October's Space Dirt 🚀🎃 (month-end)

Happy Halloween!

In this issue… we have:

• 6 real estate highlights

• 9 companies emerging from stealth

• 14 fundings

• 12 agreements, partnerships & contracts

• 2 pieces of content I think you might enjoy…

And a whole lot more.

Enjoy!

REAL ESTATE HIGHLIGHTS

finalREV moved into a new facility in Berkeley, CA. (source: Me!)

Anduril is adding 3333/3335/3337 Susan St in Costa Mesa, CA (“The Hive”), to its corporate footprint. That’s 183,483 SF total.

• 3333 Susan Street - 101,325 SF

• 3335 Susan Street - 35,617 SF

• 3337 Susan Street - 46,541 SF

The Hive is located next door to Anduril’s corporate headquarters. (source: Costar)

IBIS Industries leased 3,586 SF at 2109 S Wright St, Santa Ana, CA. (source: Me!)

Mariana Minerals broke ground on Lithium One — the first GWh-scale facility to pull lithium from oil-field wastewater — in Joaquin, TX. (source: X)

North Wind, an aerospace firm in Minnesota, was awarded approximately $50 million in state funding to build a new aerospace complex in Rosemount. The complex will be a research and testing facility focused on advancing hypersonic capabilities. It will feature several wind tunnels to test and model high-speed aerospace systems. (source: Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal)

Phoenix Tailings, the American rare earth refining firm, has opened a new processing facility in Exeter, NH. This is one of the first domestic rare earth metallization facilities with zero reliance on Chinese inputs, equipment, or technology. Initially, the facility will produce 200 tons of both light and heavy rare earth metals each year, with the capacity to scale to more than 1,000 tons per year. This capacity will be able to supply the entire U.S. defense industrial base and ensure the economy remains resilient as rare earths become an increasing challenge. (source: Phoenix Tailings)

STEALTH NO MORE

Valthos set out to build the tech stack for biodefense. Its team of computational biologists and software engineers applies frontier AI to identify biological threats and update medical countermeasures in real-time. Valthos is backed by $30 million from OpenAI, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and others, including Definition Capital. Kathleen McMahon is a Co-founder and CEO. She’s the former Head of Life Sciences at Palantir. Tess van Stekelenburg is the other Co-founder. Stekelenburg is also a Partner at Lux Capital.

Santa Ana, CA’s IBIS Industries emerged from stealth with a LinkedIn post. IBIS focuses on providing quick-turn support for complex electrical and mechanical assemblies. Whether you're in the prototype phase or scaling up for full-rate production, our agility delivers the speed and dependability you need. We serve as your turnkey manufacturing solution for challenging builds across critical industries such as Aerospace, Defense, Energy, Automotive, and more. Sam Lynch is a Co-founder and CEO. Lynch previously served as Anduril’s Manager of Manufacturing Engineering (Ground Systems). Jenson Vliss is a Co-founder and COO.

Via an X post from its Founder, Tucker Dordevic, Austin, TX-based Oureon is emerging from stealth following a $3.5 million pre-seed round led by GTMfund, with participation from Boost VC, BVVC, Ensemble VC, Flyover Capital, JHH VC, and Tiptop VC, to build the future of advanced airspace interoperability. Each year, there are more than 100 million aircraft flights worldwide, and over the next decade, more than 800 million additional drone flights will enter global airspace. Yet these systems still operate in isolation, unable to communicate, predict, or deconflict in real time. Oureon Technologies is building the real-time communication layer that connects them, enabling manned and unmanned aircraft to communicate and coordinate safely, instantly, and autonomously. From airports to city airspaces, and beyond, our platform powers predictive, real-time, intelligent communication and deconfliction across every vehicle in the sky.

