner and an equity stakeholder. Navi is also integrated with Garmin's avionics ecosystem and is already live at Sling Pilot Academy, logging over 55,000 flight hours annually at that school alone. (source: Tectonic)

Applied Atomics raised an oversubscribed $8.3M seed round — bringing total funding to $12M in its first year — to build vertically integrated nuclear power plants for industrial customers. The plants range from 100 MW to 1 GW. The company's model is not to sell hardware: they plan to own and operate the plants themselves through long-term power purchase agreements. Founded by Ben Kellie, a former SpaceX engineer, the company is using proven light-water reactor technology to accelerate the path through regulatory approval and to market. The seed was co-led by Transition VC and Morpheus Ventures, with Alpaca VC participating. Capital will go toward engineering, supply chain, and regulatory work. (source: LinkedIn)

Enigma Aerospace emerged from stealth with $7M in combined venture and DoW funding to build what they describe as runway-independent, autonomous resupply — anywhere on Earth. The system has two components. Phoenix is an autonomous cargo aircraft capable of carrying up to 1,000 pounds over distances exceeding 2,000 nautical miles without a runway, dropping payloads via an airdrop system called the DropPod. Strata is the command-and-control software that handles mission planning, fleet coordination, and real-time execution across distributed operations. Together, the company says, they solve the contested logistics challenge from the Pacific to the Middle East. The founding team is deep. CEO Reese Mozer co-founded American Robotics and spent 15 years in the drone industry. Co-founder Vijay Somandepalli was employee one at American Robotics. Andrew Sousa also joins from that company. Bart Gray, co-founder of the Defense Innovation Unit, rounds out the team. The company has also secured a $5M Air Force contract alongside its VC funding. (source: Tectonic)

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

Shield AI to acquire Aechelon Technology Inc. and raise $2B at $12.7B valuation. Shield AI announced it is raising $1.5B in Series G funding at a $12.7B post-money valuation, along with $500M in fixed-return preferred equity financing. The Series G is led by Advent International and co-led by the Strategic Investment Group of JPMorganChase’s Security and Resiliency Initiative, with participation from existing investors Snowpoint Ventures, InnovationX, Riot Ventures, Disruptive, Apandion, and others. A portion of the proceeds will help fund the company’s planned acquisition of Aechelon Technology Inc. Following the closing, Aechelon will join Shield AI, continuing to operate independently while serving customers across the defense ecosystem. Aechelon co-founder and CEO Ignacio (Nacho) Sanz-Pastor will report directly to Gary Steele and remain responsible for Aechelon’s product and customer roadmap. (source: Shield AI)

Saronic announced it has closed $1.75B in Series D funding to advance its mission of ensuring maritime superiority for the U.S. and its allies by delivering autonomous platforms at scale across defense and commercial sectors. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins and values the company at $9.25B. Saronic welcomes Advent International, Bessemer Venture Partners, DFJ Growth, BAM Elevate, and other new partners and recognizes the continued commitment of its existing investors, including 8VC, Caffeinated Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Elad Gil, and Franklin Templeton. (source: Saronic)

Mind Robotics raised a $500M Series A. The round was led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors included Eclipse, Hanabi Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Prysm Capital, Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), Greenoaks, and Allen & Company LLC. (source: LinkedIn)

Valar Atomics, a nuclear energy startup backed by Palmer Luckey and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, has raised fresh capital at a $2B valuation. The company reportedly brought in $450M in the deal, including $340M in equity and $110M in debt. The latest round follows Valar’s $130M round announced in November 2025, which was led by Snowpoint Ventures, the venture firm co‑founded by Palantir’s former head of global defense. Investors in the earlier round include Palmer Luckey, Shyam Sankar, and Lockheed Martin board member John Donovan. (source: Tech Funding News)

