The Icebreaker

19 days ago · 24 likes · 2 comments · Ripple Ventures

🍁 Washington calls Canada’s Plan B a waste of time.

Despite the procurement figures above… Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, took to X to dismiss the “middle powers” strategy as a distraction that wastes allies’ “time, money, and political capital,” insisting “no alternative country or countries can compete with the U.S. defense industrial base.” The Globe confirmed the 3.9M-view thread was aimed squarely at Mark Carney’s doctrine, with Colby adding that access to the US industrial base “is a privilege, not a right.” Carleton’s Fen Hampson called it American “bipolar disorder”: you can’t tell NATO allies they’re on their own, then complain when they go out on their own.

The Founder Who Refused to Quit | Samuel Witherspoon, ANVIL

In Chapter Two of Canadian Explorers, I sit down with Samuel Witherspoon to discuss persistence, national security, and the decade-long path to building ANVIL…

21 days ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Ethan Marcoux

Canada’s response has been to keep signing. CBC reports Canada is joining the UK-Japan-Italy sixth-generation fighter program as an observer while the 88-jet F-35 order stays under review, and the US ambassador flew two F-35s over his July 4 party to make his feelings known. The Economist says the old laggard is turning to Europe for its security, with 80%+ of Canadians backing much higher defence spending. Evan Dyer breaks down why Canada picked Germany’s TKMS 212CD for up to 12 submarines at a reported $24B, passing on a Korean boat that launches ballistic missiles. The Carney-championed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank is lining up $135B with nine founding nations and a Canadian HQ, backed by JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Canada’s biggest banks. Even James Stavridis, NATO’s former supreme commander, is urging Canada to diversify away from US primes toward Airbus, Saab, Pilatus and Asian shipbuilders as it commits nearly $30B to the North. And Trump just ordered 11 polar icebreakers after a golf game with Finland’s president, triggering billions in no-bid contracts. The Arctic race is on whether we show up or not.

🤝 Deal Corner

The primes just became VCs.

Defence primes have joined a record US$4.1B in venture rounds for military startups this year, per FT and Dealroom data, and the full FT analysis shows Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems leading the charge: Lockheed’s venture fund grew from $400M to $1B with a new London office, BAE put €50M into two funds, and Airbus anchored a €500M dual-use vehicle. City AM counts 42 defence M&A deals in H1 alone, up 56% year over year. Klaus Hommels closed Europe’s largest dedicated defence VC fund at €262.2M, completing the Spotify investor’s full pivot from consumer tech to strike systems.

Stateside, Vanity Fair profiled Harpoon Ventures, the SEAL-heavy San Diego firm riding a market where VCs deployed US$19.8B into defence tech in Q1 2026 alone, up from US$5.7B in Q1 2024, and Harpoon just closed an oversubscribed US$155M Fund IV on the strength of it. Even the banks are in: Jamie Dimon put US$24M into a submarine plant at the Philadelphia Navy Yard under JPMorgan’s US$1.5T security initiative, declaring “the arsenal of democracy has been reignited.” The Pentagon itself is dangling $400K salaries to poach Wall Street bankers for its Office of Strategic Capital, which lends up to $150M per deal across 31 tech categories and plans to deploy US$200B+ over three years.

Sunil Rao

In Defense Tech, Capital Is No Longer the Validation

Helsing raised $1.8 billion this week at an $18 billion valuation. A day later, Singularity emerged from stealth with an $80 million Series A to build lower-cost air-defense systems…

16 days ago · 1 like · Sunil Rao

🍁 Davie launches Davie Autonomous in Ontario, partnering with newly minted unicorn Kraken Technology Group after its US$175M Series B at a US$1B valuation to build uncrewed maritime vehicles, with multiple Ontario production sites in talks.

🍁 Ottawa commits nearly $2B for 190 armoured combat support vehicles from General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, a deal CBC reports will sustain 6,000+ Canadian jobs a year for eight years across a supply chain from B.C. to Nova Scotia.

🍁 NordSpace backs North Vector Dynamics, an undisclosed strategic investment pairing Markham rockets with Calgary missiles inside a DND-backed hypersonics network.

Challenging Geopolitics

Turning Salt into Missiles

This article came about because I went looking for ways to invest in America’s missile boom following the rate at which it is expending munitions in the Iran war. What I found was one of its most cri…

8 days ago · 15 likes · 1 comment · Challenging Geopolitics and Ed Shannon

🍁 Airbus invests in Medicine Hat’s Landing Zones Canada, taking a board seat in the drone threat-emulation firm announced at Farnborough, and banking Canadian industrial-benefit credit against its military transport contract.

Autonomous Manufacturing for Ukraine | Kath Intson — Explorer Spotlight #8

On June 10, 2026, Moscow called Canada a “warmonger" after a Canadian company had signed a drone manufacturing deal with Ukraine. Russia then threatened to publish that company’s address…

12 days ago · 1 like · Ethan Marcoux

🍁 CSMC lands $4.5M from FedDev Ontario to push its micro-nuclear reactor toward a fueled Arctic demonstration, framed by Minister Evan Solomon as defence industrial base building.

🍁 Quebec gets a $29.6M drone hub: the BOREALIS uncrewed-systems hub in Mirabel pools 30 organizations under Espace Aéro, with CBC noting the nearly $30M flows over just two years under Canadian Joint Forces Command sponsorship.

🍁 Magellan Aerospace will build the M-72 anti-tank weapon in Canada under the Munitions Supply Program, a sovereign manufacturing win for one of the most fielded shoulder-launched weapons on earth that gives the CAF a resilient domestic source.

13 days ago · 18 likes · 5 comments · Louise Boucher

What's next in defense?

🍁 Calian and six Atlantic partners form CAMSC, Canada’s first integrated Arctic maritime security consortium, built on a region with 200+ defence companies and 34% of Canada’s marine workforce.

Helsing picks West Virginia for its first US plant, a $50M facility targeting 2,000 HX-2 strike drones a month after a $1.8B raise at an $18B valuation. A rare German-press look inside its secret Bavarian factory run by the ex-Tesla executive who scaled Model 3 production reveals a plant designed to relocate by container in an emergency.

Helsing’s ‘crazy’ valuation raises defence tech bubble concerns

Anduril talks a $100B valuation just two months after doubling to $61B, per Reuters reporting on the two-stage structure under discussion. Bloomberg meanwhile reports its year-old Rheinmetall partnership has been significantly scaled back, even as Anduril signs with Poland’s PGZ for 3,000 Barracuda missiles.

The Big Byte

Inside Anduril: How the $61B Defence Tech Company Structures Its Leadership by The Big Search & Industrial Base Alpha

Let’s start with the basics. Anduril is a $61B defence tech company that builds autonomous systems, AI-powered software, and advanced hardware for military and security applications (Sourcery’s definition…

a month ago · 8 likes · Benjamin Lussert

Neros wins up to US$500M from the US Army for FPV drones, with the WSJ noting the former teenage drone racers now build 1,200 units a week at ~$2,000 each, targeting a million a year by 2028.

First Breakfast

Drone Warfare: What the Pentagon Knows and a Private Doesn't

12 days ago · 23 likes · Kevin McCarville

Cambridge Aerospace nears $300M at a $3.4B valuation, less than two years after founding, with its Skyhammer interceptor priced to match the Shaheds it kills and a claimed $5B pipeline.

A SpaceX vet raised $65M to pull wire harnesses out of the Cold War era. Senra Systems had just closed a $65 million Series B.

Counter-drone money is pouring: Hidden Level won a US$100M Pentagon-wide OTA for passive drone detection, Allen Control Systems raised US$200M at a multi-billion valuation for its Bullfrog robotic gun, Brinc pulled in another US$125M to replace DJI in American policing, and former acting US defence secretary Chris Miller’s FPF raised US$10M for a $30K interceptor that he pitches bluntly: “$3M a pop to kill a drone that costs $50,000. Nuts.”

System Notes

Venture Building in Aerospace: Systems, Constraints, and Entry Points

Why I rewrote this…

15 days ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Haris Rehman

The picks-and-shovels round: Arkenstone emerged from stealth with US$35M to build defence tech’s compliance back office, and AI cyberwarfare startup Twenty hit a US$1.2B valuation on Khosla’s US$30M cheque to “industrialize cyber warfare.”

🎙️ Ep 27 - Arena Physica: Building Electromagnetic Superintelligence

Electrical and RF engineering are becoming more and more important as more hardware becomes software-defined. However, the software tools for electromagnetic engineering have not kept up with the 21st century. In the newest episode of the Mission Matters Podcast…

11 days ago · 6 likes · Maggie Gray, Akhil Iyer, and Pratap Ranade

Ukraine’s Magura drone boats go American: UForce signed with Oregon’s ReconCraft to produce the battle-tested USVs in the US for the first time, targeting eventually thousands of units a year.

Related: a new investor map shows who actually funds Ukrainian defence tech, with $35B in production capacity chasing just ~$57M in disclosed 2025 VC. If you want in, there’s a closed-door investor day on the eve of Defense Tech Valley 2026 in Lviv this September; The 20-Somethings Running Ukraine’s War Machine; War in Ukraine: has the tide really turned?

The Icebreaker | Matthew Lombardi on Canadian Defence Startups

Matthew Lombardi is the co-founder of The Icebreaker, Canada’s defence innovation network and newsletter. He is also a director at ONE9, Canada’s first national security venture capital firm…

14 days ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Ethan Marcoux

⚔️ Combat Readiness

🍁 Kit for Canada: Ottawa launched the Defence Drone Initiative, a supplier marketplace across five streams with applications open to August 14, covering six priority areas from ISR drones to counter-drone interceptors, no prior defence experience required. The formal RFSA is live on CanadaBuys now. DND also stood up the Canadian Deep Precision Strike Capability program with closed industry sessions this month. Long-range fires, made in Canada.

🍁 Division math: Derek Dobson’s essay on fielding a division, not just declaring one argues the C5ISRT digital backbone, not tanks, is the pacing item for Canada’s new Manoeuvre Division, with roughly half the Army’s vehicle fleet unavailable at any given time.

Ground robots: The NYT documents how a robot army is remaking ground warfare in Ukraine, with UGVs running thousands of monthly supply, evacuation and assault missions. The Washington Post profiles Foundation’s Phantom humanoid loading a mortar as armed robots edge toward weapon of choice. Ukraine’s Ark Robotics prices ground robots at $20,000 or less because a $200,000 UGV is a dead UGV.

Robotization of the Battlefield with Roman Tkachenko - Founder of Tencore

20 days ago · 5 likes · Louise Boucher

The kill zone: Reuters’ interactive reconstruction of Ukraine’s 30km-deep drone kill zone includes a soldier who spent 300+ days in a single foxhole. The CIA director says AI drones give Russian recruits 20 to 30 minutes of battlefield life expectancy. Eric Schmidt calls it the biggest revolution in the history of warfare, with 96% of Russian casualties in March coming from drone units.

Deep strike: Joshua Yaffa charts how Ukraine brought the war a thousand miles into Russia, with Fire Point now producing in ten days what took all of 2024. Russia is hitting back at the industrial base itself: a ballistic missile destroyed a US-owned drone factory in Kyiv, apparently the first direct Russian strike on a US defence company in this war.

Counter-drone: Ukraine’s Tryzub laser burns holes in Shaheds from 5km away and is nearing mass production. Russian lorries now wear zebra stripes designed to fool machine vision, not human eyes. The Marines picked the Bullfrog AI gun with a claimed cost-per-kill as low as $10, and a new British firm called Agon will train arms companies against enemy drone swarms with practice, practice, practice.

Big think: Phillips Payson O’Brien argues fighter jets are passé and Western brass are the new cavalry officers. West Point’s Modern War Institute counters that the drone revolution isn’t one, since 9,000 drones a day still need industry, logistics and EW cover. The Dispatch asks whether US military culture can adapt to autonomous weapons faster than China’s. And a Marine planner contends the first waves of amphibious assault will be unmanned, after Ukraine’s July uncrewed amphibious landing.

Pentagon reform watch: Hegseth created an autonomy czar as single joint integrator for unmanned systems and is steering billions toward startups while calling traditional vendors slow and bloated. The department also froze its CMMC cyber rules after realizing compliance could cost small firms $7B a year. Pete Newell’s verdict on all of it: the Pentagon built a faster engine, nobody built the steering. An Army acquisition officer adds ammunition, having built for $1,700 in AI tokens a tool traditional contracting would price at $840K+ and 6,000 hours. The make-or-buy line has moved.

Cheap at scale: APFIT crossed US$2B in cumulative awards with a final FY26 round of $592M across 30 selections, and the next cohort will prioritize tech “made cheaply at scale”. The program’s own stats show $10M–$50M awards cutting fielding time by two years. The $1B Drone Dominance Program is buying kamikaze drones in four phases, and its newest solicitation wants 1,200 bomber drones at no more than $20,000 each, responses due August 5. Canadian drone makers, read the fine print: Blue List rules apply.

Maritime autonomy: A Navy officer warns that without overseas repair frameworks the fleet gets broken drones far from home and hangar queens. Splash Industries ran unmanned resupply to two amphibious ships at RIMPAC on a $4.2M seed round. IQT’s CEO describes a Saronic vessel pulling off the first combat troop rescue by a maritime drone near the Strait of Hormuz. 🍁 And Aeryon Labs co-founder Mike Peasgood says we need to talk about the killer robots as he builds autonomous hydrofoils at Waterloo’s ENVGO.

Software sovereignty: France and Germany signed a declaration to build a European Palantir rival on France’s Arcadia platform, after both countries’ security services dropped Palantir. Alex Karp says the German snub involved “conversations about witchcraft.”

Europe rearms, unevenly: The UK’s Defence Investment Plan puts £5B into drones, the largest such investment in British military history, though startups call it too slow. Economists propose mandatory SME procurement shares to fix a continent where top-10 contractors take up to 90% of spending. Rheinmetall broke ground on a €350M gunpowder plant as investors cool on old-style primes. BCG says the real fix is multiyear demand commitments so contractors will actually build capacity, while its aviation team projects exquisite systems still holding 80% of the market through 2033 even as attritable segments grow 15-40% a year.

Going all in on European defense — Alex Ferrara, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners

7 days ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Louise Boucher

Stockpile paradox: NATO officials warn against stockpiling millions of drones that will be obsolete before the war starts, with Ukraine’s Frontline Robotics updating products 20 times a month. The Atlantic tallies why the US is running so low on weapons: two-thirds of Patriot interceptors gone since February. CSIS’s progress report counts 10,000 new firms entering the US defence industrial base in two years, and flags the Canada-Finland-US ICE Pact on icebreakers moving to implementation. Ukraine’s Brave1 keeps the demand signal honest, funding exoskeletons, dugout-busters, lasers and combat humanoids across 53 new priorities. Airbus just joined its prime alliance.

Autonomous air: A NYT opinion documents fully autonomous AI drones firing missiles over the Mojave as the Pentagon requests US$54.6B for its new autonomous warfare group. Archer and Anduril unveiled Thunder, an autonomous attack rotorcraft aimed at Apache operators, first flight 2027.

Space: The Mitchell Institute’s workshop report maps space superiority through the spectrum of conflict in seven recommendations. Slingshot Aerospace won a US$69.2M Space Force contract for its MENTAT training environment, its largest ever. 🍁 Canada is in the game too: a new tender seeks system definition for the Surveillance of Space 2 optical capability, Canada’s own eye on orbit.

Axis watch: The Economist tracks China’s maritime militia massing 1,000+ vessels in 450km swarms near Taiwan. CNN finds Chinese deep-sea research ships spent only 6% of their time actually researching their mining zones, going dark near submarine routes instead. A leaked police database shows China tracking 12,000 foreigners, with Canadians filed under a “Five Eyes Alliance” label. Beijing banned rare-earth shipments to 14 European defence-linked firms. Evan Osnos’s New Yorker dispatch on the future being made in China notes 70%+ of global drones are built there, and Moonshot’s new 2.8-trillion-parameter open-source model now rivals top US systems. The tech race and the drone race are the same race.

