Rocket Lab's $397M 🛰️, Fortem's $1B shield 🛡️, Mariana's $310M dig ⛏️

Mariana Minerals raises $310M Series B led by Khosla to onshore critical minerals

Software-first mining startup Mariana Minerals raised a $310M Series B led by Khosla Ventures, with a16z, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, In-Q-Tel, BHP, and Mitsubishi joining. The capital funds its Copper One mine in Utah and Lithium One project in Texas, part of a plan for 10 commercial-scale projects in a decade. In-Q-Tel's presence signals how squarely domestic critical-mineral supply now sits inside the national-security portfolio.

Obsidian Security raises $85M Series D at a $1.1B valuation

AI-agent security startup Obsidian Security raised an $85M Series D led by Crescent Cove, with Greylock and Menlo joining, crossing into unicorn territory at a $1.1B valuation. Its platform governs what AI agents like Microsoft Copilot and Salesforce Agentforce can access inside enterprise systems, and it now counts 60 of the Fortune 500 as customers. As agentic AI spreads across defense and enterprise stacks, controlling what those agents can touch is becoming its own security market.

Space Force awards $615M for a second batch of airborne-target-tracking satellites

The Space Force awarded $615M for a second batch of SB-AMTI satellites that track aircraft and moving targets from orbit. Rocket Lab took $397M to build and operate the spacecraft, while STR won the sensor-payload work, feeding the airborne-target-tracking layer behind Golden Dome. A commercial newspace builder anchoring a marquee sensing program shows how far new entrants have pushed into core missile-defense work.

Fortem lands a prime slot on DHS's $1B+ counter-drone IDIQ

Fortem Technologies was named a prime on DHS's five-year counter-drone IDIQ — the only small business among seven Track 1 hardware awardees on a vehicle ceilinged above $1 billion. Any DHS component, from CBP to the Secret Service to the Coast Guard, can now order its DroneHunter interceptors, TrueView radars, and SkyDome command-and-control directly. Landing prime status, with Lockheed Martin and Microsoft as its subs, puts a venture-backed startup atop the stack on a homeland-security ceiling.

Telesat wins $1.63B for Canadian Arctic military satcom

Canadian operator Telesat won a $1.63B contract to provide secure military satellite communications over the Arctic using its Lightspeed low-Earth-orbit constellation. The deal gives Canada sovereign, high-latitude connectivity for defense operations as allied militaries race to close the polar coverage gap left by legacy geostationary satcom. Proliferated LEO is becoming the default answer for Arctic and contested-region MILSATCOM across the Five Eyes.

Westinghouse and Amentum sign APX agreements to scale reactor output

Westinghouse and Amentum signed a series of agreements under the APX platform to expand engineering and delivery capacity for AP1000 reactors and the AP300 small modular reactor. One agreement targets NRC design approval for the AP300, a gating step toward fielding SMRs at scale. With the Pentagon and hyperscalers both chasing firm onshore power, the fight is increasingly over who can actually build reactors fast enough.

UK chip startup OLIX raised a $312M Series B at a $3.3B valuation to scale AI-inference silicon. The Army posted a sources-sought for a next-gen counter-drone missile priced under $150K per round. NioCorp signed a non-binding MOU to supply Lockheed Martin up to 15 tonnes a year of domestic scandium. Integer Technologies and Southern Miss won a $9.8M Navy option to advance autonomous seabed-warfare systems.