Investors: Ten31, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Wyoming
Strike, a Bitcoin Lightning Network payments provider, raised $80 million in Series B funding to expand merchant integrations and deliver financial inclusion globally.
Investors: Ten31, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Wyoming
Strike, a Bitcoin Lightning Network payment provider, raised $80 million in Series B funding to expand merchant integrations and develop new financial services products.
Investors: Ten31, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Wyoming
Strike, a Lightning Network-based digital payment provider, raised $80 million to revolutionize payments for merchants and financial institutions globally.
UK greenlights 7.6 GW LDES storage, world's first revenue-floor scheme
Ofgem selected 16 projects for guaranteed-revenue contracts, setting global precedent for de-risking long-duration storage investment at scale.
Georgia parts maker wins $76.5M in B-1 bomber wing contracts
Top Flight Aerostructures landed two competitive DLA contracts worth up to $76.5M to build wing components for the B-1 fleet, signaling growing reliance on non-prime suppliers for strategic bomber sustainment.
UK Solar Financing Signals Debt-Dominated Maturity as VC Funding Collapses
Rabobank's £43M Carlton Solar Farm financing shows project-backed debt eclipsing early-stage equity in renewables. Global solar VC funding fell 21% YoY while debt surged 154%.
Mach Industries wins Navy strike drone contract, closes $300M Series C
Mach Industries won a DIU contract to build the Navy's runway-independent strike aircraft while closing a $300M Series C at $1.8B valuation, signaling venture capital's bet on autonomous weapons manufacturing reaching scale.
SOCOM's Civilian Overseer Gets Real Budget Authority Over Drone Programs
USSOCOM's advisory board SOLIC is being transformed into an institution with genuine control over Special Operations autonomous systems acquisition, signaling a structural shift in how SOF validates and fields emerging defense tech.
Pentagon awards Perennial Autonomy $500M counter-drone contract
JIATF-401 awards Perennial Autonomy a $500M three-year contract for three drone interceptor platforms, marking the largest C-UAS procurement and a shift from million-dollar missiles to sub-$20K attritable systems.
Nominal raises $80M, lands $53M Air Force contract
Hardware testing platform Nominal closed Series B-2 at $1B valuation, then secured $53M Air Force IDIQ to standardize DoD test infrastructure, the real inflection point.
Army taps AeroVironment for loitering drone that changes small-unit strike
The Army awarded AeroVironment a prototype contract for Switchblade 400 under the LASSO program, positioning the drone as a core component of a $1.2 billion multi-year modernization of tactical precision strike.
Anduril's Copperhead-500M Changes the Undersea Autonomy Game
Anduril released footage of its Copperhead-500M autonomous underwater munition hitting speed records in April 2026, six weeks after winning a Navy CAMP contract to deploy it from its Dive-XL submarine — the first credible link between carrier vehicle and payload in commercial undersea autonomy.
FERC Misses DOE Deadline on Data Center Grid Access Rule
FERC will vote in June 2026 on federal authority to regulate how data centers and large industrial loads connect to the transmission grid, missing DOE's April 30 deadline by two months and raising questions about whether legal durability will actually arrive.
Shield AI Enters Navy's $800M ISR Contract Pool With V-BAT
Shield AI won selection to compete for up to $800 million in U.S. Navy COCO ISR task orders using its V-BAT vertical-launch drone, marking a program-of-record entry against established competitors like AeroVironment and Textron.
Air Force Warfighters Fly Anduril's Fury Drone From Laptop, No Base Required
Combat crews from the Air Force's Experimental Operations Unit flew Anduril's YFQ-44A Fury collaborative combat aircraft from a simulated forward operating base using only a ruggedized laptop, marking the first time warfighters—not engineers—operated the semiautonomous drone without fixed infrastructure.
Shield AI wins Navy COCO contract, enters program of record
Shield AI secured a same-day program-of-record entry with the U.S. Navy for contractor-operated ISR services using its V-BAT drone, competing for task orders under an $800 million multi-vendor ceiling alongside AeroVironment, Insitu, and Textron.
Air Force hands full control of Anduril's Fury drone to combat crews
Anduril's YFQ-44A Fury passed its first combat-crew evaluation at Edwards AFB, with warfighters — not test pilots — executing full operational control. The milestone gates the production downselect decision due this summer.
Lockheed Martin doubles venture fund to $1B, signaling pipeline war
Lockheed Martin expanded its venture capital arm from $400M to $1B on April 14, 2026 — the largest increase in the fund's 19-year history — directly competing with pure-play defense VCs and the Pentagon for control of the commercial startup pipeline to programs of record.
Germany, Ukraine scale autonomous strike drones to thousands annually
Auterion and Airlogix signed a production contract with Germany to manufacture thousands of AI-guided autonomous strike UAVs annually in Germany — the largest German heavy drone order to date, validating autonomy software already seeded into U.S. DoD programs.
TotalEnergies Surrenders 4 GW of U.S. Offshore Wind for $928M
TotalEnergies relinquished two U.S. offshore wind leases on March 23, 2026, erasing 4+ GW of planned capacity and accepting a $928M dollar-for-dollar federal buyback — the Trump DOI's most effective policy instrument yet against the sector.
UK LCCC Signs AR7 CfDs: 8.4 GW Offshore Wind, £22 Billion Unlocked
The UK's LCCC formally signed Contracts for Difference with all AR7 winners on March 26, 2026, contracting 8.4 GW of offshore wind and unlocking £22 billion in private investment.