Aetherflux, the orbital data center startup founded by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, is seeking to raise a $250M Series B round at a $2B valuation, roughly doubling its previous valuation. Investors included Index Ventures, Interlagos, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) & Department of Defense’s Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund. The San Carlos-based company, which launched in 2024 to beam solar energy from low Earth orbit, has since expanded into “Galactic Brain” — a constellation of orbital data centers designed to run AI workloads using continuous solar power. With plans to launch its first commercial satellite node by early 2027 and new operations in Seattle, the funding would make Aetherflux one of the best-capitalized players in the growing space-based computing sector. (source: The Wall Street Journal)

Halter announced a $220M Series E round led by Founders Fund, with support from our existing investors, at a $2B valuation. This funding allows Halter to accelerate global growth and pursue a more ambitious product roadmap. (source: LinkedIn)

Zipline, a South San Francisco, CA-based developer and operator of autonomous drone delivery systems, raised $200M in a Series H funding round at a $7.6B post-money valuation. The investment was led by Fidelity, with participation from Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, Tiger Global, and Paradigm. The company intends to use the funds to further scale its global logistics network, accelerate the deployment of its Platform 2 (P2) home delivery system, and expand its partnerships across the healthcare, quick-commerce, and food sectors. (source: FinSMEs)

ALSO, which was created inside Rivian and spun out last year, will work with DoorDash to develop autonomous delivery vehicles, the companies announced Tuesday. As part of the deal, DoorDash took part in Also’s $200M Series C funding round, which was led by previous investor Greenoaks Capital. Prysm Capital also participated. DoorDash is getting a seat on Also’s board of directors, too. The raise brings Also’s total funding to $505M, and puts its valuation above $1B. (source: TechCrunch)

Starcloud, the company building data centers in space, announced it has raised a $170M Series A, at a $1.1B valuation. Achieving unicorn status just 17 months after its Y Combinator demo day, Starcloud is now the fastest unicorn in Y Combinator history. The round brings the company’s total capital raised to $200M. The heavily oversubscribed round also saw participation from major global funds and strategic partners, including the world's largest infrastructure fund, Macquarie Capital ($500bn AUM), NFX, Nebular, Y Combinator, Adjacent, 776 Ventures, Fuse Ventures, Manhattan West, and Monolith Power Systems. Prominent angel investors joining the round include Gen. Stephen Wilson, former Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, and former Starbucks CEO and Goldman Sachs board member Kevin Johnson. (source: BusinessWire)

Xona Space announced a $170M Series C round led by Mohari Ventures Natural Capital to accelerate the deployment of Xona’s Pulsar constellation and scale satellite production at our new factory in Burlingame, California. This latest funding milestone includes additional support from Craft Ventures, ICONIQ, Woven Capital, NGP Capital, Samsung Next, Hexagon, and other new and existing investors. (source: Xona Space)

Frore Systems has achieved unicorn status, raising $143M in a Series D funding round that values the AI chip cooling startup at $1.64B. The round was led by MVP Ventures, with participation from Fidelity Management & Research Company, Top Tier, Mayfield Fund, Clear Ventures, Addition, Qualcomm Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. This round brings Frore Systems' total raised capital to $340M. Founded by former Qualcomm engineers, the company is pivoting to advanced liquid cooling technology, with solutions designed to replace traditional cooling methods in high-performance AI data centers. (source: Bloomberg)

Huntsville, AL-based Performance Drone Works announced that it has raised a $110M+ Series B led by Ondas with participation from Hood River, Cedar Pine, Hanwha Asset Management’s venture fund, Booz Allen Hamilton, and other new and existing investors. The raise is a mega level-up from the company’s $16.4M Series A at a $132M valuation last March. (source: Tectonic)

Cape raised a $100M Series C round led by Bain Capital Ventures (BCV) and IVP. Other investors included 01 Advisors, 137 Ventures, Definition, Fifth Down Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and XYZ Venture Capital. (source: LinkedIn)