Nathan Mintz: “The Submarine and PAC-3 contracts exceed the combined value of all OTAs awarded in the last two years. They dwarf by a factor of 8.5X the total lifetime federal obligations of the NatSec100 companies ($16B) and exceed the total private capital raised for those companies ($118.2B)”

🍁 Home front: A hostile intelligence service cloned the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s website to phish for classified information. Ex-CSIS director David Vigneault warns Canada’s openness is now its biggest vulnerability, citing a downed Shahed carrying Canadian-made antennas. Sweden’s answer to the same threat environment: a brand-new foreign spy agency comparable to MI6. Iran shows where this goes, pinging Middle East mobile networks to hunt US personnel and, per the NYT, attacking water systems in at least seven US states, with HuffPost reporting 30+ Minnesota water systems hit in one coordinated wave. Critical infrastructure is the front line. Canada’s is not exempt.

🔫 Hot Shots

🍁 Greypoint Industries, founded by Canadian infantry veterans and winners of Canada’s first defence hackathon, Icebreaker, made Newsweek’s case for why defence innovation is moving beyond traditional contractors. Their counter-swarm thesis: neutralize the operator, not the drones.
🍁 North Vector Dynamics CEO Paul Ziade went on The Techne Connect to talk leaving tenure for hypersonics.
🍁 Canadian kit is protecting Ukrainian women in combat: NP Aerospace’s curved plates and Logistik Unicorp’s carriers anchor the first body armour designed for the 75,000 women serving, with 48% more protection than flat plates. “Women are not just small men.”
🍁 Middle East turmoil upended global helium supplies, and Canada holds a fifth of world reserves while producing 2% of output. Helium is the only one of 34 critical minerals without the tax treatment. Fix that.
🍁 Canada’s aerospace sector put up $33.1B in GDP and 218,700 jobs in 2025, with R&D intensity 4.5x the manufacturing average. AIAC wants a national industrial aerospace strategy to match.

🍁 Vancouver’s QSE was selected for Canada’s quantum trade mission to the Netherlands this September. Post-quantum encryption is becoming an export product.
🍁 Breaking in: Alacrity Canada published a defence literacy field guide for Canadian SMEs, and Carleton launched a two-day practical certificate in Canadian defence procurement taught by former ADMs. Cheaper than learning by losing bids.
🍁 Jobs desk: Dominion Dynamics is hiring a Director of Operations to run the factory floor in Ottawa or Toronto, and BDC’s StrongNorth Fund wants an associate with a STEM brain and a Secret clearance in Toronto or Vancouver. CSMC needs a corp dev team in Toronto, and North Vector Dynamics needs a head of growth

Robert Asselin

Canada Is Entering a Historic Defence Expansion. Will It Change Our Economic Trajectory?

A defence build-up can do more than buy equipment. It can help build a more technologically powerful economy—creating new research-intensive industries, more productive firms and lasting sovereign capabilities…

19 days ago · 2 likes · Robert Asselin

🍁 Ticker watch: a markets piece on the counter-drone billions puts Volatus Aerospace’s Mirabel expansion and CAD 9M NATO contract next to DroneShield and Kratos, with analysts’ targets at double the current price.

Nuclear is quietly having its defence moment: BloombergNEF sees global capacity jumping 44% to 535GW by 2036, with China holding nearly half the reactors under construction.
Ottawa working on ‘Maple List’ to help validate Canadian drones for the Armed Forces

Nodes & Nuance

The Five Layers of AI: Where are the Next Opportunities?

Since 2021, we at Two Small Fish Ventures have been investing in deep technology startups across the AI tech stack, including semiconductor technology. Then, in mid 2025, we shared the evolution of our investment thesis on the five interconnected layers shaping the next frontier of AI: vertical AI platforms, physical AI, AI Infrastructure, advanced comp…

8 days ago · 14 likes · 4 comments · Eva Lau

Special Competitive Studies Project

SCSP Summer Reading & Watching List 2026: Highlights, Tech Briefs, Podcasts & What’s Ahead

Welcome to SCSP’s Summer Reading List! As the summer heats up, so does the pace of global innovation and strategic techno-economic competition. This year, we’ve curated an essential collection of reads, listens, and broadcasts from the Special Competitive Studies Project—including our newly launched President’s Tech Brief —a live show to keep you inform…

4 days ago · 35 likes · SCSP

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

🛡️ ONE9: The Firm That Built Canada’s Defence Venture Market

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:02:22 GMT

Editor’s note and disclosure: The Icebreaker’s co-founder Matthew Lombardi recently joined ONE9, the security and defence investment platform of Kensington Capital Partners Limited. The Icebreaker and ONE9 already co-founded and co-chair CANDIN, Canada’s Defence Investor Network.

🎯 Why this issue exists

Every week we report on Canada’s defence rebuild: the half-trillion-dollar commitments, the rearmament from 28th place, the founders and funds finally showing up. But readers keep asking the same thing: who actually built the private capital side of this ecosystem?

This is the reference piece on ONE9, Canada’s first national security tech investment and innovation platform.

🍁 First in, when nobody wanted in

ONE9 wasn’t founded during the 2025 defence boom. It was founded in 2013 by Glenn Cowan while he was still serving in Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), Canada’s tier-one special-mission unit - the Canadian peer of the units that produced the operators now founding America’s biggest defence-tech companies.

Glenn didn’t parachute into defence from finance; he came up through the sharp end of it. A retired JTF2 Squadron Commander, he spent his career on special operations: combat tours in Afghanistan, sensitive missions across the Middle East, and hostage-recovery operations in Africa. He built ONE9 on a conviction that is now his team’s motto: venture capital is a special operation — small teams, asymmetric bets, mission first.

That operator background is the sourcing and diligence edge. ONE9’s partners are the end-users the technology is actually built for, which is why they can tell a demo from a deployable capability before an LP dollar moves.

Canada's First National Security VC | Glenn Cowan — Explorer Spotlight #3

ONE9 is Canada’s first national security venture capital firm. It was founded in 2013 by Glenn Cowan, a former JTF 2 (Joint Task Force 2) Squadron Commander in Canada’s special forces. In 2025, ONE9’s venture capital business was acquired by Kensington Capital Partners…

2 months ago · 3 likes · Ethan Marcoux

In March 2022, three years before Ottawa rediscovered defence, ONE9 launched Special Mission Fund I with Shopify co-founder Daniel Weinand as General Partner, anchored by Kensington Capital Partners Limited, the only institutional investor willing to back defence at the time, and backing from investors including Shopify President Harley Finkelstein. Harley “backed ONE9’s defence-focused fund in 2022, when few Canadian investors wanted anything to do with the sector.”

And the portfolio performed like a firm that knew the terrain before the hype cycle arrived: Tomahawk Robotics (exited to AeroVironment in 2023), Strider Technologies, goTenna (acquired by Forterra in 2025), Hidden Level, Slingshot Aerospace, North Vector Dynamics, Stirling X. Counter-UAS, secure comms, space domain awareness, intelligence - the exact categories every generalist fund is now scrambling to enter, ONE9 underwrote years ago.

🏛️ Institutional firepower: the Kensington platform

In 2025, Kensington Capital Partners acquired ONE9. Today, ONE9 is Kensington’s security and defence investment platform: one brand spanning three integrated arms — venture investing (with institutional backing from AGF Capital Partners), ONE9 Capability Labs (the operational and value-creation arm), and its Arctic joint venture, Sapujjijiit. Kensington manages roughly C$2.1B across venture, growth, and mid-market buyouts, is majority-owned by AGF, and is building a scaled defence franchise.

Translation for LPs: special-operations sourcing and battlefield validation, wrapped in institutional-grade investing infrastructure and a ~30-year GP track record. That combination doesn’t exist anywhere else in Canada.

And the platform just gained a new steward. In July 2026, Kensington named Saar Pikar — former head of venture and growth at OMERS — as President, reporting to CEO Tom Kennedy, with direct oversight of the venture and growth business, including ONE9. One of the country’s most senior institutional venture investors is moving from OMERS, one of Canada’s largest pension investors, where they funded deals such as Dominion Dynamics and Cohere, to oversee Kensington with defence and security venture investing squarely in the mandate.

🧠 The powerhouse task force

Defence investing is a full-contact sport, and ONE9’s bench is unlike anything else in this country.

Since joining Kensington, Glenn now leads a deep team alongside a roster of strategic advisors and consultants with diverse backgrounds and long demonstrated track records of performance strategically located across the globe.

George Hoyem spent 15 years as EVP of Investments at In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s strategic venture arm, personally leading 40+ investments; he joined ONE9’s Investment Committee in 2025. When the man who helped the CIA pick winners for a decade and a half chooses a Canadian platform, that tells you where the puck is going. His recent essay on NATO decoupling from US defense tech is required reading:

NATO Is Decoupling from US Defense Tech

A new defense-tech cycle is emerging across the allied world. The headline story is not simply that governments are spending more on defense. As the recent NATO conference highlights, allies are under pressure to spend more, move faster, and build more of the critical technology stack inside trusted national and allied ecosystems. Canada, the UK, and NA…

a month ago · 11 likes · 2 comments · George Hoyem

Rounding out the team: A US Naval Academy graduate, former US and UK naval aviator and the founder of a $300M corporate venture platform. A retired Tier 1 US Army special operations soldier who started in the 75th Ranger Regiment, deployed 20+ times across the Middle East and North Africa, served through the August 2021 Kabul evacuation, and holds a Bronze Star with “V” device.

And of course Michael Smith, a serving reserve officer in the CAF Judge Advocate General branch — you’ve seen him in op-eds, and this month on the Canadian Army’s official podcast, on how international humanitarian law shapes the weapons Canada develops and fields:

No other Canadian platform can put special operators, a CIA-affiliated venture veteran, a corporate VC builder and two of the country’s most senior defence statesmen.

🌍 Forward-deployed in Europe

While many global investors read about the European rearmament cycle, ONE9 lives in it. Glenn was the sole private investor on the Canadian delegation at the NATO Defence Industry Summit in The Hague, sitting in roundtables with Defence Minister David McGuinty and Procurement Secretary Stephen Fuhr.

And this spring, Glenn went further forward than any Canadian VC: ten days across Europe, including time embedded with the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia, on the alliance’s eastern flank. That’s the drone-saturated, electronic-warfare reality of modern land combat, seen up close, on the exact ground where Canada’s soldiers are deployed and where the next generation of battlefield technology is being proven or discarded in real time. ONE9 holds a permanent forward operating presence across the fastest growing defence market on Earth. Deal flow follows presence. Presence follows commitment.

🔬 Capability Labs: the value engine

The go-to-market motion for startups is unique in defence. Capability Labs, ONE9’s innovation hub and venture studio, builds security-focused companies against validated end-user demand, runs innovation-as-a-service for public-sector partners, operationalizes capabilities, and supports startups through the valley of death between demo and deployment.

And the Labs has real receipts. Take Dominion Dynamics, the Ottawa company whose Arctic “digital fence” we watched span 5,200 km on Op Nanook, whose Arctic Training Centre partnership we covered in September, and which went on to close the largest defence Series A in Canadian history (C$139M, 2026). Before that mega-round, a Kensington fund backed Dominion’s seed, and ONE9 Capability Labs housed the company, supported its early innovation, and helped it recruit transitioning Canadian Armed Forces veterans. That’s the Labs model working as designed: capital, space, and operator talent at the earliest and riskiest moment, not innovation theatre.

The Labs model is also why ONE9 joined forces with Invest Ottawa to open Area X.O to defence entrepreneurs, plumbing the national ecosystem directly into its pipeline.

🧊 The North is not a metaphor

Sovereignty talk is cheap; ONE9 builds in the Arctic. Glenn partnered with Harry Flaherty, CEO of Qikiqtaaluk Corporation, to create Sapujjijiit Inc., Canada’s only Inuit-majority-owned, full-spectrum Arctic defence company, in which ONE9 Capability Labs is a full partner. It’s a working channel between the defence tech sector and northern and Indigenous businesses. In a procurement environment where Arctic capability and Indigenous partnership are both strategic and mandated, ONE9 is the only venture platform with that channel built. A testament to being early in the Arctic is that ONE9’s portfolio company goTenna/Forterra was the first wireless mesh communication network deployed to support emergency management in Nunavut:

🤝 The network is the moat

ONE9 co-founded and co-chairs CANDIN, Canada’s first and only private capital network for defence and security, modelled on peer groups across the US, Australia, and AUKUS. The firm’s reach runs from JTF2 alumni networks to In-Q-Tel’s Rolodex to NATO’s industrial machinery. Even ONE9’s comms game is levelling up:

💰 Bottom Line

Canada’s defence rebuild needs a private capital champion with operator DNA, institutional backing, allied networks, and a decade of receipts.

ONE9 didn’t join the defence tech wave — it spent thirteen years building the beach the wave is now breaking on. If you’re a founder building sovereign capability, an LP seeking exposure to the most durable spending cycle of our generation, or an ally looking for Canada’s serious people, you now know where to find them.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Canada finally builds the buyer

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:02:12 GMT

Release the drones: For two years the complaint from Canadian uncrewed-systems founders has been the same: there’s no door to knock on. As of this week there is one. The Canadian Joint Forces Command (CJFC), with LGen Molstad owning drones across the CAF, and the Defence Investment Agency (DIA) running the plumbing, have opened a standing marketplace for pre-qualified Canadian drone suppliers. The Request for Supply Arrangement (RFSA) posts today. This is the buyer showing up.

What it actually is: An RFSA is not an RFP and not a contract. It’s a pre-qualified pool. You clear a pass/fail bar once, you get a Supply Arrangement, and from then on you’re on the list that gets emailed the RFPs when a specific requirement lands. Think of it as the guest list, not the party. Qualification runs on experience, capacity, and security screening - technical evaluation comes later, at the actual solicitations. Miss this window and there’s another every three months through year one, then every six months after that. So the door reopens, but late arrivals watch the first contracts go to whoever qualified first.

Five streams to qualify under (you can pick more than one):

Uncrewed and counter-uncrewed systems and components — the operational core
Data, electronic warfare, and cyber systems that ride with the drones
Systems integrators
Test, evaluation, and training services
Innovation and experimentation — the on-ramp for lower-TRL, earlier-stage players to get in the room and grow into stream one

That last stream matters most for the early-stage ecosystem. It’s the first time the department has drawn an explicit path from “promising prototype” to “operational supplier” inside the same mechanism.

Six urgent use cases go first. This is where the demand signal is loudest, so read it as a shopping list:

Low-cost tactical ISR drones — cheap and attritable is the whole point
Complex-terrain UGVs, starting from commercial off-the-shelf
A modular explosive payload family — open architecture, pre-certified, swappable across platforms, killing the current mess of improvised and proprietary one-offs
Low-cost counter-drone interceptors with low collateral effects — minimal explosives, safe around people and infrastructure, manufacturable at scale, and useful at home
Maritime autonomy — surface and underwater systems for Canada’s ocean approaches
Sovereign deep precision strike — strategic range and payload, with domestic production capability. This is the ambitious one, and the word “sovereign” is doing a lot of work.

The through-line across all six: low cost, attritable, and built at scale. Ottawa has watched the same lesson play out overseas and is buying accordingly.

The calendar:

Today, July 23: RFSA posts. Get registered on CanadaBuys now if you aren’t; you can’t see the documents otherwise.
July 30: industry engagement session.
August 14: RFSA closes.

Bottom Line: This is the most concrete thing to come out of the Defence Industrial Strategy so far. The DIS promised 70% of acquisitions to Canadian firms and named uncrewed systems as one of ten sovereign capabilities; the DIA was built to cut the RFP maze. This RFSA is the first time all of that turns into a form a founder can fill out. The bar is deliberately low at this stage to pull in competition, which means the real filtering happens at the RFP round — qualifying is table stakes, not a win. But if you build drones, counter-drone, payloads, maritime autonomy, or the data and EW layer around them, and you’re not registered on CanadaBuys by close on August 14, you’ve chosen not to be in the market Canada just built for you.

We’ll be tracking who qualifies and which RFPs drop first. If you’re going through the process, reply and tell us how it’s going.

Special Edition: Buy Canadian Conference Launch

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:03:09 GMT

The rules changed this year. On June 15 the federal Buy Canadian threshold dropped from $25M to $5M. The $2B Sovereign AI Compute Strategy is in market. Defence spending is climbing. For once, policy moved in Canadian entrepreneurs’ favour.

