AV's $465M laser 🔫, CMG's energetics seed 💣, GE's Mach 5 testbed 🚀

CMG raises $10.3M seed to break the C-4 bottleneck

Texas-based Critical Materials Group raised a $10.3 million seed led by Overmatch Ventures, with Victory Six Advisors and Fulcrum Ventures participating. Founder Kevin Capozzoli, an Army Special Forces veteran and former Mach Industries president, is building modular energetics lines and scales from 27 to 80 people by year-end. Nearly all Army C-4 and RDX comes from one government-owned plant at Holston, so a distributed second source is the entire thesis.

Lyte raises $165M at a $1.6B valuation for robot perception

Lyte, founded by former Apple engineers, closed a $165 million Series C led by Maverick Silicon at a $1.6 billion post-money valuation. The company builds sensing and perception technology that lets robots read the physical world, the same stack sitting under ground and air autonomy programs. No defense customers are named, which is the point: the perception layer is being priced by commercial robotics money first.

Army awards AeroVironment $464.8M for the first laser production contract

The Army awarded AeroVironment a $464.8 million other transaction agreement for the Enduring-High Energy Laser program, which AV calls the first directed-energy production contract in US history. AV will deliver dozens of 30-kilowatt LOCUST X3 systems on JLTVs and palletized variants at under $5 per shot, backed by a $30 million Albuquerque plant expansion. LOCUST already connects to Anduril's Lattice, so the cheap answer to Shahed-class drones finally has a production line behind it.

General Dynamics takes $15.1M to option the Navy's undersea mining drone

General Dynamics Mission Systems of Quincy, Massachusetts received a $15,147,625 modification exercising options on the Mining Expendable Delivery Unmanned Submarine Asset, running to February 2028. MEDUSA is an expendable unmanned underwater vehicle fired from a submarine torpedo tube that carries naval mines to the target area from stand-off range. Offensive mining is the cheapest way to close a strait, and the Navy is funding the delivery vehicles for it quietly.

Sierra Nevada wins $31.8M to design the next ski-equipped LC-130J

Sierra Nevada of Englewood, Colorado received a $31,789,335 sole-source contract for non-recurring engineering on a kit converting a standard XC-130J into a ski-equipped LC-130J, completing March 2028. The LC-130H it replaces is the only ski-equipped heavy airlifter in the US inventory, flown by the New York Air National Guard for Antarctic and Greenland resupply. Polar logistics is a quiet Arctic-competition dependency, and recapitalizing that ten-aircraft fleet is only just beginning.

DIU picks GE Aerospace to build a Mach 5 ramjet flying testbed

The Defense Innovation Unit awarded GE Aerospace a prime contract under the Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities program for an all-up-round testbed called Derecho. The vehicle pairs a rocket booster with an air-breathing dual-mode ramjet cruiser flying near Mach 5, with a roughly 24-month phase ending in a 2028 flight test. HyCAT exists because US hypersonic test cadence, not vehicle design, is the binding constraint.

York Space Systems unveils a satellite built to fly at 200 kilometers

York announced the LX/V-Class, a modification of its S- and LX-Class buses carrying about 300 kilograms of payload as low as 200 kilometers for missions of three-plus years. It uses higher-thrust electric propulsion from York's Orbion subsidiary, generates 2 kilowatts peak power, and ships six to seven months after contract signature. CEO Dirk Wallinger is aiming at moving-target indication and missile tracking, betting schedule beats clean-sheet rivals.

AEVEX and Divergent pair fielded drones with digital-first factories

AEVEX and Divergent Technologies announced a collaboration on a next-generation autonomous platform, combining AEVEX's fielded unmanned systems with Divergent's DAPS production system. DAPS bundles AI-driven design optimization, additive manufacturing, robotic assembly and model-driven certification to cut part count and compress development timelines. Divergent came out of automotive structures, and its arrival in UAS airframes says drone cost is a manufacturing problem.

Pentagon's first cyber strategy since 2023 lands as soon as next week

Three people familiar with the plan told Defense One the department will release its new cyber strategy early next week, with one predicting Tuesday. Written by Katie Sutton's cyber policy office, it centers on integrating cyber into all-domain campaigns, gaining adversary advantage, and reorganizing cyber forces under Cyber Command 2.0. A Parsons job posting says the action plan runs about nine initiatives and 34 lines of effort.

The stopgap quietly extends the 2015 cyber information-sharing law

The continuing resolution pushes the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 sunset from the end of September to December 11, preserving liability protections for private-sector threat sharing. The same package extends the Technology Modernization Fund and the National Cybersecurity Protection System. Threat-intel vendors have now had their legal foundation renewed in ten-week increments, which is not a basis for a product roadmap.

Integer Technologies, a South Carolina small business, took a $10.2 million ONR option for Navy cyber-physical resilience work.

Aptima and BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems split a $26.2 million Air Force ceiling for warfighter-performance models.

Astroscale Japan picked Isar Aerospace's Spectrum to launch its ADRAS-J2 debris-capture mission in Japan's FY2027.

Germany's HyImpulse extended its Series A by €50 million for hybrid-propulsion launch, co-led by JOIN Capital and Ace Capital.

Spain's PLD Space added €108 million to its Series C, led by Mitsubishi Electric, taking the round to €288 million.