RoboForce has secured $52M in oversubscribed funding, bringing the total raised to $67M. The round was led by YZi Labs with participation from Jerry Yang (co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc.), who joined existing investors Myron Scholes (Nobel Laureate economist), Gary Rieschel (Founding Partner of Qiming Ventures), Carnegie Mellon University, and beyond. The new capital will accelerate the company’s next-generation robot foundation model, scale general-purpose Physical AI robots, and drive manufacturing readiness for commercial deployment. (source: RoboForce)

Arc Boat Company has raised $50M in a Series C funding round from Eclipse, a16z, Menlo Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Necessary Ventures, and Offline Ventures. Arc will use the funding to expand its nascent commercial business and even sell electric propulsion systems to defense contractors, in an attempt to fulfill founder Mitch Lee’s desire to “electrify everything on the water.” The expansion into these newer markets won’t come at the expense of Arc’s consumer boat business, Lee told TechCrunch in an interview. He said sport boats are a category that generates “meaningful revenue” for Arc, and helps prove to commercial customers that the company’s technology is both capable and durable. (source: TechCrunch)

Sift raised $42M in a Series B investment round. With the funding, Sift plans to expand its staff of engineers building the infrastructure layer that underpins devices controlled by artificial intelligence algorithms. StepStone Group led the round, Google Ventures, which led Sift’s $17.5 million Series A round, participated alongside Riot Ventures, Fika Ventures and CIV.(source: SpaceNews)

RunSybil, an AI cybersecurity startup co-founded in 2023 by Ariel Herbert-Voss and Vlad Ionescu, has raised $40M in a funding round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from S32, the Anthology Fund from Anthropic, Menlo Ventures, Conviction, Elad Gil, and several angel investors, including Nikesh Arora, Amit Agarwal, and Jeff Dean. (source: LinkedIn)

Claros, a Torrance, CA- and McLean, VA-based power management solutions company, has raised $30M in a seed funding round led by General Catalyst and Red Cell Partners. The round also saw participation from both new and existing investors, including Systemiq Capital, Aero X Ventures, Trenches Capital, and others. The company plans to use the funds to expand its lab, grow its team, continue developing IVR and Power Gateway prototypes, and start its first manufacturing runs. These efforts aim to reduce energy waste and improve productivity, cost savings, and power efficiency in U.S. data centers. (source: Startup Rise)

Antaris, creator of the AI-powered Antaris Intelligence™ platform that simplifies satellite design, simulation, manufacturing, and operations for ISR and communications satellite missions, today announced the first close of a $28M Series A funding round. The raise was led by WestWave Capital with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, other insiders, and new investors. (source: Antaris)

Orbit Fab is entering a decisive stage in its evolution as it transitions from pioneering on-orbit refueling technology to large-scale commercialization. The company has signed a $20M Series B term sheet with Stride Capital, strengthening its capital foundation as Orbit Fab moves into its next phase of growth, following its Founder and CEO, Daniel Faber, choosing to step away from his day-to-day responsibilities. Faber will step down as CEO on March 13 and will remain involved with the company during a planned transition period as a board member and advisor. (source: Orbit Fab) 

Vanguard Defense has raised $5M in seed funding to build the data infrastructure layer that defense contractors and government vendors need to organize and secure the unstructured data powering their AI systems. The round was led by First In, an early-stage venture capital firm specializing in security technology and defense innovation. (source: TechNews180)

Arinna, founded by CEO Koosha Nazif and CTO Alex Shearer, announced it had raised a $4M seed round to build ultrathin solar panels from a brand new material developed during their doctoral research. The capital raise was led by Spacecadet Ventures, with participation from Anorak Ventures and Breakthrough Energy Foundation; the company declined to share its valuation. (source: TechCrunch)