Now the hard part: execution. Canadian defence and security startups build world-class tech and still can’t survive our own procurement gauntlet. Canada doesn’t have an innovation problem. It has a buying problem.

That’s why The Icebreaker is helping launch the Defence Track at Source Canada 2026 — Raymond Luk’s national procurement summit, back at the Hilton Toronto on October 22 after a sold-out first year.

This one isn’t a conference. It’s a domestic trade mission. Pre-vetted buyers matched to Canadian companies, 1:1 meetings running all day, and briefing rooms with the people who actually sign the contracts. Last year: 250 attendees, roughly 70 corporate buyers, and more than 100 private buyer-seller meetings in a single day.

The Defence Track puts Canadian-owned and Canadian-controlled defence and dual-use companies in the room with government buyers, corporate buyers, and capital. The Sovereign Technology Track covers quantum, AI, cybersecurity and deeptech.

Use code ICBRKR-SC26 for 20% off any pass (capped at the first 100 passes).

Early Bird pricing runs through August 22, and space is limited. The first year sold out and 2026 caps at 350–400 people.

Grab your pass at sourcecan.ca

Canada starting from 28th place

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:02:45 GMT

Editor’s Notes: Thanks to the team at Reaction Dynamics for a tour of the factory floor last week in Montreal, and to LGen Molstad and the VCAA for hosting a terrific roundtable on defence capital in Calgary; big congrats to COVE’s Robyn Warrier; hiring: North Vector Dynamics, CSMC, and AEDC.

The Icebreaker is on summer break for the next two weeks. Back in your inbox on August 4!

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

In 1965, Canada spent 2.6% of GDP on defence and had 107,000 people in uniform. Today we sit 28th on the Global Firepower index - one spot below Algeria - with roughly 71,000 troops, one of four submarines operational, and the distinction of being the only G7 country that can’t launch a rocket. Stephen Maher’s Maclean’s feature is the definitive anatomy of the half-trillion-dollar rebuild: missiles for Latvia announced in 2022 that arrived in May 2025, a Nanisivik naval facility that took 18 years to become a summer-only gas station, and an F-35 program where Canada has committed $27.7B for 88 jets but paid for just 16. Retired general Wayne Eyre says he grew frustrated with the lack of “U” in the Urgent Operational Requirement process. Defence analyst Philippe Sauvé is blunter: “Institutionally, we avoid risk completely.”

The companion piece profiles the founders and CEOs cashing in on the rebuild - and it’s a who’s-who: Dominion Dynamics testing its Arctic “digital fence” across 5,200 km on Op Nanook, Sapper Labs at ~$25M/yr in federal contracts, IMT Group’s $305M munitions deal, Calian booking $200M in a single quarter, and LeafStar’s $100M private small-arms plant bringing ~300 jobs to Ontario. Founder Fady Mansour: “70 cents of every dollar went to the U.S. - that’s changing fast.”

A Canadian Era of Startups, Defence & Greatness | Harley Finkelstein, Shopify

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein backed ONE9’s defence-focused fund in 2022, when few Canadian investors wanted anything to do with the sector…

25 days ago · 4 likes · Ethan Marcoux

The Canadian company arming Ukraine with drones

Watch this one. CBC’s Jennifer Yoon has an exclusive video look at the Canadian company supplying drones to Ukraine - a battlefield where Kyiv needs more drones than it can produce, even with domestic industry running flat out. A Canadian firm stepped into that gap. The real story: what its front-line experience teaches Canada about its own modernization. Combat-proven beats brochure-ready. Ottawa should be studying this playbook, not just applauding it.

The next defence fight is over trust, not money

Britain’s government imploded over an unfunded £25B-a-year defence gap. Murray Brewster argues Canada is next unless Ottawa shows its math: $81.8B budgeted, a $540B decade pledge - and no published five-year projections. Carney promises transparency in the fall budget, with 4% by the 2029 NATO review. Eric Reguly warns the submarine program alone could hit $100B all-in, and IMF data shows defence sprees widen deficits by ~2.6 points of GDP. Reality check: at the Ankara summit, where Kerry Buck warned “the cost of drama is too high,” Rutte admitted the old 2% target was “a bit plucked from the air.”

Bottom Line: Canada is rebuilding from 28th place with real money and real companies finally moving. But the UK just showed what happens when ambition outruns fiscal credibility. The fall budget is now the most important defence document of the decade.

NATO Is Decoupling from US Defense Tech

a month ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · George Hoyem

Up to $1M in funding and additional technical services available for technologies with defence and civilian applications. Advisory support is available now.

🤝 Deal Corner

🍁 3DBioFibR wins the inaugural DMZ Ventures $100K Dual-Use & Sovereign Tech Investment Prize — judged by The Icebreaker and BDC. DMZ Ventures awarded the prize at Startupfest to the Halifax company producing collagen and spider-silk biofibres at scale — US Navy contracts already in hand, applications spanning defence textiles and surgical materials. Over 100 companies competed. The Icebreaker sat on the judging panel: “Canada cannot afford to outsource the technologies that underpin our security, resilience and strategic autonomy… What stood out about 3DBioFibR is that they’re building a capability that matters for both commercial markets and national strength. We need more founders tackling hard, strategic problems like this — and more investors willing to back them early.” At the same festival, Moncton’s AgroGene Solutions took the $100K Best of the Fest from 275 pitches, part of $825K in total prizes.

🍁 Nord Quantique posts another error-correction breakthrough — the Sherbrooke company (last valued at US$1.4B) pushed bookend errors below 0.1% on its grid-state qubit, another step toward fault-tolerant machines. Timely context: only six companies worldwide build quantum cryogenics — one is Canadian — and quantum sovereignty is defence sovereignty.

🍁 Canada Rocket Company raises $22.5M in under six months — incorporated November 2025, with 22 hires including seven Canadians repatriated from SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and ArianeGroup now building the methalox medium-lift R-2, with an Etobicoke test site and hot fire targeted by year-end.

Cheap to Kill: The Disposable Soldier and the Gamified War.

🍁 Maritime Launch lands Isar Aerospace on a 10-year deal — signed at the NATO summit: US$3.75M per quarter plus ~$100M in pad build-out at Canso, with Spectrum launches from 2028 and up to 40 per year by 2029.

🍁 Larus books $10M+ in defence AI awards — $8.3M from IDEaS for Army tactical intelligence plus $2.5M for RCN maritime domain awareness, extending a CAF relationship dating to 1999.

🍁 Canada’s NATO Innovation Fund entry inches forward — the $107M-over-20-years commitment still needs sign-off from 24 LP nations, possibly not until fall.

Auterion and Skyfall ink a 50,000-drone deal — 50,000 Shrike FPVs with Skynode S AI autonomy are headed to Ukraine, worth $100M to Auterion and funded by a European NATO nation. More than double Auterion’s prior largest order, with a swarming update coming.

Ukraine’s defense tech sector is starting to look less like battlefield improvisation and more like the early stages of a real industrial base; updates to Brave1

Jatin Modi

On the evening of 26 June 1813, in a palace on the western edge of Dresden, a foreign minister spent nine hours trying to make an emperor feel the cost of a war, and failed…

a month ago · 4 likes · Jatin Modi

Kraken Technology raises $175M at a $1B valuation — the UK maritime-autonomy firm (not St. John’s Kraken Robotics) closed a Series B led by DTCP with the NATO Innovation Fund and Rheinmetall aboard, and holds a Davie partnership for Canadian production of its 55-knot K3 Scout USVs.

Forterra wins a $114M Army contract for Ukraine — the Sandhills Project puts 105 Lancer autonomous ground vehicles into the fight, delivered in under six months.

Skapion raises a $36M seed for counter-swarm defence — UP Partners and Khosla co-led the round for founders including the ex-Rafael GM behind Iron Dome and David’s Sling.

Surtr raises $4.8M for c-UAS sensor fusion — the YC-backed startup founded by Shield AI and Anduril alumni is already testing with Brave1 in Kyiv at sub-100ms latency.

Aurelius Systems: $0.10 per shootdown — the ~$12M-funded startup’s Archimedes laser turret killed 20+ quadcopters at T-REX in June. Only 19 directed-energy systems have been fielded in 60 years — Aurelius is betting on Detroit manufacturing to change that.

Who is building the picks and shovels in defense?

a month ago · 13 likes · 4 comments · Louise Boucher

Related: Reaction Dynamics’ CEO wants Canadian LPs to back moonshots — top-5 VC fundraising is down 50% since 2021 — while AGF Capital Partners argues the defence capital cycle is durable and moving well beyond the primes.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Ground robots: The first American autonomous ground vehicles are fighting in Ukraine — 100+ Forterra Lancers have run 1,100+ missions, hauled 777,440 lbs and completed 88 casualty evacuations in nine months. One soldier: “the most important UGV in Ukraine… we are dying to get more.”

Do regular tanks still matter?

No infantry, no losses: Ukraine captured a Russian position using only ground robots and drones — Zelensky called it a first. Machine-gun UGVs and multi-swarm operations are now doctrine, not demo.

Breaching goes autonomous: The US Army picked Caterpillar, Forterra, IDV USA and Overland AI for its new autonomous minefield-breaching program — the deadliest job in land warfare, handed to machines.

Saronic Corsairs, a 24ft ASV:

The Pentagon’s drone bible: JIATF 401’s “Small Drones, Big Problems” paper lays out a first-principles counter-UAS framework built on five Ds: Detect, Deny, Disrupt, Defeat, Discipline. The data: FPVs account for 60–70% of destroyed Russian systems and 70–80% of casualties, and Shaheds made up 66% of Iran’s counterattack. Its warning — drones’ “happy time” ends when defenders adapt.

Ukraine opens the arms store: Kyiv approved its first transparent weapons-export mechanism for partner countries — with ~800 producers making 4M+ drones a year and capacity to double, combat-proven Ukrainian kit is now for sale.

Interceptors, printed: SkyDefense’s 3D-printed CobraJet VTOL interceptor hits 350 mph in hybrid form, launches from a mothership, and fires Mach-1 VIPER rounds produced by the thousands each month.

Axis watch: A joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel and Le Monde exposed secret Russia-China military forums: a three-level plan to defeat Starlink up to physical destruction, a 2023 Almaz-Antey protocol for joint hypersonic-intercept air defence by ~2030, and 200+ Russian operators trained on Chinese drones at six sites in China. Beijing trades tech for combat data.

Robert Asselin

Economic Security Is Now Driven by Science and Technology

Policymakers often discuss economic security through the language of supply chains, critical minerals, subsidies, tariffs, procurement and trade diversification. Those issues are important, but they miss a larger strategic point…

a month ago · 4 likes · Robert Asselin

AI export walls rise on both sides: Beijing is weighing curbs on overseas access to Qwen, Doubao and GLM-5.2 — the mirror image of Washington’s Mythos directive. 🍁 Michael Geist’s warning: Canada must fight for frontier-AI access in the USMCA talks or settle into “the second tier of AI.”

Europe’s conversion problem: NATO fixed its cash flow — now it must turn money into munitions, as Rutte puts it. The Economist finds the gap on the factory floor: BAE’s Hägglunds plant went from $211M revenue in 2018 to $1.1B in 2025 and is expanding capacity five- or six-fold — demand still outruns supply. The backdrop: WSJ’s inside account of Europe’s rupture with America, where Macron told nearly 30 leaders “There is no going back” during a five-hour midnight session in Brussels.

ICYMI: NATO's new web portal for industry is now live

🍁 Kit for Canada — strike: Norway’s Joint Strike Missile could give Canada a common precision-strike architecture across air and undersea domains — two internally on each F-35A, canister-launched from Type 212CD torpedo tubes.

🍁 Kit for Canada — sensing: CDR makes the case for a “pocket AWACS” built on Saab’s LoyalEye AEW package riding the MQ-9B SkyGuardian — 11 of which Canada is already buying — with 40+ hours of endurance per orbit.

🍁 Kit for Canada — space: Canada joined seven NATO allies to build HALO, a layered satellite mega-constellation for comms, ISR and missile tracking — stacking on top of its Starlift membership.

Kate’s Substack

Wrong - Speed is NOT the Geran 3/4/5 Interceptor Problem

I first told those who read me that the Geran 2 was done in April 2025. We knew then that we were facing a new threat. That threat is not a faster drone. It’s a cheap cruise missile…

a month ago · 7 likes · 3 comments · Kate McKenna

Big think — evolution or revolution? Yaroslav Trofimov asks whether today’s hundreds of billions in conventional platforms will look like investing in horses and arrows just before the machine gun arrived. The US-Israel failure to decisively defeat Iran despite massive precision-weapon expenditure broke the old assumptions.

Big think — the empty arsenal: Anduril chairman Trae Stephens tells Arena the US burned ~1,000 Tomahawks in the first weeks of the Iran war against production of a few hundred a year — resupply timelines stretch to 2030. His prescription with Katherine Boyle in the Washington Post: “just war” theory doesn’t forbid terrifying new weapons — but America must get there first.

Big think — the counterpoint: A US Air Force veteran and defence investor warns against “vibe patriotism” — founders and VCs marching with rucksacks and calling equity “service.” Building for the mission is honourable. It is not sacrifice, and conflating the two lowers the moral barriers to war.

🔫 Hot Shots

🍁 Mitacs opens a Defence & Security call — and forgot the munitions. The program offers $20K–$25K internship units, up to 30 per project, with applications due August 17 across eleven priority areas spanning AI, quantum, sensors, space and Arctic sovereignty. Munitions and energetics — explicitly named in the Defence Industrial Strategy — appear nowhere. Canada’s most acute industrial gap didn’t make the list.

🍁 Ottawa scraps the open LUV competition — phase 2 of the $4.9B light utility vehicle program is dead, with only Canadian firms — Roshel, GM Defense Canada, Armatec, Terradyne — invited to the restructured process. AM General and Oshkosh are out.

🍁 Innovative Solutions Canada rebuilt — the program returns with $79.9M over five years under Buy Canadian phase 2 and a supplier registry by end-2026. As one founder put it: “a contract is better than a grant.”

CanadaxEurope

Canada chose TKMS as preferred partner. It still needs South Korea and an Indo-Pacific Defence Industrial Engagement Strategy.

In the wake of yesterday’s big announcement selecting TKMS as the preferred bidder for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project, CanadaxEurope reached out to Mike Petric from CanadaxIndoPacific for a take on the reaction…as well as what’s next for Canada and the region…

a month ago · 14 likes · 2 comments · Mike Petric

🍁 Built here, bought there — Raymond Luk’s Impact Group interviewed 31 founders of foreign-acquired Canadian firms and found that in 93% of cases, strategic control moved abroad. “Canada should stop acting like the waiting room for Delaware.” Same issue notes Telesat won the Defence Investment Agency’s first-ever procurement and MDA’s ~$920M bid for 70% of France’s CLS.

🍁 DND is now Canada’s biggest buyer — federal defence postings jumped 62% in June, with DND at 583 postings in Q2, while Alberta’s sovereign-compute pre-qualification drew 298 plan takers.

🍁 Markham wants to build the defence tech Ottawa is buying — the city is positioning its 1,500+ tech firms and 35,400 knowledge workers against a DIS worth ~$180B in procurement and $290B in infrastructure over the decade.

🍁 Trucking software finds a defence lane — Vancouver’s Switchboard is pivoting fleet software into defence logistics via UBC Sauder’s Scale Up program. “Trust is table stakes.”

🍁 AVSS passes 2,000 systems built this year — the Fredericton drone maker’s record pace runs on ~75% international revenue across 20+ countries, plus its new Flying Beehive air-launched FPV line.

#IBG doctrine promises manoeuvre & strike in 24 hours. In 2030 scenario that means - generate your own drone superiority bubble, over your axis, organically. Robots make first contact. Manned elements exploit. My essay 👇\nsameerjoshi73.medium.com/persistent-rob…","username":"joe_sameer","name":"Sameer Joshi","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1994747240125284352/7mlj-9eW_normal.jpg","date":"2026-07-12T02:41:07.000Z","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":4,"retweet_count":63,"like_count":150,"impression_count":35356,"expanded_url":{"url":"https://sameerjoshi73.medium.com/persistent-robotic-overwatch-the-art-of-manoeuvre-in-the-kill-zone-c638231a4a3d","title":"Persistent Robotic Overwatch: Restoring Manoeuvre Inside the Drone Kill Zone","description":"The drone wall on the modern battlefield is 1915’s trench line in a new dimension. The answer echoes 1918 — a new combined-arms method…","domain":"sameerjoshi73.medium.com","image":"https://pbs.substack.com/news_img/2075906143340367872/NaHs1T55?format=jpg&name=orig"},"video_url":null,"video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

🍁 Canada angles for the Moon Base — with Gateway cancelled, Canadensys (17 systems already on the lunar surface), Mission Control and MDA are vying for NASA’s lunar utility vehicle, and CSMC won $1M from CSA for a lunar nuclear reactor with Arctic dual-use potential.