Former Anduril engineer, Torin Herndon, announced ModRetro (with Palmer Luckey), “with the goal of creating delightful consumer electronic experiences with a retro soul. We started with the Chromatic - our ultimate tribute to the 8-bit era of gaming. In less than two years, we have shipped a huge amount of product around the world and partnered with gaming titans like Tetris, GameStop, Ubisoft, Atari, and more. A multitude of new products are in the pipeline spanning music, gaming, and communications.” Herndon is the CEO. (source: LinkedIn)

Besxar Space Industries emerged from stealth with the announcement of a launch deal with SpaceX. The launch giant will fly a total of 24 of Besxar’s reusable in-space manufacturing payloads aboard 12 upcoming Falcon 9 launches—with the first launch expected as soon as this year. As part of these missions, Besxar’s “Fabships” will integrate into the first-stage booster of a Falcon 9 to launch to space, run a manufacturing process, and return home safely. Besxar was founded in 2023 by Ashley Pilipiszyn, who saw the growing mismatch between the semiconductor manufacturing process and the needs of new technologies, as an early employee at OpenAI. (source: Payload)

Y Combinator company, Foundation Industries emerged from stealth. Vedic Patel and Jakob Knudsen are the Co-founders. Foundation builds and deploys automated factories to supply the maritime industrial base.

Askari Defense emerged from stealth. Robbie van Zyl is the Founder. Per Pitchbook, Askari is the developer of a counter-drone platform based in Chattanooga, TN.

Orbital Robotics is building the next generation of autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations and capture (RPOC) technology which is critical for on-orbit servicing, refueling, relocation, and debris removal. At Orbital Robotics, “we believe autonomously capturing and berthing spacecraft enables high mobility, refueling and servicing capabilities for a sustainable space economy.” Aaron Borger is the Founder and CEO.

Defense technology startup Valinor is looking to improve unmanned aerial system operations with its new networked docking station designed for the remote environments of future battlefields. The company recently introduced Dispatch dock, a mobile charging station that can be integrated onto a range of military platforms and rapidly recharge different UAS. The system is designed for the Pentagon’s push to embrace drones and features capabilities that could ease the burden for warfighters, from autonomous launch and recovery to onboard compute storage. (source: DefenseScoop)

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REAL ESTATE CORNER

Lunch on me. Reach out! ⤵︎

SEASONS GREETINGS, A SPACE DIRT GATHERING 🎅🏻

Was thinking of hosting a Space Dirt happy hour in Gundo in early December.

Always fun to meet people IRL (no AI avatars allowed).

What do you think ↓

NOTABLE FUNDINGS

Managing Partner (and UNION Co-founder) Joe Musselman announced Bravo Victor Venture Capital, or BVVC Fund I, a $100 million (AUM) core fund dedicated to Inception, Seed, and Series-A builders. “From the U.S. and Allied governments, to Warfighters and NatSec founders, all require access to dangerous things and access to capital from the outside that deeply understands the threats they face. We are that Fund in the Field for National Security.” (source: LinkedIn)

Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company founded by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, has raised $350 million in a Series E round that values the firm at more than $6 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The round was led by Eclipse Ventures—a Silicon Valley firm focused on industrial and manufacturing startups—and NVentures, Nvidia’s corporate venture arm, underscoring growing investor interest in the intersection of clean energy, materials, and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Redwood said the fresh capital will accelerate the expansion of its energy storage business, as well as refining capacity and engineering operations. While best known for its pioneering work in battery recycling, Redwood has been diversifying into grid-scale storage systems—a sector seeing rapid growth as data centers drive record electricity demand. (source: Yahoo! Finance)

Substrate has attracted investments from the Central Intelligence Agency-backed nonprofit firm In-Q-Tel, General Catalyst, Allen & Co., Long Journey Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners, raising $100 million at a valuation over $1 billion. Substrate said that it had developed a chipmaking tool capable of competing with the most advanced lithography equipment made by Dutch firm ASML. Substrate's tool is the first step in the startup's ambitious plan to build a U.S.-based contract chip-manufacturing business that would compete with Taiwan's TSMC in making the most advanced AI chips, its CEO James Proud told Reuters in an interview. Proud wants to slash chipmaking costs by producing the tools needed at a much lower cost than rivals. (source: Reuters).

