December 18, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Joe Gould
WASHINGTON ― Epirus, a venture-backed startup offering a counter-drone capability, announced Thursday it raised $70 million to speed its technology to market.
The round was led by San Francisco, California-based Bedrock Capital, and brings the 2-year-old company's total capital raised to roughly $80 million.
The news comes six months after Epirus inked a strategic supplier agreement with Northrop Grumman to provide exclusive access to Epirus' software-defined electromagnetic pulse system Leonidas. Since then, the firm has doubled in size and plans to add 100 jobs in 2021.
“We're aggressively hiring and expanding our footprint on the East and West coasts,” Epirus CEO Leigh Madden told Defense News. He added that the firm is shifting its headquarters from the Hawthorne, California, office to its newer offices in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
Alongside Bedrock and several other investment firms, L3Harris Technologies is investing in Epirus. Epirus developed a SmartPower power-management technology that underpins its counter-unmanned aircraft system, and the company plans to partner with L3Harris to create greater power efficiencies within some of its existing systems.
The technology, which allows the system to deliver a high-power output with a relatively low-power input, has a range of applications across other radio frequency systems, Madden said. (The company's systems involve a combination of high-power microwave technology and, for enhanced targeting, artificial intelligence.)
The new funding, “enables us to rapidly build out our counter-UAS system,” Madden said. “We'll be bringing the Leonidas system to market as well as advancing the capabilities of our SmartPower technology ― and working with government customers and partners to expand the application of that technology.”
Beyond Bedrock and L3Harris, the new Series B funding came from Piedmont Capital Investments, 8VC, Fathom VC and Greenspring Associates. In 2019, Epirus closed $17 million in Series A funding, which was led by 8VC. (Series A is meant to help a company progress to the development stage, and Series B is meant to help a company market or expand its existing market footprint.)
Geoff Lewis of Bedrock Capital said in a statement that investors are “confident Epirus has the capacity to integrate its technology into top tier counter-UAS systems and lead the way in developing new and compelling directed energy applications.”
“Epirus counters the weak assumption baked into standard VC models that the economic and cultural gaps of defense-focused investments are too wide to overcome,” Lewis said.
October 13, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Land
As the Army looks to field future aviation programs, it should think more holistically about those efforts, the service's program executive officer for aviation said Tuesday.
July 10, 2019 | International, Other Defence
Saab has signed a multi-year framework agreement with the U.S. Government, which allows the U.S. Army, U.S. Marines and U.S. Special Forces to place orders for up to USD 445 million (approximately SEK 4.2 billion) during a five-year period. The recently signed framework agreement allows the customer to place orders for Saab's AT4 disposable weapon system and ammunition for the Carl-Gustaf® recoilless rifle. A first purchase order of USD 83 million (approximately SEK 771 million) was released at the signing of the agreement. “This framework agreement further strengthens our relationship with the U.S. Armed Forces, who have been users of our ground combat systems for decades. We see these continued investments as a clear proof that the customer values the flexibility and effectiveness of our systems,” says Görgen Johansson, head of Saab business area Dynamics. The order was booked in Q2 2019. Both Saab's AT4 and Carl-Gustaf (designated MAAWS in the U.S.) have long track records in the U.S. Since 1987, Saab has delivered more than 600,000 AT4s, both directly and under license, to U.S. forces. The Carl-Gustaf system has been a program of record in the U.S. since 2013 and in 2018 it was announced that U.S. Army will acquire the latest version of the system – the Carl-Gustaf M4 (designated M3E1 in the U.S.). https://saabgroup.com/media/news-press/news/2019-07/saab-signs-framework-agreement-for-at4-and-carl-gustaf-ammunition-with-the-united-states-government/
November 8, 2022 | International, C4ISR
France foresees its future military force as heavily relying on systems of systems, whose networks are interconnected across the battlefield.