🍁 Procurement school is in session — Carleton’s NPSIA launches a Practical Certificate in Canadian Defence Procurement December 10–11 at $800, taught by Philippe Lagassé and former ADMs.

The Ugly American meets the Ugly Ally — Stephen Nagy argues allied free-riding and condescension helped create Trump: Canada “cannot publicly denigrate the U.S… then request expedited trade deals, security guarantees.” Meanwhile Politico finds Canadians turning into genuine defence hawks at exactly the right moment.

DIANA picks 10 for Decision Superiority — zero Canadians. NATO’s accelerator awarded €100K each to its latest cohort in the Decision Superiority challenge. Canada’s absence from the list speaks for itself.

Odds & Ends:

America should rebuild its manufacturing base; the new generation of American industry according to Reid Hoffman
The defence tech Valley of Death
The Big Search mapped 600+ 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫 Anduril Industries 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬. Two core insights from the data
How EIF is helping defence innovators
Ukraine’s Operation Auchan: How one operation halted the enemy’s mechanized offensive for six months
Renting Our Future: U.S. Tech Hegemony, Canada’s Sovereignty Race, and the Coming Realignment
Drones are machine guns
Top 100 defence innovators
Keeping our defence supply chain sovereign
How to Make Hardware Venture-Shaped; Robotics is having a software moment
BRiley Securities Q2 A&D report; has the defence market peaked?

Photos from the front
PQC is not a 2030 problem. It is a today problem with a 2030 deadline
Hybrid threats target democratic institutions, critical infrastructure and societal cohesion in the EU

Medical Manufacturing Anywhere | Dr. Harvey Hawes — Explorer Spotlight #6

In war, disasters, and remote conditions, the demand for medical supplies rises when supply chains are most likely to fail. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s Ministry of Health estimated that 100,000 war-related amputations had been performed by mid-2024…

a month ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Ethan Marcoux

Keeping Score on Procurement Reform

Over the last year, the Trump administration has prioritized procurement reform, and specifically, the acquisition of commercial products. In Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s “Wartime Footing” speech …

a month ago · 15 likes · 6 comments · Madeline Hart

Industrial Base Alpha

The Philosophy of Vertical Integration

To vertically integrate or not to vertically integrate…

a month ago · 10 likes · 11 comments · Matthew Bernard

The Line

Al Vigier: Canada's AI strategy shouldn't include secret Palantir bills

By: Al Vigier…

a month ago · 55 likes · 10 comments · Line Editor

Startup Riders

🌊 n8n's Growth Playbook: 0 to $100M ARR

👋 I’m Ivan. I study how top 1% startups grow…

a month ago · 36 likes · 4 comments · Ivan Landabaso

Submarine decision: Why Germany won

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 10:02:43 GMT

Editor’s Note: Thanks to our pals at Platform Calgary and Torys LLP for hosting The Icebreaker at a private defence tech dinner at the Calgary Stampede; and to the VCAA for hosting a defence capital roundtable later this morning. Special shout out to Matt Berry and Evan McCann for wrangling this first-time Stampeder through the chaos.

In the back half of this week, The Icebreaker heads to Montreal to help DMZ Ventures and BDC judge a $100K Dual-Use and Sovereign Tech Investment Prize at Startupfest.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Germany’s TKMS will build Canada’s fleet of 12 submarines — the largest single defence procurement in Canadian history. The contract value: $20–30B for the hulls, up to $40–50B including operations, maintenance, and upgrades over the life of the fleet.

The framing matters. This wasn’t a purely military decision. Ottawa explicitly said the winner would depend on economic benefits — not just submarine design. TKMS countered with a jaw-dropping pitch: $86B added to Canadian GDP and 650,000 job-years over the term of the deal. Hanwha came in hard too — $70B in trade and investment pledges, 25,000 annual jobs from 2026 to 2044, a steel mill commitment, and it literally shipped a submarine to Canada to show off. Ottawa chose Germany anyway.

The strategic logic is NATO alignment. TKMS proposed a three-country model — Canada, Germany, Norway — building, training, and maintaining together. Two Arctic nations, all NATO. The Walrus flagged the harder question before the decision landed: does Canada really need twelve submarines designed for last-generation warfare, or should it buy eight and field dozens of autonomous underwater vehicles — including from Kraken Robotics in St. John’s? Canada’s answer is twelve. History will judge whether that’s the right call.

Reality check: Canada currently operates four submarines. Typically one is operational at a time. Twelve gives Canada three deployable at any given moment. That’s a genuine Arctic deterrence posture — the first in decades. But delivery runs mid-2030s to early 2040s, and Canada hasn’t ordered new submarines since the 1960s. The procurement clock is already running.

Bottom Line: Canada’s submarine decision is the most consequential defence procurement since the F-35. It signals NATO alignment over economic hedging, bets on a three-ally construction model, and commits Canada to a conventional underwater deterrent for the next half-century. The industrial fight now moves to who actually builds what, and on Canadian soil.

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

🤝 Deal Corner

🍁 Dominion Dynamics raises $139M Series A — Ottawa-based Arctic sensing and ACP developer. Lead: Georgian Partners. Backers include Bessemer, OMERS, BCI, BDC, RBC, Valor Equity. Total raised: $169M since June 2025 launch. CEO Eliot Pence (ex-Anduril) calls it the largest Series A ever by a Canadian defence startup. Still no federal contract — 50% chance first contract lands in the US.

🍁 Canada to join NATO Innovation Fund — Pending approval from 24 member nations. Canada set aside $107M over 20 years in 2024 but never followed through. Was one of only 8 NATO allies not backing the fund. Initial investment up to €15M per company. Contributions count toward Canada’s 5% GDP target.

🍁 Canada announces founding partners for global Defence Bank — The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) aims to raise up to £100B (US$133B) in cheap finance for allied nations. ~10 founding nations to be announced at NATO Turkey summit. Canada likely sole non-European founder. Canada’s potential contribution: up to €1.5B. Supporting banks: JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, RBC, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank, TD.

🍁 CADSI hits record 1,788 members — Up ~750 year-over-year; nearly 1,400 above 2021 low. Big Six banks (minus TD and BMO) now members. CIBC, BDC joined in 2026. 47 academic members (+62% YoY). Controlled Goods Program applications surged 78% above prior year in February.

🍁 Orqa + Remote Robotic Systems: $150M Canadian drone partnership — Croatian drone leader Orqa partnering with Ottawa-based RRS to build Canadian sovereign capability. Target: 10,000 systems/month by 2029. Up to 100 jobs in Ottawa and Toronto by Q4 2027. Canada becomes first non-EU nation in EU’s SAFE initiative. Signed with both Carney and Croatian PM present.

Where Do Defense Tech Founders Come From?

Where do great defense tech founders come from? As a venture capitalist (VC) investing in early stage, national security startups, one of the most important (and most difficult) parts of my job is evaluating startups’ founding teams. When evaluating early stage startups, the team…

a month ago · 19 likes · 4 comments · Maggie Gray

Defence tech funding hits $35.6B in H1 2026 — 40% YoY increase. Q1 alone was $19.8B — largest single quarter ever recorded. Autonomy is the dominant theme: $16B TTM across 212 deals. UAV subsector up 254% TTM, UGV up 284%. Capital is concentrating — top 5 rounds = 48% of H1 total, Anduril’s $5B Series H alone = 14%. Median round size doubled YoY from $11M to $20M.

Ondas acquires DZYNE Technologies for $876M — Drone and C-UAS rollup Ondas ($ONDS) expanding with DZYNE’s ULTRA (70+ hr endurance, 450 lb payload), LEAP, IonStrike interceptor, and new Blitz Group 1 drone. New business unit: Ondas Sentinel. On pace for $525M revenue this year. Portfolio spans US, Europe, Israel.

Harpoon Ventures closes $155M Fund IV — San Diego early-stage VC now at $450M+ AUM across four funds (Fund I: $55M → Fund IV: $155M). Strategy pivoting to infrastructure/”picks and shovels” — 3D-printed batteries, automated shipbuilding. “Are we in a bubble? Yes. The tourists are the ones who get screwed.”

Netherlands bets €30M on drone software over hardware — Dutch Ministry of Defence signs 3-year strategic partnership with Amsterdam-based Intelic, whose NEXUS C2 software lets drones from different manufacturers operate together. First country to formally fund a software-first approach to drone procurement. Exploring golden share. NEXUS in combat use in Ukraine since 2025.

Six Robotics raises €12M seed — Oslo-based swarm coordination company. Valkyrie software lets a single operator command multiple heterogeneous drones as one team. Built to 90 people before taking outside money. DTCP Defence led. Already integrated with Norwegian Armed Forces, Stark’s kamikaze drones, FACNAV. “Europe cannot afford to depend on others for the software that defines what its forces can do.”

Jamie Dimon wants JPMorgan in the weapons business — Dimon considering shift to invest JPMorgan’s own capital directly in defence companies — not just provide loans. Framed around US weapons shortage exposed by the Iran conflict. L3Harris flagged inconsistent federal procurement as barrier to rocket motor scaling.

Marc Andreessen and Blake Masters appointed to DoD policy board — a16z founder and former Thiel Capital COO now providing “independent strategic advice” to Hegseth.

Related: a16z: DoD contracting for startups 101 | MITS Capital: Wall Street to Warzone podcast

@EliotPence joined @jordihays and @johncoogan on @tbpn to chat about our record-setting raise and the opportunity to build a defence neoprime here at home. ","username":"DominionDynamic","name":"Dominion Dynamics","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/2065161887759704066/qAWZ3QSF_normal.jpg","date":"2026-07-03T16:09:50.000Z","photos":[{"img_url":"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!NYXv!,w_1028,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best,fl_progressive:steep/l_play_button_usfui2,w_88,e_colorize:0/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F__ss-rehost__tw-video-preview-13_2073070542152757248.jpg","link_url":"https://t.co/8fP0vCeMl6"}],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":1,"retweet_count":3,"like_count":35,"impression_count":1274,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":"https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2073070542152757248/vid/avc1/1280x720/PqJfOcAyUmHplOjH.mp4","video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Drone czar: Hegseth signed a memo creating DRPM-UxS — a Pentagon-wide drone czar reporting to Deputy SecDef Feinberg, with authority over all UAS Groups 1–3, all autonomous ground vehicles, nearly all unmanned surface vessels, and all autonomy/AI/swarming software. ~$54.6B in FY2027 budget scope. “Adversaries collectively produce millions of unmanned systems each year. The United States has been slow to field these capabilities at scale.” DIU becomes primary industry interface.

🎙️ Ep 26 - Techquisition: The Pentagon's New Drone Czar?

🚨EMERGENCY POD🚨…

a month ago · 3 likes · Maggie Gray and David Rothzeid

Loyal wingman goes mainstream: US Air Force confirmed General Atomics FQ-42 and Anduril FQ-44 Fury for production — the world’s first large-scale CCA fleet (~1,000 aircraft). Germany, Australia, Poland also accelerating. Canada has 88 F-35s coming and no autonomous ecosystem to pair them with. Dominion Dynamics’ Scout ACP is the domestic answer — but Anduril, GA, and Boeing/RAAF MQ-28 are ahead on capital and flight hours.

Ground robots: Eurosatory 2026 outside Paris — UGVs dominated, not tanks. 50+ manufacturers. Ukraine contracted 25,000 UGVs in H1 2026 alone, ran 50,000+ missions. Rheinmetall Canada’s Mission Master and General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada’s TRX give Canada world-class UGV capacity. Problem: no political will to field it. “The challenge is not innovation, but fielding capability at scale.” CDR

UFORCE’s Oleg Rogynskyy joined CNN International’s The Brief to discuss how Ukraine is rewriting the playbook of modern defence and why the future of deterrence lies in affordable, autonomous mass.

The electronic warfare arms race behind Ukraine's drones — with Andriy Chulyk (Sine Engineering)

a month ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Louise Boucher

Russia’s shadow fleet ran an 18-month nuclear surveillance campaign — IISS analysis of 144 incidents across 12+ NATO countries. Targets included RAF Lakenheath (US nukes deployed July 2025), France’s Île Longue submarine base, and NATO air bases at Kleine-Brogel and Volkel storing US air-launched nukes. Drones launched from “dark sailing” vessels with transponders off. None captured or shot down. GRU assessed as orchestrator. “A series of tactical successes for the Kremlin and a strategic failure of allied defences.”

NATO Maven reaches full operational capability — Project Maven AI targeting system now at full capability within NATO SHAPE. NATO SHAPE

🍁 Canada Arctic: spending ≠ readiness — Macleans longform: 1/3 of Inuit live in homes in poor repair; TB rate 37x the national average; $17.69 box of Cheerios; food bank use up 80%. CSIS: “the infrastructure gap in Nunavut is creating national security risks.” CDS Carignan: “geography alone no longer guarantees the security of our northern flank.”

🍁 From spending to readiness — Canada’s talent problem — “Scaling investment is not the same as scaling capability.” The bottleneck won’t be capital; it’ll be coordinated talent, training, and procurement. Building blocks exist — CAE simulators, Irving Shipbuilding, Magellan Aerospace — but the system doesn’t connect them. BHER

🍁 Canadians are becoming defence hawks — Politico poll: 52% say Canada poorly prepared to defend itself; 61% say too few troops; 53–27% margin prefer buying from Europe over US; 52% support domestic production even at higher cost. Military recruitment hit a 30-year high — 8,000+ sworn in last fiscal year.

🍁 Skilled Canadians want to come home — Brain drain reversing. High-skilled workers citing US political climate, cost of living, and Canadian opportunity as pull factors. Financial Post

Pentagon manufacturing bottleneck: Manufacturing — not funding — is now the primary constraint on US defence capability. Companies need right mix of facilities, skilled labour, and reliable suppliers to deliver in months not years. Rep. Wittman: “Shipyards are turning more into assembly sites rather than primary production facilities.” Could take 2–4 years to materially improve.

airship-industries.com 200+ ton capacity, fuel efficient airships can deliver loads to unimproved fields with transpacific range - no runway - no problem. ","username":"JimCoutre","name":"James Coutre","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1845833170140471296/kOerjhvs_normal.jpg","date":"2025-11-08T01:20:47.000Z","photos":[{"img_url":"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XgBv!,w_1028,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best,fl_progressive:steep/l_play_button_usfui2,w_88,e_colorize:0/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F__ss-rehost__tw-video-preview-13_1986967050733166592.jpg","link_url":"https://t.co/AGwf1KaacQ"}],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":24,"retweet_count":43,"like_count":673,"impression_count":153324,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":"https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1986967050733166592/vid/avc1/886x484/Qh61gqtxRNRX0KqU.mp4","video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

DoD can prototype. Production is another story. — No data on how many OTA contracts or SBIR grants actually convert into programs. “The challenge is what does it lead to?”

Pentagon hiring hundreds of software engineers — “War Force” program: hundreds of engineers for 2-year DoD stints, embedded down to unit level. Builds on Tech Force (1,000+ hires at $150–200K/year). AI talent priority for CDAO’s AI Acceleration Plan.

Navy Innovation Unit gets 200+ applications — Tech-focused Reserve unit drew senior execs from hyperscalers, defence primes, and defence-tech startups. Mirroring Army’s Detachment 201 (which commissioned Palantir CTO and Meta CTO as Lt. Cols). Commissioning begins fall 2026.

Logistics are the next war’s biggest vulnerability — “All logistics operations will be contested” in peer conflict. Unlike Iraq/Afghanistan where rear-area sanctuary was guaranteed, a war with China or Russia won’t offer the same protection.