Arbor has raised a $55 million Series A, co-led by Lowercarbon Capital and Voyager Ventures, with participation from Gigascale Capital, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Cantos, and others. This investment supports demonstration of our 1 MW pilot system, ATLAS, and development of our 25 MW commercial system, HALCYON: a modular, zero-emission turbine designed to deliver clean, dependable baseload power. (source: Arbor)

Flow Engineering raised a $23 million Series A, led by Sequoia, Fortune has exclusively learned. Odyssey Ventures, Unity’s David Helgason, and Stripe’s Patrick and John Collison also participated in the round. In a striking vote of confidence, Sequoia managing partner and steward Roelof Botha will join Flow’s board. Flow also relocated its HQ from the UK to San Francisco, CA. (source: Yahoo Finance)

MatrixSpace, a leader in portable AI-enhanced radar counter-drone sensing technology, announces the completion of its $20 million Series B funding round. This raise represents a significant valuation increase over the Series A of May 2023 and brings MatrixSpace’s total funding to date to $58 million. The completion of this round also introduces meaningful new investors, including L3Harris, to the MatrixSpace team. The round was co-led by The Raptor Group and OTB Ventures. The Raptor Group is a Boston-based venture and growth fund investing in deep technology across a variety of industries. OTB Ventures is a leading European investor focused on dual-use defense and enterprise technology, with deep ties to both European industry and NATO. (source: Matrix Space)

Seattle-based agricultural robotics company, Carbon Robotics, has raised $20 million in funding to scale its AI-powered automation systems for farming. The latest funding round was led by Giant Ventures, joining existing investors, including Bond, Anthos Capital, and NVIDIA. With operations spanning 14 countries, Carbon Robotics has raised a total of $177 million in funding to date. The comapny develops AI-powered robots for agriculture that combine machine vision, automation, and laser technology to improve farm productivity. The new investment will help Carbon Robotics accelerate production, expand global sales, and continue development of new products including a new AI robot. (source: AgrotechSpace)

Launchpad, the AI-first robotics company powering real-world assembly automation, announced it had completed a Series A funding round, raising $11 million. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of Launchpad’s innovative technology whilst meeting demand from existing and new customers in the US, UK, and Europe. The round was co-led by Lavrock Ventures and Squadra Ventures, with participation from strategic and financial investors including Ericsson Ventures, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Cox Exponential, and the Scottish National Investment Bank. This is in addition to the $2.5 million in grant funding awarded to Launchpad by Scottish Enterprise. (source: Launchpad)

Vermeer, a startup with its operational heart in Kyiv, has secured a $10 million funding round. The investment was led by Draper Associates. The round also saw participation from AeroX Ventures, Boscolo Intervest, High Point Ventures, and the U.S. Air Force Techstars program, which previously granted Vermeer over $7 million. The funds are earmarked to scale Vermeer’s core product: a sophisticated, AI-driven optical navigation platform that allows drones and robotic systems to operate flawlessly in GPS-denied environments. (source: Tech Ukraine)

Albacore, a Philadelphia-based startup making long-range unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), announced it has raised a $6.5 million seed round led by Outlander VC with participation from Brave Capital, D3, Alumni Ventures, and a whole bunch more. On the US side, Outlander, BoxGroup, Alumni Ventures, Karman Ventures, and Pioneer Fund joined defense specialists Brave Capital, RSquared VC, and R-G.AI. On the other side of the pond, Ukraine-focused funds UA1 and D3, which put its third check into Albacore, teamed up with German firms Heliad and 468 Capital in the round. The founders of Dive Technologies, which was acquired by Anduril and spun into their Dive-LD UUV, are angel investors, and Neros’ co-founder and CEO, Soren Monroe-Anderson, is a close advisor. Albacore is a startup out of this year’s Y Combinator class. (source: Tectonic)

Orbotix announced the close of its €6.5 million round led by BVVC, with participation from Gustav Söhne Verwaltung GmbH & Co. KG and Leryon, to accelerate the deployment of its distributed microfactories across Europe. From Warsaw to Bucharest, their facilities can build, test, and deploy drones in weeks. (source: LinkedIn)

Catalyx Space raised $5.4 million in an oversubscribed seed funding led by Outlander VC, with participation from Arka Venture Labs, Lex Reddy, KDX Management LLC, Together, Higher Life Ventures, Nivesha Ventures, Prana Tech Ventures, Bria, HF0 Residency, and Techstars. Catalyx Space builds the complete back-end infrastructure for space — enabling both upmass and downmass for the next era of orbital logistics. This brings its total funding to $7.1 million. (source: LinkedIn)

