Arizona Secures Critical American Biofactory
Hard Tech Headlines:
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@regentcraft, the American seaglider startup, has successfully demonstrated its autonomous seaglider at Silent Swarm. It is the first defense-specific wing-in-ground-effect craft in U.S. history.
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@Textron has secured a $230M+ deal with the U.S. Navy for two Ship-to-Shore Connectors, amphibious hovercraft designed to move troops, vehicles, and supplies from ships offshore directly onto beaches.
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@Precigenetics, the startup developing real-time living-cell imaging technology, is expanding to a new biofactory in Arizona, where it plans to manufacture critical biohardware in the U.S.
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@smackaistack has secured a $61M Series B led by Costanoa Ventures. Smack is developing a frontier AI lab for defense, enabling autonomy decisions to be made at the campaign level. The startup is using the funding to develop custom hardware to deploy its models on-prem.
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@EdgeRunnerAI, in partnership with the U.S. Army’s AI2C, has introduced a new military-focused large language model that reduced error rates by 37% across Army-specific tasks and is designed to run locally at the tactical edge.
- Grounded has raised a $5M seed round. The Detroit startup develops software-defined, modular commercial electric vehicles and is expanding production into a new 50,000-square-foot facility.
- Eoptic, Inc., the advanced imaging firm, has secured a deal to supply multiple payloads for strategic space imaging programs, with first deliveries planned for early 2027.
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@AerogenSystems has launched out of Y Combinator, developing self-cleaning infrastructure for semiconductor manufacturing that creates ultra-clean environments around wafers.
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@saildrone has opened a European HQ in Copenhagen and is expanding USV production in Europe, including its next-generation Surveyor at Umoe Mandal’s facility in Norway.
- Skanska and Stacy Witbeck secured a $2.43B contract to expand LA Metro’s rail infrastructure in the San Fernando Valley.
- Einride is purchasing 500 Tesla Semi trucks, the largest Tesla Semi order in history.
- The U.S. Army has awarded
@elroyair $46M to advance autonomous heavy-lift aircraft for moving cargo across contested environments. The VTOL can carry 500+ pounds of cargo, fly up to 450 miles, and operate without runways in austere environments.
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@valinortech announced HarborPOD, designed to turn autonomous systems into casualty evacuation or resupply platforms. We break it down in today’s Hard Tech Headlines video.