AI warfare: point of no return — WSJ on Ukraine’s AI arms race. Eric Schmidt: “Future warfare will be predominantly robotic and automated.” Ukrainian drone CEO: “Either robots will eliminate us in fifty years, or the Russians will take us out in a year.” Anthropic and OpenAI now have dedicated national security offerings.

Canadian Cyber in Context

Canada has a Defence Digital Strategy

a month ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Alexander Rudolph

Europe’s rearmament paradox — $559B spent by NATO Europe last year. Germany alone: $114B (+24%). Yet the FCAS program just collapsed, the Franco-German tank program is stalled, and the Stoxx Europe Targeted Defence index is down 15% since January. NUPI: “Europe’s Achilles heel is no longer financial, it is institutional.”

UK Defence Investment Plan praised by startups — Long-awaited DIP published. European drone startups broadly positive but flagging execution risk.

🔫 Hot Shots

🍁 UVic MARMOTSat launching on SpaceX Falcon 9 in July — University of Victoria’s second CubeSat will probe the ionosphere for climate change signals and fly an open-source radio system. PacifiCan funding: $5.4M. Next mission: PolarLink (2027) focused on Arctic communications with space-to-space optical links.

Vermeer launches “Recovery” for GPS-denied drones — New feature for its Visual Positioning System corrects drift mid-flight without satellite data. 95% success rate at 1km drift; ~80% at 3km. Tested in Ukraine under real operating conditions. Customers: Lockheed, Northrop, Anduril, AV, Firestorm. VPS trained on 25,000+ hours of aerial video.

Deviro, Leleka, Bulava — Ukraine’s triple drone debut — New Ukrainian FPV and strike drone models entering service. Combat-proven ecosystem expanding. The Defender

Flying Sea Drones | Dr. Mike Peasgood — Explorer Spotlight #5

Canada has the longest coastline on Earth at over 240,000 km, and a Waterloo-based company is building six-foot-long autonomous boats to help defend it…

a month ago · 1 like · Ethan Marcoux

Hypersonics VC funding hits 12-quarter high — $413.1M in Q2 2026 across just four deals. Castelion ($350M Series B + $105M Navy contract), Hermeus ($350M Series C at $1B valuation), Rocket Lab ($190M hypersonic test contract). The real VC play: propulsion, thermal protection, test infrastructure — not full missile programs. Visible US opportunity: mid-teens billions through end of decade.

BVP defence tech roadmap — five frontiers for 2026 — Defence tech advanced more in 24 months than the previous 3 decades. Five frontiers: autonomy from concept to combat, AI in DoW workflows, advanced manufacturing, edge/network resilience, energy/materials independence. China controls ~70% of rare earth production and 90% of processing. European defence spending projected to grow 3.4x in six years. Palantir at ~65x NTM revenue. Check out monthly comps from BCI.

Wall Street to Warzone: Perry Boyle (MITS Capital) on investing directly in Ukraine’s defence ecosystem. Innovations in drone tech, building the defence industry from scratch under wartime conditions. “It’s not a storm — it’s the climate.”

Lorenz Meier

Drones Are Becoming Cell Phones

a month ago · 7 likes · Lorenz Meier

MITS Capital / Ukraine: Also see the deep-dive on Deviro, Leleka, and Bulava drone systems — Ukraine’s drone output ecosystem expanding beyond FPV into new strike categories.

Related:

This Mine Predicts Major Wars. It’s Opening Again
America seeks its McDonald’s model for missile making
TACTIQL joins the Oracle Defence Ecosystem
Ukraine opens door to arms exports

True North Strategic Review

Canadian Coast Guard to Charter Finnish Icebreaker

Another surprise today. Every so often, something drops that gives me a bit of a giggle. Today is no different. The CCG has put out a new ACAN today, announcing their intent to charter a Polar Class 3 icebreaker for the upcoming season…

a month ago · 12 likes · 2 comments · Noah

Ukraine's Arms Monitor

Inside Ukraine’s Interceptor Drone Race: A Pilot’s View

Are interceptor drones already autonomous? Can a pilot sitting in Ukraine intercept Shaheds in the Gulf? Is it enough to buy hundreds of these systems from Ukraine to protect your own country’s facilities? I discussed some of these questions with the operator of STING drones, one of the most effective Ukrai…

a month ago · 62 likes · 2 comments · Olena Kryzhanivska

Canada's spy agency goes offensive

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:02:59 GMT

Editor’s Note: Congratulations to Greypoint Industries — the team that took home top prize at Canada’s first-ever Defence Tech Hackathon last year, which we were proud to host here at The Icebreaker. Jordan and the rest of the crew have now earned a spot in Y Combinator. From an Arctic-sovereignty idea built in a single weekend to one of the most competitive accelerators in the world — that’s exactly the kind of ambition we started The Icebreaker to champion. We couldn’t be prouder, and we’ll be watching what comes next.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Canada’s electronic spy agency doesn’t usually brag. But buried in CSE’s 2025–2026 annual report — released this week — is a first: CSE publicly confirmed it conducted an active cyberoperation against foreign criminals brokering fentanyl precursor chemicals, disrupting and “diminishing their ability to operate.” It also disclosed it took concurrent action against 10 of the most significant ransomware groups harming Canada and allies simultaneously. Not one at a time. Ten!

The numbers behind the year: 3,216 cyber incidents responded to. 97,000+ threat notifications sent. 67 pre-ransomware alerts pushed to Canadian organizations before attackers could pull the trigger. A 25% increase in alerts and 28% increase in advisories over 2023–24. CSE now has 4,178 employees — up 337 in a single year — and is entering what the report calls “sustained expansion and transformation.”

Reality check: This is not your father’s signals intelligence agency. CSE is deploying staff to Latvia and Lithuania through its Deployed Cyber Security Officer program. It co-chaired the G7 Cybersecurity Working Group during Canada’s 2025 presidency. It led the Arctic Intelligence Coordination Group. It coordinated cyber defence for the 45th federal election, the G7 in Kananaskis, and is embedded in FIFA World Cup 2026 planning across North America. It’s also leading Canada’s post-quantum cryptography migration — publishing the government-wide roadmap while simultaneously chairing the interdepartmental working group.

Bottom Line: CSE’s overt disclosure of an offensive cyberoperation against fentanyl networks is not an accident. It is a signal — about what Canada is now willing to do, and willing to say it did.

Related:

🏆100k Pitch Contest in Montreal next week:

DMZ Ventures is launching the $100K Dual-Use and Sovereign Tech Investment Prize at Startupfest, investing in startups driving Canada’s resilience and national security. The Icebreaker is aboard to help judge.

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

🤝 Deal Corner

🍁 Canada’s $100B submarine decision is now a bidding war. A South Korean attack submarine docked in Victoria in late May. Germany’s defence minister stood beside Canada’s in Ottawa and made the case for European alignment. Both Hanwha and TKMS meet Canada’s operational requirements — PM Carney has said it “ultimately comes down to the broader benefits being offered.” The industrial lobbying campaign is unprecedented in Canadian procurement history. Decision imminent.

🍁 GlobalEye: Saab chosen, L3Harris blindsided. Ottawa bypassed the standard RFI process and opened sole-source talks with Saab for Canada’s NORAD-linked surveillance aircraft. L3Harris Canada — which had readied its Aeris X (built on a Bombardier 650 airframe) — said it was “quite surprised.” The political catch: fully integrating GlobalEye with NORAD requires US stealth communication technology that has never been shared with a non-US aircraft. Bill C-31 would expand procurement exceptions from 4 to 14 — and may retroactively justify the decision. L3Harris says it can still deliver by 2032.

🍁 Griffon upgrade suspended. The federal government put the $800M CH-146 Griffon Limited Life Extension program on hold over technical complexity — specifically, problems with the mission system computer. Bell Textron (Mirabel) was notified. It’s unclear whether all 82 helicopters will be upgraded or only a select number. The program aimed to keep the fleet flying until 2039; the revised scope will now only target the mid-2030s. Replacement program: ~$18B, deliveries starting ~2033.

STARK raises €500M at €3.5B valuation. The two-year-old Berlin drone company — Virtus loitering munitions (130km range, GNSS-denied), Cascade (100km, tube-launched), Gambit (ISR quadcopter), Vanta (maritime USV), and Minerva (C2 software) — just quadrupled its valuation from earlier this year. Founders Fund and Sequoia led; NATO Innovation Fund participated. STARK holds a €2.8B German military framework contract for Virtus. More than 80% of the new capital goes directly to R&D and manufacturing. CEO: “The challenge facing Europe is no longer whether we can innovate, it’s whether we can scale.”

a month ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Louise Boucher

Shifting the Narrative

Booz Allen buys Ultra I&C Mission Solutions for $720M. Ultra’s flagship product ADSI is the Army’s most widely used tactical data fusion and situational awareness tool — it’s already on a $86.8M Guam IBCS contract and a $39M Marine Corps aviation C2 contract. The acquisition also brings Knox (ruggedized AI edge compute, runs on MQ-9), Rain, ACTS, Apex, and CyberFence into Booz Allen’s portfolio. Deal closes by end of September. ~220 people, $720M — a pointed bet on defence tech over consulting.

Anduril leads Army NGC2 common data baseline. The US Army selected Anduril to integrate 17 fragmented C2 programs of record into a single converged data layer. Partners: Palantir (Foundry), Raft (data registries), plus Govini, Microsoft, Striveworks, Rune, Shift5. Falls under Anduril’s existing $20B 10-year enterprise agreement. At Ivy Mass, Team Anduril took connected devices from 10 to 2,500+ and added 17 new applications in a single demonstration. NGC2 is the Army’s answer to JADC2.

Mach Industries closes $300M Series C at $1.8B. The Merge’s breakdown is essential reading on the most polarizing company in defence tech. Ethan Thornton (Thiel Fellow, founded Mach at 19) is running six programs simultaneously: Viper (jet-powered strike), Dart (counter-drone), Glide (standoff), Pike (long-range), Atlas (maritime strike — selected for DIU RIMES in June), and Venom. The factory thesis: 115,000 sq ft in Huntington Beach, 12,000 micro-jet engines annually, Exquadrum solid rocket motors in-house. Roughly half of this year’s revenue comes from B2B component work — other defence companies paying Mach to source scarce inputs they can’t find elsewhere. Public contract obligations: ~$1.76M. Valuation: $1.8B.

Valor Equity raises $2.5B Fund VII. Antonio Gracias’s firm — long allied with Elon Musk — is raising its next fund on the back of SpaceX going public on June 12. A portion already earmarked for SpaceX shares.

🍁 L-SPARK looks to launch defence-tech accelerator. The Kanata-based startup accelerator — backed by Terry Matthews’s Wesley Clover, 160+ alumni, $200M+ in follow-on capital — is in early-stage talks to build a dual-use defence accelerator for Canadian SMEs looking to access the defence establishment through primes. The federal government plans to raise the domestic defence contract share to 70% (from 43%) within a decade, creating 125,000 new jobs.

🍁 DefSec Technologies raises $2.5M. The Kanata-based company (formerly Kwesst Micro Systems) — battlefield laser detection, soldier systems, anti-riot tech, DND software services through Thales Canada — sold 673,006 shares at $3.74 in a registered direct offering. Board member: Ret. Gen. Rick Hillier. Revenue Q1: $2.1M (up from $1.3M). Stock is down ~80% over 12 months. The raise buys runway.

🍁 Q-Branch Dual-Use Accelerator — now taking applications. Canada Q-Branch is screening scaleups for its dual-use accelerator, targeting federal markets and Texas expansion. Applications open now.

Related: France drops Palantir for a reason. ChapsVision won DGSI — German intelligence chose the same. The 2026 defence tech landscape is no longer a two-company story: defence-national security VC investment in early 2026 already exceeds $14.6B — surpassing the prior full-year record of $9.6B set in 2025. 2026 is the execution year.

Related:

Red Team Hack winners

Defence tech is hot again, but not every startup is real (25:19)
@IridiumComm’s global satellite communications network and rare spectrum, Rocket Lab becomes a ","username":"RocketLab","name":"Rocket Lab","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1494443717452709900/Y7Lg2mm__normal.jpg","date":"2026-06-29T11:13:55.000Z","photos":[{"img_url":"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sw_!,w_1028,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best,fl_progressive:steep/l_play_button_usfui2,w_88,e_colorize:0/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F__ss-rehost__tw-video-preview-13_2071551778701946880.jpg","link_url":"https://t.co/bCrFWDPtW9"}],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":166,"retweet_count":537,"like_count":3280,"impression_count":338365,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":"https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2071551778701946880/vid/avc1/1280x720/pvsgLJ0sAqYmcpMo.mp4","video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

⚔️ Combat Readiness

The jellyfish swarm over Iran. When the downed F-15E pilot was debriefed, he described a “minefield of drones” — multiple Iranian systems hovering in formation, moving as one, with smaller drones dangling below like legs. “Real alien shit.” CNN confirmed the intelligence community remains split on how to interpret the account — the pilot had a concussion — but the capability described is “one-to-many meshed networking,” which Russia and China already possess. If Iran has it, with Chinese assistance, the implications for every US air operation in the region are significant.

Ukraine's Arms Monitor

Drone warfare in Ukraine: Hornet strike drones

Since April, when my first report on the mysterious “Martian” drone came out, we have learned that it is the Hornet drone developed by the American Swift Beat LLC (now Perennial Autonomy). It is almost silent, resistant to jamming, fast, flies at low altitude, and has AI-based technology…

a month ago · 58 likes · 2 comments · Olena Kryzhanivska

The Iran war is straining the arsenal. Trump met with Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, and Honeywell at the White House to demand faster production of Patriot, THAAD, Tomahawk, and AMRAAM. Hegseth simultaneously held a separate, unannounced meeting at the Pentagon with Anduril, Castelion, Leidos, and CoAspire — the message: if the primes can’t deliver, the new entrants will. Iran launched over 8,000 missiles and drones in the conflict. The US naval base in Bahrain took significant, publicly unacknowledged damage — command headquarters, satellite communication facilities. Most personnel were evacuated. “Two US fatalities” versus 13,500 Iranian targets struck. The math is not symmetrical — but the base is in rubble.

Arsenal of scarcity — the numbers. AlixPartners’ missile supply chain breakdown is the most data-dense read of the week: Iran produces 100+ missiles per month; the US produces 6–7 interceptors. The supplier base has contracted from 5,000 firms to ~1,000. There are 100+ identified single points of failure at the sub-tier level. GMLRS is scaling from 6,000 to 14,000 units annually — and its ammonium perchlorate comes from one domestic facility, its polymer binder from a single supplier (with degrading quality), its spherical aluminum powder from one qualified manufacturer. China controls 91% of rare-earth magnet capacity; the DFARS restriction on Chinese samarium-cobalt and NdFeB magnets kicks in January 2027 with no assured domestic alternative at scale. “Capacity is the new capability.” L3Harris makes this argument directly: it is not sustainable to defeat hundred-dollar drones with million-dollar interceptors.

🍁 Canada’s top soldier names the threat. CDS Gen. Jennie Carignan, in an exclusive interview with CTV: “The threat to our continent is mostly related to the new missile technologies and the new vehicles of delivery that Russia is developing.” North Korea, Iran, cruise missiles — medium and long range. The CAF is reorienting from expeditionary theatres to continental defence, with emphasis on the Arctic: air defence systems, underwater sensors, space.

🍁 Canada–UK drone warfare training, with asterisks. 350 British and Canadian soldiers are training at Suffield, Alberta — replicating Ukraine lessons: one-way attack drones, electronic warfare, constant surveillance, electromagnetic threat. The capability gaps identified: Canada needs more drone fleets, more electronic warfare units, more counter-drone systems — and a dedicated airborne EW/SIGINT aircraft (RCAF currently has none). The Falcon Shield (Leonardo) is adopted; Leonidas (Epirus) neutralized 49 drones in a single pulse during testing. The MC-55A Peregrine (Australia’s advanced EW jet) is the model Canada is being told to pursue.

Kill zone: the front line no longer exists. LRT’s ground-level Ukraine reporting is required context for every procurement conversation: the kill zone now stretches dozens of kilometres from Russian positions, defined by drone range. Even 15km is “extreme danger.” Soldiers operate in scattered positions 1.5km apart. “War used to be louder. Now you get a false sense of security because it’s quiet, but you can be killed very quickly and out of nowhere.” FPVs: 5–6 launched per Russian soldier. One battlefield insight distilled: “90% of what we knew about warfare will no longer help.”