Silkline raised a $4 million seed round led by Origin Ventures with participation from Forward Deployed VC, 25madison, MatchstickVentures, Barrel Ventures, and Plow Ventures. The company—founded a little over two years ago—uses AI to make “sourcing from multiple suppliers [for advanced manufacturing] effortless, resulting in higher quality materials delivered faster and at better costs.” They say they’ll use the new pile of cash to build out their product, engineering, and go-to-market teams, and expand platform features. (source: Tectonic)

Dominion Dynamics is making the most of Canada’s defence tech surge as it secures $4 million in pre-seed funding. The pre-seed was raised on a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) and backed almost exclusively by Canadian investors, with participation from Golden Ventures, Garage Capital, Afore Capital, Side Door Ventures, and strategic angel investors. While Afore and Side Door are American firms, the partners that led their investment are Canadian, Dominion founder Eliot Pence told BetaKit. The only two American investors in the round, Pence’s family and friends, contributed less than $50,000, he added. (source: Beta Kit)

Venus Aerospace, the startup leader in next-generation rocket engine propulsion, announced a strategic investment in the company by Lockheed Martin through their investment arm, Lockheed Martin Ventures. The investment follows Venus's historic May 2025 high-thrust test flight of its rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE), an event described by the Houston Chronicle as a "world first" that represents the first generational leap in rocket engine technology since the Apollo Program. Venus announced their collaboration on stage at the Axios Future of Defense Summit in Washington, DC. (source: PR Newswire)

At a convening of defense sector leaders at the State House today, Governor Maura Healey announced the launch of the Massachusetts Strategic Hub for Innovation, Exchange and Leadership in Defense (SHIELD), a new initiative to strengthen the state's defense leadership and accelerate the development of cutting-edge national security solutions. As part of this effort, the Governor also announced nearly $47 million in funding to support military innovation, expand microelectronics and chips manufacturing in Massachusetts, create high-quality jobs and bolster U.S. supply chain resilience. (source: Mass.gov)

AGREEMENTS, PARTNERSHIPS, & CONTRACTS

AeroVironment (AV) has been chosen to supply the Next-Generation counter-uncrewed aircraft systems (C-UAS) missile (NGCM) to the US Army. The company has also secured a $95.9 million contract from the US Army for the Long-Range Kinetic Interceptor (LRKI) programme. This contract has been awarded via the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Centre (CCDC AvMC) and the Aviation & Missile Technology Consortium (AMTC). (source: Army Technology)

Muon Space, a leading provider of end-to-end space systems specializing in mission-optimized satellite constellations, announced it has been awarded a $44.6 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Firm Fixed Price Phase III Other Transaction Authority (OTA) Agreement from the United States Space Force's Space Systems Command System Delta 810 (SYD 810). The OTA Agreement funds development and on-orbit prototype demonstration of a dual-use space-based environmental monitoring (SBEM) capability that simultaneously serves the Department of Defense (DoD) Meteorology and Oceanography end users for mission planning and execution in addition to global wildfire detection and monitoring. (source: PR Newswire)

Archer has acquired the full patent portfolio of defunct German eVTOL startup Lilium for $21 million, adding around 300 assets spanning high-voltage systems, advanced aircraft design, flight controls, ducted fans, and electric propulsion. The acquisition strengthens Archer’s intellectual property position as consolidation accelerates in the advanced air mobility sector. Founded in 2015, Lilium was once a high-profile electric aircraft company backed by Tencent and Saudi investors, raising over $1 billion before entering insolvency. Archer’s bid surpassed those from Joby Aviation and Ambitious Air Mobility Group. The company now holds more than 1,000 global patent assets, a base it plans to leverage across both its commercial air taxi and emerging defense programs. (source: LinkedIn)

Viridian Space has won a $1.7 million Phase II SBIR award from the Defense Department to keep developing air-breathing propulsion tech for sats in VLEO. The award shows the military is thinking seriously about propulsion in VLEO, which is an orbital band close to Earth that offers significant advantages for national security space missions—if industry can solve the drag problem to keep sats in orbit. Air-breathing propulsion works exactly as it sounds. The satellites fly at altitudes between 150km and 500km and use oxygen in the upper atmosphere as fuel. (source: Payload)