CisLunar Industries just closed a $2.6M oversubscribed seed round that was led by ONE Funds, with participation from Stout Street Capital, RIT Venture Fund, Deming Center Venture Fund, and incredible strategic angels. Its customers already include NASA, the U.S. Space Force, three domestic and international companies, and ThinkOrbital. This funding lets CisLunar move faster to meet demand. (source: LinkedIn)

NEW FUND

Texas-based VC Overmatch Ventures announced it has raised a $250M second fund, less than 2 years after its debut $70M fund in 2024. “The thesis for Fund Two is we want to back founders who are building what we’re calling the sovereign stack,” Blashek said. “These are the foundational technologies that superpowers are fighting over. Things like AI, energy, space, robotics, defense—the core technologies that, at the end of the day, make the difference between a free and prosperous America and one where we’re subject to coercion by adversarial powers like China.” (source: Tectonic)  

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

Rocket Lab announced it won a $190M Pentagon contract for 20 hypersonic test flights. The award, issued by the Pentagon’s Test Resource Management Center under its Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed, or MACH-TB 2.0, covers 20 missions scheduled over the next four years. The program was created to bring in commercial launch providers to supplement the government test infrastructure that has struggled to keep up with demand. (source: SpaceNews)

AV (formerly AeroVironment) acquired the drone manufacturing and design firm ESAero for $200M. Under the deal, ESAero will function as a subsidiary of AV under its Loitering Munition Systems business unit. (source: Tectonic)

Kratos has won a $446.8M contract from the U.S. Space Force to build and operate the ground system for a new constellation of missile-warning satellites in medium Earth orbit. The contract covers ground management and integration for the service’s Resilient Missile Warning and Tracking program, according to a March 19 statement from Space Systems Command. The work supports a constellation being deployed in phases. The first 12 satellites, known as Epoch 1, are being built by Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary. A second set of 10 satellites, called Epoch 2, is under contract to BAE Systems. Launches are expected over the next several years. (source: SpaceNews)

Skydio, the largest U.S. drone manufacturer, announced an order exceeding $52 million for over 2,500 X10D drones from the U.S. Army. The order is the largest small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) procurement from a single manufacturer in the Army’s history and moved from bid to award in less than 72 hours. (source: Skydio)

Base Power has received its first state license to operate as an electricity retailer outside Texas and will begin selling energy rate plans to customers in Illinois. (source: X)

Energy startup Arbor Energy on Wednesday said it had sold up to 5 gigawatts’ worth of its modular turbines to GridMarket, a company that helps arrange power projects for data centers and industrial users. (source: TechCrunch)

AnySignal announced it has been selected by the United States Space Force (USSF) to field its Resilient, Agile, and Interference-Defiant Network for Secure Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) and Space Data Network (SDN). This contract will accelerate the fielding of a combat-ready architecture designed to ensure mission continuity in Contested, Denied, and Degraded (CDD) environments. (source: AP News)

WHAT I’M CONSUMING (AND ENJOYING!) 

🎙 CX2’s Nathan Mintz joined the Drone Wars podcast at Disruption in the Desert to talk a little bit about Vadris, CX2, drones, UAS, and everything in between.

🇺🇸 As relations with China have soured, companies are evaluating their metal supply chains and how technology can change them. In this TechCrunch article, Inside a $1.1B deal to reshore critical minerals refining, TechCrunch highlights that Nth Cycle has been developing an electrochemical system to refine nickel and other critical minerals, including cobalt, copper, and rare earths.

⏱ Cantos Partner Grant Gregory shares that what makes a great founder is the same thing that makes people successful in other domains, like a fighter pilot: The battlefield is controlled by the players who move the swiftest and most deliberately.

💰 Defense tech startups raised $56 billion last year but secured just $4.3 billion in Pentagon contracts—less than 1% of the total investment flowing into the sector. The Information shares why.

💻 The arrival of AI tools for data analysis forced Marina del Rey’s Sift to change its business. TechCrunch shares how the two ex-SpaceX engineers are bringing the software that helped launch rockets to the factory floor.

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