Drones are the problem, not the answer. MWI West Point’s Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley (Ret.) makes the machine gun analogy: drones have raised the cost of maneuver, not made maneuver unnecessary. They cannot seize ground, hold it, or compel a population. The Ukraine front moves in hundreds of meters per month despite the most intensive drone warfare in history. The decisive system will be whatever restores maneuver under drone threat — directed energy, EW, autonomous ground systems, cheap counter-drone that doesn’t require million-dollar interceptors. “The visionaries who understand this will win the next war.”

The Hopium

The Half Of The Boom Nobody's Funding

I’m Const. 12 years in US manufacturing. Ran a machine shop, built DigiFabster (quick quoting for job shops), worked with hundreds of manufacturers across 40+ countries. This newsletter chases one thing: the gap between the headline and the data. Someone’s always selling hopium. I find it…

a month ago · 3 likes · Const

China’s Arctic 3D build-up. The Diplomat: China’s 15th Arctic expedition sent two deep-sea research vessels as motherships for manned submersibles Fendouzhe and Jiaolong — conducting joint under-ice operations for the first time, 40+ dives over 56 days, reaching 5,277m at the Gakkel Ridge. The Wukong 6000 AUV hit 3,800m in its first Arctic tests in 2024. The 14th Five-Year Plan explicitly tasked a “three-dimensional space-ground-sea monitoring capability” in the polar regions. The PLA frames the Arctic as a “strategic commanding height” from which the entire northern hemisphere can be reached. No evidence of Chinese submarines in Arctic waters yet — but the data collection infrastructure for that capability is being built.

Russia’s nuclear icebreaker myth. MacDonald Laurier unpacks the gap between Russia’s Arctic narrative and reality: 8 nuclear icebreakers in service (no other country has any), 4 under construction, but the Rossiya program was scaled back from 3 ships to 1, older ships retire in 5–10 years, sanctions are inflating costs and slipping delivery timelines, and the Transarctic Transport Corridor is “mostly propaganda for domestic consumption.” Canadian and US polar icebreakers are expected by 2040 — using Finnish shipyards that formerly built for Russia.

MQ-28 Ghost Bat debuts in the Pacific. Australia’s MQ-28 flew in Exercise Valiant Shield — its first large-force combat exercise — marking the first operational appearance of a loyal wingman alongside F-35s and F/A-18s in the Indo-Pacific. Significant: this is allied, not just Australian hardware.

China studied US stealth — and got it wrong. USAF China Aerospace Studies Institute fellow Maj. Derek Ecklebe: China treats stealth as a technology problem; the US treats it as a system — technology integrated with tactics. China’s J-35 replicates F-35 features but “prioritizes hardware metrics over software-defined adaptability.” Chinese air defences are formidable not because of any single radar but because of unified IADS integration. The strategic risk: if Beijing believes it has neutralized American stealth, it may feel emboldened on Taiwan.

Space acquisition: the next war starts here. Former USAF No. 2 Gen. Jim Slife, in his first op-ed since leaving service: current “exquisite” space systems are massive, multi-billion-dollar soft targets. If one gets jammed or destroyed, replacement takes years. The answer: proliferated, commercially-developed, agile orbital systems that can maneuver, service, and “fire back.” The procurement path: Commercial Solutions Openings and Other Transaction Authorities as the norm, not the exception. Congress has already given acquisition leaders the authority — the barrier is institutional will.

The post-quantum clock is running. The Department of War’s PQC Strategy sets two hard deadlines: all DoW systems must support PQC by December 31, 2030; all must exclusively use PQC by December 31, 2031. A Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computer would give an adversary the ability to decrypt classified data, forge software signatures, access C2 systems, and gain unauthorized control of warfighting platforms. QKD and quantum networking are explicitly prohibited as substitutes.

Sea drones sink ships. Bloomberg: in an unannounced exercise in the Philippines, US special forces guided Magura-class uncrewed surface vessels — the same Ukrainian-developed drones that ravaged Russia’s Black Sea fleet — into a decommissioned target ship. It sank within seconds. First Indo-Pacific trial. The Pentagon is now studying this capability as a China counter.

Ukraine's Arms Monitor

Ukraine Drone Brief

Business cooperation between Ukrainian and Western defence producers in the unmanned tech sector is booming — so soon I may need to launch a special newsletter just to cover these developments…

a month ago · 35 likes · 1 comment · Olena Kryzhanivska

USCYBERCOM: talent problem, structural fix. Line of Departure proposes treating cyber operators like special forces and doctors: centralize under one command (model: Space Force), tie mission directly to NDS, and pay retention bonuses akin to jump pay or medical school debt relief. Author: COL Charles McGrue, 35 years of service.

Related: SE3 Labs raises €5.5M (Lakestar, Sequoia Scouts) for spatial AI — helps operators command autonomous swarms in contested environments. In continuous use by the Bundeswehr, in Ukraine, and multiple allied forces. Askari raises $9M seed for a hand-launched, fully autonomous, computer-vision-guided interceptor (Rift Alpha: 2km range, ~60 m/s, hits Group 1–2 drones) — “mega oversubscribed,” turned away $4–6M, ~90% intercept rate in Tier One testing.

Eyes Only with Wes O'Donnell

Drones Changed the Ukrainian Battlefield, but Human Infantry Still Hold It

Note: I wrote this article this morning for my Medium audience of 55K people. Then, I liked what I had written so much, I said “Wes, I bet your Substack readers would like this…” So, I’m also sharing it here. If you follow me at both places, I apologize f…

a month ago · 82 likes · 13 comments · Wes O'Donnell

🔫 Hot Shots

War by other means. Palladium Magazine’s piece is the most important long-form of the week. The argument: as drones, robotics, and AI reduce the dependency on human soldiers, political power shifts from citizens to the private firms that build and operate the systems. When Ukraine’s 13th Khartiia Brigade overran Russian positions near Lyptsi in December 2024 with zero Ukrainian personnel physically present, it demonstrated both the potential and the political implication. SpaceX reportedly negotiated subscription tiers for drone control with the Pentagon mid-conflict. Anthropic’s Claude was used in Iran strikes while the company and DoW were in a legal dispute over autonomous weapons use. “War is and will forever remain the continuation of politics by other means. It would do us good to remember that politics is, and continues to remain, our domain.”

China has matched Anthropic on cybersecurity. WSJ: Zhipu AI (Z.ai) can now identify security vulnerabilities on par with Anthropic’s Mythos in certain contexts. It still trails in other areas — but the parity on vulnerability discovery is the number that matters. The White House is revising US AI export regulations in direct response.

Iran attack on NSA Bahrain: the damage picture. WSJ satellite analysis reveals the extent of what Iran destroyed at Naval Support Activity Bahrain — strikes from late February through June. Command headquarters and at least a dozen structures severely damaged; two satellite communication facilities hit. Pentagon has not publicly acknowledged the extent. Iran launched 8,000+ missiles and drones total. “No casualties” — but most personnel were evacuated. A small team remains on-site.

Ukraine’s defence tech: investment opportunity of the decade. Business Ukraine makes the case: 4 years battle-tested, 50x production scale-up, ~4 million drones manufactured in 2025 (target: 7 million in 2026), 90% of Russian casualties now caused by Ukraine-made products. Ukrainian howitzer: $2.5M, 2-month delivery. Western equivalent: $4.3M, several years. Interceptor drone: $1,000 vs. $50,000 for a Shahed. Export permits now being issued; 10 export hubs across Europe opening. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have signed framework agreements.

Lithuania went from 5 defence companies to 200. The New Defense Post tracks the boom: Lithuania is spending 5.38% of GDP on defence in 2026 (~€4.8B). Rheinmetall’s €180M 155mm ammunition plant comes online in 2026. KNDS is assembling Leopard 2A8s locally. A state defence holding company is forming. The ecosystem now includes ~110 innovative companies in UAVs, lasers, photonics, ICT, and engineering — and FPV drones are shipping directly to Ukraine from Vilnius.

Frankenburg takes aim at €100M Series B. The 2.5-year-old Estonian missile startup is building the Mark I — a compact, precision-guided interceptor — targeting 200 missiles/day production from facilities in Germany and the UK (via Babcock). Backers include Expeditions, Blossom Capital, Plural (Series A lead). A Series B at this scale would push the company toward unicorn status. CEO Kusti Salm: “The era of scarce air defence is ending.” New MOU with Milrem Robotics to mount Mark I on UGVs — distributed short-range air defence from unmanned ground platforms.

Why VC rules don’t apply to defence tech. Medium/Titus van Heur: defence tech companies don’t have a funding problem — they have an architecture problem. Standard VC fund lifecycles (10 years) create artificial exit pressure misaligned with multi-year sovereign procurement cycles. Capital needs quickly outgrow VC balance sheets; companies need institutional project finance and sovereign debt structures, not dilutive equity rounds.

AGF Capital Partners: the defence opportunity is durable. The investment case: capital is flowing beyond the traditional prime contractor ecosystem into tech firms, industrial suppliers, and emerging businesses. A significant portion of defence spending remains unallocated — creating a multi-year pipeline. The combination of sustained government spending, evolving procurement frameworks, and private capital is driving an investable cycle. AGF: ~C$14B in alternative AUM.

🍁 DND Drone Surge IDEaS challenge is live. DND/CAF are offering: $35K (Round 1), up to $350K (Round 2), and up to $650K (Round 3) for scalable, low-cost, attritable FPV drone systems. Canadian companies only. The goal: accelerate domestic UAS manufacturing capacity.

🍁 Wyvern selected for NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition program. The Edmonton hyperspectral imaging company is the first pre-Series A company accepted — among 14 selected globally. Wyvern previously received support under Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy and has inked partnerships with foreign governments and NordSpace.

🍁 Qubic raises $2.5M USD for quantum signal amplifiers. The Sherbrooke-based spin-off of Institut quantique and University of Waterloo — cryogenic amplifiers that read superconducting qubits without overheating — raised from Two Small Fish (lead), UC Investments, Quantacet, and UCeed. First customer: US-based Quantum Machines. Defence demand is growing. Total raised: ~$10M CAD. Target: 30 employees by end of 2027.

ISC Challenge: quantum laser for CBRNE detection. NRC is offering up to $1.5M CAD (Phase 2, up to 18 months) for a field-deployable quantum cascade laser system that can detect hazardous chemicals at safe standoff distances for defence/security applications. Deadline: July 21, 2026.

European Sky Shield Initiative primer. Defence Post’s guide: ESSI is not a system — it’s a coordinated architecture of Patriot, IRIS-T, SAMP/T, and future directed-energy capabilities across Germany, Poland, Czechia, Romania, and others. It runs alongside NATO’s integrated air defence structures, pools costs, and aims to cover ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, swarms, hypersonics, and electronic jamming simultaneously.

Orqa: Croatia’s drone champion. L’Express: founded in 2018 in Osijek, Orqa builds dual-use drones with a European value chain — breaking dependence on Chinese components that dominate the market. The military drone market hit $18.2B in 2025 and is expected to exceed $30B by 2034.

The Pentagon rethinks how it does R&D — The Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering has finalized its Defense Research Enterprise Review, a blueprint to modernize the department’s sprawling lab network, cut bureaucratic friction, and push combat-ready technology out the door faster. A signal worth watching for anyone tracking how the U.S. wants to maintain its technological edge

The money is rotating “to atoms” — PitchBook’s Q1 2026 data shows roughly $16 billion poured into robotics and physical-AI startups across nearly 500 deals — an all-time high on both counts, and about 4.5x the deal value and 2x the deal count of a typical quarter from 2021–2025. Robotics has now leapfrogged fintech to become the second-largest private-market category, fueled by megadeals for the likes of Shield AI and Saronic.

Canada’s defence strategy has a workforce problem — Mark Norman argues that the real Achilles’ heel of Canada’s $180-billion Defence Industrial Strategy isn’t procurement — it’s people. With a structural shortfall of 20,000+ skilled trades workers a year and a 125,000-job pledge that lacks a credible plan, he warns the strategy could quietly default back to buying from foreign suppliers. His prescribed fix: an independent annual labour assessment, a dedicated defence-trades pipeline, and a tilt toward dual-use firms.

Where the drone money might go — Barron’s makes the case for drone stocks as the Pentagon leans harder into unmanned systems, with names like Kratos Defense among those drawing analyst attention across the sector.

China’s seabed push blurs mining and war — A CNN/Mongabay investigation tracked China’s deep-sea mining fleet and found the vessels spent just 6% of their time in designated mining zones — raising questions about dual-use missions like seabed mapping and submarine tracking, as Beijing holds more International Seabed Authority licenses than any other nation

Following the defence dollars — The Department of War launched a public Investment Intelligence Center, an interactive dashboard tracking over $6.7 billion in Defense Production Act and industrial-base investments since 2015 — searchable by sector, year, location, and funding mechanism. It’s pitched as a demand signal to industry and private capital.

Drones are the problem, not the future — In a sharp counter to the prevailing hype, retired Major General Eric Wesley argues at West Point’s Modern War Institute that drones are the machine gun of our era — a lethal tool that has made maneuver more costly, but not less necessary. Drones can destroy tanks and strike deep, yet in Ukraine the front still moves only hundreds of meters a month, because no drone can seize ground, hold it, or “knock on a door and secure a city block.” His warning: the next war will be won not by whoever builds the most drones, but by whoever solves the drone problem and restores ground maneuver — through electronic warfare, directed energy, cheap counter-drone tech, and autonomous ground systems.

The $20,000 drone that should wake up the Pentagon — On June 8, a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache — a roughly $30 million aircraft — went down over the Strait of Hormuz, with early indications pointing to an Iranian loitering munition costing about $20,000. Both pilots survived, pulled from the water within two hours by an uncrewed Navy surface vessel in the first sea-drone rescue in U.S. military history. The episode crystallizes the cost-asymmetry problem now reshaping air defense: cheap, mass-produced drones against exquisite, expensive platforms and interceptors.

Related:

Anduril: Why we choose to ‘fight unfair’
Cybersecurity coding bootcamp aims to help Canadian veterans transition to tech jobs
The Digital Sovereignty Trap
Charted: How Many Years of Supply Life Are Left for Commodities?
From Five Companies to Two Hundred: Lithuania’s Defence Boom
The Right Way for Europe to Spend More on Defence
SAFE bids run in pairs, so go find your European partner before a tender shows up, not after:

Marconi on Startups & Exporting

Marconi Technologies is a Montreal-headquartered defence communications company that officially launched in May as a standalone, Canadian majority-owned defence prime with approximately 300 employees and operations across Canada, the UK, and the US…

a month ago · 3 likes · Ethan Marcoux

The US Navy is shifting its munitions strategy by investing in Project Blackbeard
The Canadian Space Agency has disclosed $5.05 billion in contracts since 1999, and about 80% of it is one company
RAND documents the US defence ecosystem
Will Canada Lose Its Nerve? Canada Has Defence Momentum. Now Comes the Hard Part
The real defence cluster — Huntsville, Alabama

A housekeeping note. We’ve been slowly moving off Substack and onto a new distribution list manager. Nothing about the newsletter changes except how it reaches your inbox — same time, same place: 0600 EST. If your next issue doesn’t land at 0600 EST as expected, please reply and let us know so we can make sure you don’t miss a beat during the switch.

Canada's defence business census results

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:01:21 GMT

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Canada doesn’t have a defence SME problem. It has a conversion problem.

That’s the headline finding from the first-ever national survey of Canadian defence SMEs — conducted by The Icebreaker and BDC, released last week to coverage in the Globe and Mail, BetaKit, and Financial Post. Six hundred and forty-two business owners. Proprietary data. The most comprehensive picture of Canada’s defence SME ecosystem ever assembled.

The findings are not comfortable:

Canada’s defence sector is splitting into three speeds. A small group of defence-heavy firms — companies deriving the majority of their revenue from military contracts — are already operating at or near full capacity. Twenty-one percent are producing flat-out. Thirty percent face significant labour shortages. Seventy-four percent need $1M+ in financing. Thirty-nine percent need $5M+. They are sprinting and they are running out of road. The middle cohort — defence-light SMEs — sees the opportunity, but is moving cautiously, still anchored to civilian revenue streams that are themselves slowing (Canadian manufacturing: three consecutive years of recession). And then there is the third group: 374 firms that want in — and can’t find the door. These are the companies that will determine whether Canada’s defence industrial ambitions are real or rhetorical.