Machina Labs, a specialist in advanced manufacturing and robotics, has announced a new method for manufacturing automotive body panels and accessories that, it says, will allow car-makers to sell customised vehicles at mass-production prices, thus achieving a “breakthrough” in automotive customisation. Machina Labs is piloting the technology with Toyota Motor North America in a project that will use its RoboForming technology to customise the production of body panels, with the aim of bringing automotive-grade quality and throughput to low-volume manufacturing. Toyota’s growth-stage venture investment arm, Woven Capital, has also made a strategic investment in Machina. (source: Drives and Controls)

Artificial intelligence startup Luminary Cloud has developed a physics-based AI model for Northrop Grumman that will allow the defense contractor to more quickly design and build new spacecraft. The new partnership gives engineers access to a purpose-built tool known as Physics AI that can generate high-fidelity simulations of spacecraft subsystems in seconds. The model was built in collaboration between Luminary Cloud and Northrop Grumman experts, and is powered by NVIDIA’s PhysicsNeMo — an open-source framework for building and training physics-based AI models. The model is currently tailored for designing spacecraft thruster nozzles and will allow users to see how different physical design elements of the subsystem will affect its performance, meaning Northrop Grumman can more accurately design new platforms based on specific program requirements. (source: DefenseScoop)

Castelion announced it will integrate its affordable, long-range, hypersonic strike weapons (Blackbeard) with operational Army and Navy platforms. Under the recently signed contract agreement, Castelion will work with both military branches to integrate its hypersonic "Blackbeard" weapon system onto operational platforms and participate in live-fire tests. The company said the new weapon technology will advance the Department of War’s effort to evaluate and accelerate new, cost-effective strike capabilities for conventional deterrence. (source: Castelion)

Saronic Technologies and NVIDIA have formed a strategic collaboration to accelerate advancements in maritime autonomy and robotics and chart a bold course for the future of maritime mobility and global prosperity. By combining Saronic’s expertise in autonomous maritime systems, AI, and next-generation shipbuilding with NVIDIA’s accelerated compute, software libraries, and Physical AI-focused innovation, the companies aim to advance the frontier of intelligent, resilient decision-making at sea. (source: LinkedIn)

Voyager Technologies acquired ExoTerra Resource, a leading developer of cutting-edge electric propulsion systems. ExoTerra’s proprietary technology delivers precise maneuvering, extended lifetimes and high efficiency delta-V – essential for spacecraft across national defense architecture layers that must be able to reposition, avoid threats and sustain mission advantage. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. ExoTerra has about 200 employees. (source: ViaSatellite)

Anduril has acquired American Infrared Solutions (AIRS), a U.S.-based manufacturer of high-performance cooled infrared cameras and components. AIRS has provided key component technologies to Anduril for the company’s solutions across all military domains for several years, but the acquisition will make Anduril “a merchant supplier of cooled infrared cameras and components,” the company said. “AIRS has been a trusted supplier to Anduril for several years on some of the company’s longest-running and most frequently used technologies,” AIRS said. Details of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Anduril says AIRS will continue to serve its existing customer base from its New Hampshire facilities. (source: Inside Defense)

Merlin, a leading developer of assured, autonomous flight technology for defense customers, announced the signing of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the United States Air Force (USAF) to advance autonomous capabilities that will improve mission resilience and adaptability in contested and degraded environments (source: Business Wire)

Rendezvous Robotics, a leader in autonomous in-space assembly, and Starcloud, developer of the Starcloud-1 satellite platform for space-based datacenters, announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to explore integration of Rendezvous' modular assembly systems with Starcloud's orbital power generation and thermal management platforms. The collaboration represents one of the first concerted efforts to use autonomous in-space construction to build orbital computing at scale — a foundational step toward realizing gigawatt-scale datacenters and power infrastructure in orbit. (source: PR Newswire)

WHAT I’M CONSUMING (AND ENJOYING!) 

▶︎ Check out CX2’s Spectrum Imperative: For the United States, the lessons of Ukraine (War) are stark. If we wish to deploy our own remotely-operated, unmanned systems at scale, we must be prepared to treat the radio spectrum with the urgency it deserves. Spectrum dominance cannot be an afterthought; it must permeate everything we do. CX2’s CEO, Nathan Mintz, wrote more about it on his Substack.

♻️ Building the next generation of green data centers. How operators like Google, Microsoft and Meta are rethinking power, cooling and materials, to cut carbon, save water and reuse waste heat.

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 sure. (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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