$16B Flows Into Defense & Industrialization

Battle readiness, lunar ISRU, & industrial breakthroughs lead deals. Satellite Spotlight, Edition 49.

Imagining Forward
December 08, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

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government

Iridium wins $85.8M IDIQ award by USSF-SSC for satcom service center upgrades (VS).
University of Alabama wins $37M IDIQ award by NASA for ISRU lunar cold chain infrastructure (SN).
Sidus Space with MobLobSpace win $173K NASA SBIR for 4D radar for SDA/SSA sensing (SN).
Pratt & Whitney win $1.6B contract for F135 engine & fleet readiness (AT).
Globecomm with Datum Systems win NATO NCIA award for secure comms modems in GEO (VS).

pre seed / seed

Niobium raises $23M Seed by Blockchange, Korea Development Bank to build ASICs for zero trust quantum computing (SW).
Unlimited Industries raises $12M Seed by a16z, CIV to scale construction design platform for data centers, critical mineral projects (GN).
AILOS Robotics raises $4.1M Seed by QBIC, HTGF, Wallonie to build gearboxes for humanoids, exoskeletons, prosthetics (TV).
Trusted Space raises capital by Washington Harbour Partners for space battle command & control (PR).

series A+

Castelion raises $350M Series B by Lightspeed, Altimeter, a16z to scale hypersonic arsenal for national security (CA).
7AI raises $130M Series A by Index, Blackstone, Greylock, CRV for agentic threat triaging (SW).
Heven Aerotech raises $100M Series B by IonQ, Texas Venture to scale hydrogen fuel-cell drones & quantum roadmap (AT).
Antares raises $96M Series B by Shine, Alt, Caffeinated, Industrious for 1MW microreactor for dual use nuclear commercialization (TC).
Zafran raises $60M Series C to globalize agentic threat detection & remediation (SW).
Spark Cleantech raises $35M Series A by 360 Capital, Taranis to decarbonate metallurgy, polymer, battery plants (CS).
Saporo raises $8.1M Series A by TIN, G+D, CDP, Lightbird for identity security (SW).

m&a

Meta acquires Limitless a $33M AI wearables to absorb IP & talent into smart glasses stack (TC).
Stonepeak to acquire BP’s Castrol for $8B for oil lubricants (FT).
ITT acquire’s Lone Star SPX Flow for $4.8B for industrial machinery (BW).
ServiceNow acquires Veza for $1B to vertically integrate identity security across data, cloud & AI agents (SW).
Applied Aerospace & PCX Aerosystems merge under Greenbriar Equity for precision hardware on satellites, launch, rotorcraft, missiles (VS).

Hipasat & Portuguese telecom, NOS partner to widen satellite TV distribution (VS).
Sedaro & Shield AI partner on edge autonomy for defense satellites (VS).
Lockheed Martin invests $17.1M in Huntsville hypersonics facility for US Army (AT).
Northrop Grumman & Scaled Composites launch autonomous combat drones UAVs (AT).
Raytheon & AWS partner on secure satellite data, command & control architecture (SN).
SLI & AscendArc partner on $200M satcom lease in GEO (SW).
Blue Owl fund raises $1.7B for data centers (BB).