“Canada has absolutely no shortage of defence-capable small businesses,” said Icebreaker co-founder Matthew Lombardi. “What we have is a problem with conversion. We’re asking some proven suppliers to sprint while they’re already operating near capacity — and then we’ve got a lot of firms that can help, but the path into defence is extremely murky, and in a lot of ways, it’s too expensive for newcomers. The bottleneck is not from the business owners — it’s this obstacle course we’ve created from capability to contract.”

The data backs it up. Half of defence SMEs seeking financing in the next 12 months expect it to be difficult or very difficult to obtain. Not because of weak credit history or insufficient collateral — those are rarely cited. Because lenders face reputational and legal concerns that prompt many to avoid the sector entirely. Only a quarter of defence-heavy SMEs say their current financial institution fully meets their needs.

The barriers are not abstract. They are: Controlled Goods Program registration. ISO 27001 cybersecurity certification. AS9100 quality systems. Security clearances. Procurement processes so opaque that 38% of interested entrants say they plan to hire external consultants just to navigate them. Meanwhile, SMEs represent 92% of all businesses in Canada’s defence sector and 40% of its employment. The backbone is under-resourced and under-supported.

“Leaving our startups behind is now Canada’s biggest national security risk”

Reality check: Canada has pledged to reach 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035 — ~$159B per year, more than double current spending. The federal government has pledged to procure Canadian wherever feasible. BDC has a $6B defence platform and is launching a matchmaking program to connect SMEs with prime contractors. These are the right moves. But as BDC chief economist Pierre Cléroux put it: “We are at the beginning — there’s a lot of work to do.”

Bottom Line: The spending is coming. The demand signal is real. Eighty-seven percent of defence-heavy SMEs expect growth in defence revenues in the next 24 months. But growth without capacity is a bottleneck, not an opportunity. If Ottawa wants domestic capability this decade, the on-ramp for small businesses needs to get dramatically easier — faster. The Icebreaker and BDC will keep pushing until it does.

Related:

Startups, Sovereignty, and the New Defence Economy with Juno’s Hunter Scharfe
Very useful new report from the Procurement Ombuds explaining the defence procurement system in depth
Canada Needs a Procurement Bridge for Proven Defence Technology
“Buy Canadian” won’t fix defence procurement until Ottawa defines “Canadian”
Last week, CCI’s Dana O’Born testified before the Standing Committee on Science and Research, speaking about the Dual-Use Mapping that CCI undertook last year in partnership with The Icebreaker
Northern Defence, a short film about Canada’s Arctic

🏆Canada can’t build sovereign capability without backing the startups building it:

That’s why DMZ Ventures is launching the $100K Dual-Use and Sovereign Tech Investment Prize at Startupfest, investing in startups driving Canada’s resilience and national security.

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

🤝 Deal Corner

🍁 The pipeline nobody fixed. Matthew Lombardi and Abdullah Snobar (DMZ Executive Director, CAF veteran) in the Globe and Mail: “Leaving our startups behind is now Canada’s biggest national security risk.” The indictment is data-backed — Canadian SMEs wait an average of 18 months for a security clearance just to propose a contract. IDEaS has no contracting mechanism. “If one envisions the defence ecosystem as a pipeline, Canada is well-supported at the beginning and well-equipped at the end. However, there is underinvestment in the middle section. This is where Canadian startups often fail, while foreign defence firms — primarily American — succeed.”

Should dual use be a hedge against the defence procurement system?

Wars trigger $12bn venture capital rush into defence tech. Funding this year has already surpassed 2025 total as soaring valuations fuel fears of a hype cycle.

Feds’ defence spending ambitions opening market for private capital

🍁 MDA goes shopping in Colorado. MDA Space is acquiring Blue Canyon Technologies from RTX for $874M cash — all-cash, expected to close end of 2026. The play isn’t the satellite bus technology. It’s the US security clearance. As a US-domiciled prime, MDA can now bid on classified defence contracts it was previously locked out of. Opportunity pipeline: ~$45B.

🍁 NorthStar locks RCAF contract, eyes NYSE. The Montreal-based space surveillance firm secured a $40M+ CAD contract with the RCAF’s 3 Canadian Space Division to track objects in orbit and detect threats. This fall, it goes public via SPAC merger with Viking Acquisition Corp at a $300M USD valuation.

🍁 Marconi Technologies: Canada’s first SAFE contract. The Montreal firm will deliver C$10M+ in ORION tactical radios to Poland’s Cyber Command — announced by PM Carney at G7 in Évian. Canada is the only non-European member of the €150B SAFE procurement scheme. Deliveries run through 2030, touching ~100 Canadian suppliers. Partner: Polish firm Enamor International. CBC | The Deep Dive

🍁 NordSpace opens Rocket Factory 1 in Markham. 60,000 sq ft. Up to 255 employees. Consolidates design, engineering, manufacturing, integration, and mission control under one roof. Part of an $8M federal project. Also in the works: a 50-acre propulsion test range in Eastern Ontario and a commercial launch hub in Newfoundland. A 200,000 sq ft medium-lift facility breaks ground later this year.

How to Win a Space War

a month ago · 145 likes · 1 comment · Christian Keil and Alex Oliver

🍁 NorthForge rolls out the Dispatch. An all-electric tactical motorcycle with 80%+ Canadian content. Specs: silent operation (<50dB), operational range of -45°C to +45°C, 200km range, 110 km/h top speed, 200kg cargo capacity, 10-year service life. Battery: SysNergie (Magog, QC). The whole unit disassembles with 3 tools and ships in a 5’x3’x2’ crate. Presented at CANSEC. Ready for trials. Canadian Defence Review

🍁 Canada’s $80B submarine contract: dealmaking blitz. Hanwha vs TKMS — both are carpet-bombing Canadian industry with partnerships ahead of a decision. Hanwha: 70+ partnerships, GM/APMA 51% MOU for military vehicles, $275M Algoma Steel investment, claims $96B economic impact. TKMS: Seaspan teaming, EllisDon facilities design, E3 Lithium battery partnership, torpedo factory proposal, claims $86B impact. Decision imminent.

CCA dual-award: USAF buys both. The Air Force ordered both the Anduril FQ-44A Fury and the General Atomics FQ-42A Dark Merlin into production simultaneously — 4 months ahead of schedule. ~$1B in FY27 budget. Target: 150+ combat-capable CCAs by end of decade at sub-$30M per unit. Anduril is the only company holding both hardware and software (mission autonomy) CCA contracts.

Rune TyrOS: $99M Army logistics AI contract. 5-year IDIQ. TyrOS predicts and tracks gear, fuel, food, and parts from edge devices to command level. Platform includes Saga (frontline AI agent) and an Autonomy Development Kit for autonomous vehicles. Open to any Army component and joint force partner.

Impulse Space closes $500M Series D. Tom Mueller — SpaceX’s founding propulsion engineer, builder of the Merlin engine — has now raised >$1B total for Impulse Space at a ~$4B valuation (up from $1.8B). Contracted backlog: $200M+. The company was selected alongside Anduril for Golden Dome space-based interceptors — a $185B program. Mira has flown 3x; Helios targets 2027. The Merge

Powerus raises $30M from Unusual Machines. Florida drone roll-up spanning heavy lift (Kaizen: 100–2,000 lb), FPV quadcopters (Tandem), and maritime USVs (Agile Autonomy), plus Guardian 1+2 interceptors. Has a deal with USAF to supply “at scale.” Tectonic Defense

Kate’s Substack

The Drone Arms Race Trap is About to Snap Shut

In the skies over Ukraine, a relentless arms race defines the war’s grinding reality. Russia launches hundreds of drones and missiles in nightly barrages. Ukraine counters with thousands of cheap interceptors. On paper, this favours the defender - low-cost tools neutralizing higher-cost threats. In practice, it is a classic trap: the defender must innov…

2 months ago · 5 likes · Kate McKenna

BAE Systems goes LP. €50M split between Lakestar (Switzerland, raising $300M defence fund) and Expeditions (Poland, >€200M committed). BAE is becoming a recurring LP in European defence VC — and may add more funds.

🍁 JPMorgan extends security bet to Canada. JPMorgan’s Security and Resiliency Initiative — a US$1.5T global pledge across defence, aerospace, energy, and infrastructure — has extended to Canada. Canadian ops doubled revenue over 5 years. The bank is also backing the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB), HQ’d in Canada. Globe and Mail

🍁 Canada’s growth-stage gap. Canada ranks near the bottom of the OECD for SME lending per capita. Growth-stage investment ($5M–$25M range) “plummeted to almost zero” last quarter. Proposed fix: a Canadian Debt Growth Fund backed by pension capital, private lenders, and a government guarantee.

Canada's First National Security VC | Glenn Cowan — Explorer Spotlight #3

2 months ago · 2 likes · Ethan Marcoux

🍁 Nova Scotia Spaceport: strategic, not just economic. The case for a $200M federal investment (90% spent domestically) over 10 years: a 2-year global launch waiting list, 10,000 direct aerospace/defence jobs in Atlantic Canada, and Isar Aerospace already signed a LoI with Maritime Launch Services (Canso). MacDonald Laurier | Globe and Mail

France drops Palantir. DGSI chose ChapsVision. German intelligence did too. Europe is actively decoupling from US tech in its most sensitive national security applications.

Related: How Canadian SMBs can use ITB obligations to win defence work — Dewis Ventures breaks down the 10 Sovereign Capabilities, the new 2026 policy (9x R&D multiplier, 5x Strategic Investment), and the 90-day approval standard against a $180B procurement target by 2035.

Related:

GUILD is betting AI can do what decades of Pentagon reform couldn’t
Pentagon inks pair of rare earth mineral loans for $1.2 billion
Traysar emerges from stealth with $25M seed for subterranean defence tech
NSA chief says Mythos breached ‘almost all’ classified systems in hours
- Anthropic to disable its most advanced AI models after US order limiting foreign access
- AI models capable of devastating attacks on governments and business months away, rare Five Eyes statement warns
- Hostile states behind three-quarters of attacks on Britain’s critical infrastructure, cyber chief warns
Earlybird raising €500m defence fund with French investor AVP
How a former Russian TV anchor ended up suing Canada’s go-to rocket company
French battlefield software startup Comand AI raises €32m from Blossom Capital, Saab
- Everyone Wants Innovation. Nobody Wants Integration.
Less crew, more ground: UGVs dominate Eurosatory lineup
Anduril explores Israeli expansion as defence-tech boom accelerates:

The rise of Israeli Defense Startups - with Aaron Applbaum, GP at Kinetica

2 months ago · 4 likes · Louise Boucher

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Ukrainian MOD launches TrophyLab for partners to study captured Russian tech. The Ministry of Defence has launched TrophyLab, a secure platform that it said will allow allied governments, research institutions, and defence manufacturers to study captured Russian military equipment recovered from the battlefield.

🎙️ Ep 25 - UFORCE: The Ukrainian Startup Sinking Russian Warships

UFORCE has flown 220,000+ combat missions, sunk 14 Russian warships, and downed two Su-30 fighter jets. Its Magura USV was the first naval drone in history to sink an enemy warship in combat. Its Nemesis UAV flies thousands of missions every night…

a month ago · 2 likes · Maggie Gray

Ukraine’s blackout missile. The DART launches from aerostats at 12–18km altitude. Navigation guides to 6km, then a solid-fuel engine burns to target without course correction — making it effectively unjammable. Payload: graphite filaments designed to short out Russian electrical grids. Up to 10kg. Trials are “imminent.” The aerostat is the quiet innovation here: cheap, persistent, hard to kill, and capable of carrying signal repeaters 100km+.

True North Strategic Review

Let's Talk About the Canadian Army Deep UAS Capability and Canadian Army Loitering Munitions Projects (and other drones)

When discussing almost any Army projects, the inevitable question of drones is bound to pop up. Doesn't matter what it is. If it exists? Drones will be brought up by someone. We talk a lot about drones here, and for good reason…

a month ago · 15 likes · 1 comment · Noah

Air-launched ballistics are back. The USAF is requesting ~$50M for a new Air-Launched Ballistic Missile program. Think Mach 6–10 on a ballistic arc — not hypersonic, not cruise. The last US attempt was the AGM-48 Skybolt, cancelled in 1962. China already has two fielded variants (YJ-21 anti-ship, JL-1 nuclear). Israel flew Sparrow/Rocks variants in Operation Epic Fury. The USAF is playing catch-up — but the solid rocket motor supply chain is already at its limit.

Missile Matters — with Fabian Hoffmann

Missile Defense's Unforgiving Logic Comes Back to Haunt Russia

Screenshot: Security Service of Ukraine…

a month ago · 144 likes · 8 comments · Fabian Hoffmann

Canada’s fighter decision: a senator draws the line. Senator Patterson (Ret. Rear-Admiral, 34 years CAF) is explicit: Canada’s next jet must have 5th-gen capability, full sensor fusion, and data linking. No mixed fleet — it “endangers interoperability.” CF-18s retire 2032.

Canadian bacon: Can Canada actually build a fighter industrial base? The Gripen E-only option runs C$7–10B; the full Saab package (Gripen E + GlobalEye) hits C$15–20B+. Canada currently lacks fighter final assembly, flight test, military certification, and secure software integration capacity. A phased approach isn’t optional — it’s the only viable path.

Canada’s Arctic Blind Spot: Closing the undersea domain security gap

Institutional speed is the real gap. VAdm (Ret’d) Ron Lloyd’s paper on Institutional Command and Control (iC2) identifies the core problem: Canada’s institutional processes are calibrated for bureaucratic tempo, not iterative software, drone, or EW cycles. The proposed fix: synchronize authorities, enterprise systems, and industrial capacity under one command rhythm. Metrics that matter — time from identified need to funded experiment; time from feedback to fielded software modification.

The backlog is the strategy. Deloitte’s US defence manufacturing report: the 3 largest primes carry a combined $557B backlog — 2.7x their 2025 annual sales and 30 months of coverage. Munitions lead times run 2–4 years. The bottleneck isn’t innovation — it’s throughput. The most acute constraint is the sub-tier supply chain, not the primes themselves.

Pentagon weaponizes antitrust exemptions. Under the Defense Production Act, the DoD is now allowing solid rocket motor suppliers to share production data without triggering antitrust violations. The goal: get all SRM providers in one room to coordinate capacity. $1B already invested in L3Harris SRMs.

@julia_hornstein \n\ntheinformation.com/articles/missi…","username":"leomschwartz","name":"Leo Schwartz","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1791481555325538304/jMCmRNWe_normal.jpg","date":"2026-06-17T21:54:45.000Z","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":1,"retweet_count":6,"like_count":64,"impression_count":62841,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":null,"video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

France fields its answer to Maven Smart System. Arcadia: AI-powered battlefield command built with Mistral AI, Safran.AI, Thales, and Airbus. Decentralized field-deployed server mesh, open architecture, synthesizes intel and generates courses of action — while leaving decisions to commanders. Tested at NATO CWIX in Poland. Defense News

NATO eyes a digital Arctic backbone. Task Force X-Arctic is targeting a fully digitized, data-centric multi-domain awareness capability in the North Atlantic and Arctic by summer 2027 — crewed and polar-ready uncrewed systems under human control with interoperable C2. China-Russia Arctic cooperation is the stated driver. NATO ACT

Wargame before you procure. War on the Rocks makes the case: the most consequential insight from USMC logistics wargames was that sensors were attrited far earlier than assumed and war reserve materiel was misaligned to actual conflict needs. Fix the model before you fund the program. War on the Rocks

Systems war, functional org. The PLA is organized around systems confrontation and destruction. The US Army is organized around warfighting functions — siloed, slow to adapt. Proposed fix: pilot the Information Warfighting System as the first single-owner, unified battle rhythm system. Precedent exists: IWTF-A at Bagram, 2018–2020. Irregular Warfare Journal

The Navy is commissioning tech civilians. The Navy Innovation Unit is standing up a pathway to commission AI, data science, robotics, software, cloud, and cyber professionals as Reserve officers — O-1 to O-6. FY27 start. TS/SCI required. Remote-friendly.

