Defense Goes Quantum: $2.1B+ across Chips & Neural Tech

Foundries, secure comms, & optical terminals boom. Satellite Spotlight, Edition 46.

Author

Imagining Forward
November 20, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

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space brew

deal flow

government

  • TIE wins $1.4B DARPA NGMM contract to build out 3D chip foundry for defense, HPC (TH).

  • Redwire wins $44M DARPA Otter contract to manufacture VLEO spacecraft (RDW).

  • Booster Therapeutics wins $5M grant for small molecule activators for Parkinson’s (LT).

  • SBQuantum wins $1M ESA contract for quantum diamond magnetometer for EO (QC).

  • iGov shortlisted for $2.4B USSOCOM IDIQ contract for ISR (AT).

seed

  • Tenzai exits stealth with $75M Seed by Greylock, Lux for AI penetration testing (SW).

  • Runlayer exits stealth with $11M Seed by Khosla for MCP security (TC).

  • Bone AI raises $12M Seed by Third Prime, Kolon for unmanned defense robotics (TC).

series A+

  • Harbinger raises $160M Series C by FedEx for medium-duty electric truck chassis (TC).

  • Teradar raises $150M Series B by Capricorn, Lockheed Martin, VXI for automotive solid state sensors (TC).

  • Fabric8Labs raises $50M Series B by NEA, Intel, SK hynix scaling ECAM 3D metal components for satcom & thermal cooling (TV).

  • U-Space raises $28M Series A by Blast, French Armed Forces for smallsat manufacturing (SN).

  • PowerLattice exits stealth with $25M Series A by Playground, Celesta for energy efficient inference chiplets (TC).

public

  • York Space Systems files for IPO at $253M ARR (VC).

  • Raytheon & Avio partner to build out solid rocket motor SRM manufacturing plant (RTX).

m&a

  • Kratos acquires Orbit Technologies for $356M cash to vertically integrate unmanned system components across air, sea, undersea & land vehicles (VS).

  • IonQ acquires Skyloom optical terminals to own E2E quantum secure communications & entanglement stack (VS).

headlines

  • Samsung invests $310B to build out semiconductor foundry, solid state batteries, & AI data centers (SD).

  • Microsoft & Inbrain Neuroelectronics partner to integrate AI in BCI for Parkinson’s (LT).

  • Emirates & SpaceX Starlink partner for ubiquitous IFC across fleet (VS).

community spotlight

today, 11/20

  • Junto club (NYC).

  • Lessons from liftoff (NYC).

  • Open mic x ElevenLabs (NYC).

  • Tech happy hour (NYC).

  • Founders poker (NYC).

  • Founders breakfast x Rho (NYC).

  • Founders happy hour x Niural AI (NYC).

  • AI meetup (SF).

  • Health tech hang (LA).

  • Demo day (LA).

  • CISO buyer pitch (Zoom).

friday, 11/21

  • Cafe compute (NYC).

  • Early stage founders coffee club (NYC).

  • Space age night (LA).

saturday, 11/22
sunday, 11/23

  • Founders meetup (NYC).

  • Sunday funday market (LA).

monday, 11/24

  • Data in Power (NYC).

  • Pitch & puck (NYC).

  • Pre Seed & Seed founders meetup (NYC).

wednesday, 11/26

  • Glendale tech mixer (LA).

  • Cars & Capital x Maserati (LA).

  • Startup cafe (LA).

upcoming

  • DARPA lift challenge (Zoom).

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