🍁 ProtoPod: Calgary hypersonics. Paul Ziadé of North Vector Dynamics is building hypersonic propulsion and counter-drone systems in Calgary. His thesis: speed of execution is sovereign capability. ProtoPod

Related: DIB Accelerator Conference — Philadelphia, August 25–26. DoD senior officials, investors, defence industrial base. International participation welcome.

Powerus teams with Swarmer to add swarming capability to its drones

Most aerospace organizations put engineering at the gravitational center of the company. A subset of European NewSpace and drone startups don’t. The structural difference is small on paper but profound in practice…

🔫 Hot Shots

🍁 Data residency is not data sovereignty. Senator Hay’s column is a useful primer for anyone in Canadian defence procurement. The CLOUD Act and FISA allow US agencies to compel data from US-headquartered cloud providers regardless of where the servers sit. “Data is the new above-ground critical mineral.” Sovereignty criteria need to be embedded in procurement protocols — not treated as an afterthought.

Red Lines on Chinese AI. CNAS names 7 companies: Alibaba, Baidu, DeepSeek, MiniMax, Moonshot, Tencent, Zhipu. Open weights, API pricing designed to undercut US alternatives. The finding that should get more attention: DeepSeek agents are 12x more likely to follow malicious instructions than US counterparts. Applications span offensive cyber, influence campaigns, surveillance, and bioweapons contribution. Trump’s AI Action Plan directed risk assessments — only 3 published, all delayed.

MissionThread

Where the mission lives

2 months ago · Ian Hawthorne

France’s sovereign messaging platform wasn’t. Tchap — built as a secure alternative to foreign messaging apps for France’s 825,000+ government users — was breached by a hacker going by “misere.” Claims: 73,467 accounts compromised, 13.5GB of files, 643K+ messages exfiltrated. Vector: account hijacking, not a zero-day.

The deepfake era is here and experts are scared. Hany Farid — the NYT’s go-to deepfake forensics expert — says “I feel as if I’m going blind.” A fabricated image of a Pentagon explosion erased $500B from markets. Deepfakes from the Iran war are now virtually indistinguishable from authentic footage. The detection gap is closing faster than the tools to close it. New York Times

This is the second in a two-part series on The Acquisition Reckoning…

The Reckoning

2 months ago · 11 likes · 7 comments · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

The Apocalypse Early Warning System. Kyle McDonald built a tracker that monitors business jet anomalies as a proxy for insider knowledge and coming geopolitical shocks. The premise: when unusual private jet movements cluster ahead of a public event, someone knew something. Worth bookmarking. Kyle McDonald

Anthropic draws a line. SourceCAN flagged it: Anthropic has disabled its models for foreign nationals in specific contexts. The quiet expansion of AI access controls as a geopolitical tool is underway — and most people aren’t watching. SourceCAN

Odds & Ends:

Inside Canada’s $500 Billion Defence Spending Gamble
Defence Acquisition & Capability Delivery. Part 1: Procurement Is Not Capability
Ramping up defence manufacturing in America [VISUAL GUIDE]

The Sinews of Civilization: Fire, Food, Water, Force

Weapons of Mass Production: A Strategy for Tapping America’s Entire Industrial Base

Gabriel Collins, J.D and Kai Hartman (ENS, USN)[1…

7 months ago · 4 likes · The Sinews of Civilization

Inuit call on Ottawa to be better partners or they will look abroad
Canada solidifies agreement with Australia to buy Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar system
The space economy is expanding far beyond rockets and satellites [VISUALS]
- Emboldened by SpaceX, Investors Are Piling Into All Things Space
- Ontario teachers make billions from SpaceX IPO
Coyote interceptor downs drone swarms with electromagnetic weapon
‘Defence-as-a-Service’ is more than SaaS with guns
Search the US defence budget using AI
Teaching the humans in the loop: supporting and integrating Ukraine’s unmanned systems training into Europe’s Security Architecture
A masterclass in US defence technology acquisition reform
US Army ran a free and open competition last year to replace its software command and control system for counter-UAS and short-range air defense. Anduril won that competition, and Lattice is now becoming the centerpiece of that new program of record: IBCS-Manevuer
Lessons from Reindustrialize: Electrification is the revolution emerging from this defence build-out
Do you believe that growth in Aerospace & Defence, automatically means growth for suppliers?

1st Autonomous Kill Happened 2 Years Ago

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 10:02:22 GMT

Editor’s Note: Thanks to the NATO Association of Canada and the Canadian International Council for hosting us as part of a lively discussion on AI & Warfare at the Canadian Forces College during Toronto Tech Week!

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

New Scientist reports that a senior figure in Ukraine’s defence industry confirmed a test near Bakhmut approximately two years ago: ten AI-driven quadcopter drones were sent toward the front lines, activated “Terminator mode” — and killed Russian soldiers with no human involvement at the terminal stage. Confirmed casualties: “a couple of soldiers and one truck.” No recordings exist. Responsibility was inferred from the aftermath. There is currently no international ban on fully autonomous lethal weapons. The UN has called for one. Ukraine’s own government prohibits AI in the final stage of target engagement — though it used it anyway, in a test that apparently worked.

The Promise & Peril of Autonomous Weapons: A Primer

This is not a hypothetical. It happened. The question now is what it means:

New Scientist’s reporting is corroborated by BetaKit, which noted the milestone while covering Russia’s threats against Canada. The ICRC’s SIPRI researchers put the policy problem plainly: IHL compliance depends on the system, how it’s used, and the circumstances — and compliance ultimately rests with states, not companies. Almost no major defence AI company — Anduril, Palantir, Helsing, Shield AI, Anthropic — references IHL on their website or in their recruiting. “Responsible” and “ethical” branding is not the same thing as legal compliance.

2 months ago · 12 likes · 1 comment · Louise Boucher

The New Lords of War

France is at least trying to build it in from the start. Its Arcadia battlefield AI command system — described by Gen. Patrick Justel as “our response to Maven” — was tested at NATO’s Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise (CWIX) in Poland. Built with Mistral AI, Safran.AI, Thales, and Airbus. Highly decentralized, field-deployed server mesh. Open architecture. Built to synthesize information, generate courses of action, and leave decisions to commanders. Britain is moving too — MoD awarded a £227K prototype contract for Project STRONG: a single analytical platform that fuses intelligence, generates courses of action, and supports deployment of effects across cyber, information, and supply-chain domains.

Reality check: US CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper sent a memo to his commanders on May 26 reminding them: “Our commitment to the law of armed conflict is not a constraint on our lethality — it is the source of our legitimacy.” The memo came as Hegseth called rules of engagement “stupid” and Trump threatened Iranian civilian targets on social media. The gap between what CENTCOM is saying internally and what civilian leadership is saying publicly is not small.

Bottom Line: Autonomous lethal AI is operational. The legal frameworks are not. The companies building the systems don’t mention IHL. The governments deploying them are sending contradictory signals. Canada, which is about to spend $68B/yr on defence and is signing drone production deals with Ukraine, has no public position on autonomous lethal systems. That is a policy vacuum that will not stay empty.

🏆Canada can’t build sovereign capability without backing the startups building it:

That’s why DMZ Ventures is launching the $100K Dual-Use and Sovereign Tech Investment Prize at Startupfest, investing in startups driving Canada’s resilience and national security.

Selling to Defense: What Founders Need to Know Before They Build, Pitch or Scale for the Defense Market

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

🤝 Deal Corner

🍁 Russia calls Canada a warmonger — and threatens to publish Sentinel’s address — Following the Airlogix + Sentinel R&D drone JV announced at CANSEC, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called Canada a “warmonger” and vowed to publish “the addresses of all Canadian production facilities participating in the drone deal.” Russia’s ambassador said Canada was trying to profit from the conflict. Sentinel CEO Kath Intson: “The Canadian DND and Sentinel deal will proceed as planned.” Defence Minister McGuinty: “We’ve seen this before.” 🍁

McGuinty to lead defence trade mission pitching Japan on Canadian military tech
McGuinty urges businesses to ‘take risks’ as Canada builds defence-tech ecosystem
Are Canadian investors too timid to invest in defence tech?

🍁 Isar Aerospace raises $400M CAD for Spaceport Nova Scotia — German rocket builder Isar Aerospace secured a Series D bringing total funding to ~$1.3B CAD. Maritime Launch Services signed an LoI to pursue orbital launches from Canso, NS — and DND has already signed a $200M sublease for a dedicated pad. Isar’s two-stage Spectrum rocket: 1,000 kg to LEO. Launch window attempt: June 15–21 from Andøya, Norway. If they succeed there, Canada could see its first orbital launch attempt by 2027–28. Mid-to-high inclination orbits from NS are optimal for defence communications and Earth observation. Isar is also cooperating with TKMS on the Canadian Patrol Submarine bid. 🍁

🍁 Geopolitical feature flagging: it’s here — Anthropic abruptly disabled its newest Fable and Mythos models for all foreign nationals — Canada included — following a US government directive. SourceCAN’s Raymond Luk frames this as “geopolitical feature flagging”: access to critical technology switched on or off by nationality. Canada sits in the “foreign national” category alongside Russia and China. The risk isn’t just being cut off — it’s being given a degraded version. Also last week: DND opened its $166M Valcartier research complex (80+ new labs) 🍁

ICEYE raises €1B at €10B valuation — Finnish SAR satellite startup ICEYE — previously valued at €2.5B just six months ago — closes a Series F led by General Atlantic. Revenue: €250M+ in FY25. EBITDA: €100M+. Contracted backlog: €1.5B+. Customers: 7 European nations, NATO, Poland most recently. Used in Ukraine for strike planning. Currently producing 50 satellites/year; targeting 100 by 2028.

SellingtoDefense

Technology is changing fast, and conflict is changing with it. From Ukraine to the Middle East, wars are increasingly being shaped by drones, autonomy, cyber capabilities, and space systems. Gone are the days when the large primes deliver everything the Department of War needs, including years-long contracts and rigid specifications. Dual-use commercial…

2 months ago · 16 likes · SellingtoDefense

Gardar: Norway’s €80M fund backing Ukrainian builders — Sandwater’s new fund invests in Ukrainian defence tech from seed to Series B — tech that is already operational at the front. Backed by Norwegian billionaires including Johan H. Andresen and Gustav Witzøe. Named after the Old Norse word for Ukraine (Gardariki). The thesis: front-line builders are innovating faster than VCs can fund them. Norway supplies hundreds of millions in equipment and is already co-producing NASAMS missiles with Ukraine.

Hermeus hits Mach 1.21 — and raises $350M — The hypersonic startup hit its first supersonic milestone at White Sands on May 26 — Quarterhorse Mk 2.1, third test sortie, less than 90 days after maiden flight. DIU expanded the contract ceiling to $219M — the largest in DIU history. Series C: $350M (Khosla Ventures), including $150M in debt. Total raised: $500M+. Valuation: $1B+. The Chimera engine transitions from turbojet (Mach 3) to ramjet at Mach 3.5 — the critical unproven step. New CEO: Zach Shore (effective June 1). Production: dropping build times from 6–8 weeks to 48 hours by switching to 304L stainless steel.

DEFCON AI wins $115M Marine Corps logistics software contract — The Red Cell-incubated startup becomes the prime software integrator for Marine Corps Logistics Command and Control modernization — integrating Palantir Maven, Anduril Lattice, and Rune’s frontline sustainment software into a single DevSecOps pipeline. Base year: $20M. Five-year total: $115M. Model could scale across JADC2 ecosystem.

Hadrian: $730M raised, $900M Navy partnership, 30-day operator training — The automated aerospace manufacturing startup just opened a 2.2M sq ft factory in Cherokee, Alabama to produce components for Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarines. Total investment in the facility: $2.4B ($900M Navy + $1.5B private). Army contract: $80M ceiling for Red River Army Depot. Valuation: $1.6B. Claim: a non-machinist operator is production-ready in under 30 days.

STARK unveils Cascade + Gambit at ILA Berlin — Germany’s fastest-growing drone company added two new systems at the Berlin Air Show. Cascade: tube-launched loitering munition, 100km range, 4.5kg payload, GPS-denied AI nav, <1 minute setup, 10+ fit on a vehicle. Gambit: man-portable ISR/strike quadcopter, 25km range, 6kg, fiber-optic link option. Also raising ~€300M at €2.5B valuation. Sequoia, 8VC, Thiel Capital, In-Q-Tel, NATO Innovation Fund already in.

Alta Ares (France) raises €50M Series A — Counter-drone AI startup founded 2024. Pixel Lock: onboard computer vision for drone interception — widely deployed in Ukraine. X-Lock (VTOL interceptor, 270 km/h): contracts in Europe, Middle East, Asia; deployed across three active conflict zones simultaneously. Black Bird (turbojet interceptor, 670 km/h): prototype stage. Lead: Air Street Capital.

Related: DoD expanded classified AI work to 8 companies — SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Reflection. Anthropic excluded. | PhysicsX raises $300M Series C — Physics AI for aerospace and defence engineering and manufacturing | Europe’s defence IPO wave accelerating — Rheinmetall, KNDS, and others preparing for capital markets

Related:

AGF on the Changing Security and Procurement Landscape
Lockheed Martin is writing seed checks now
MDA Space, Calian, and Kepler tapped to lay groundwork for Canada’s next-gen satellite system
Cohere says it is not working with Palantir
Inside Canada’s $500 Billion Dollar Defence Spending Gamble
⚠️ITAR by Default = Self-Sabotage?
Canadian Defence Spending; Stuck in Old Paradigms?
When an AI system misjudges a drone flight path and causes damage, who pays?
James Yurichuk: What does Canadian owned and operated really mean?
Silicon Valley Re-Enlists: How the Valley Rediscovered the Pentagon:

Defence Finance Monitor - Analysis

Defence-Tech Earn-Outs and the Price of Uncertainty

Defence-technology acquisitions rarely involve assets whose value can be measured cleanly at signing. A target may own relevant technology, early customer traction, sensitive intellectual property or a promising position in future procurement cycles, but its commercial value often depends on events that are external, delayed and regulated: export licences, cyber certification, programme eligibility, government contract awards, funded orders, delivery acceptance and the conversion of technical promise into recognised revenue. For acquirers, this creates a valuation problem that ordinary multiples cannot resolve. For sellers, it creates the opposite problem: how to be paid for future value that is plausible but not yet bankable. Earn-outs, deferred consideration and other contingent price mechanisms have therefore become part of the transaction architecture through which defence-tech uncertainty is priced, allocated and monitored after closing…

2 months ago · 1 like · Defence Finance Monitor

ROAR brings together the people shaping the future of robotics, autonomy, and public safety innovation in Canada

This year, we are honoured to feature General Wayne Eyre, former Chief of the Defence Staff for the Canadian Armed Forces, as a keynote speaker. With more than 40 years of military leadership experience, General Eyre has led through some of Canada’s most complex domestic and international security challenges, offering a rare perspective on leadership, readiness, and the rapidly evolving role of advanced technology in modern operations.

Join us at ROAR for an inside look at how robotics, drones, autonomous systems, and emerging defence technologies are transforming public safety, industrial operations, and national security. This is where operators, innovators, agencies, and industry leaders come together to see what is next and what is already possible.

Get your tickets: https://www.roarconference.ca/conferences/east

⚔️ Combat Readiness

2029 warning:

Canadian-backed firm CanBalt plans 500m euro defence park in central Lithuania
Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, speaking to CBC in Ottawa: “The majority of German society is now convinced that there is once again a threat.” Russia could challenge NATO by 2029 — a view shared among Western allies based on coordinated intelligence. Russia has $1T allocated for defence through 2036, investing 7.5–10% of GDP. It is outpacing NATO in artillery shells, missiles, and drones. The Pentagon is cutting 50% of strategic bombers, one-third of fighters, and restricting submarines designated for NATO. Germany is building the strongest conventional military in Europe — and explicitly preparing to defend without US support.

Why Does It Take Years to Get a Patriot Missile From Factory to Front Line?

Ukraine struck Russia’s Baltic Fleet at Kronstadt dry dock — a Steregushchiy-class corvette (one of the fleet’s most capable air defence platforms) was hit. Result: Russia’s Baltic Fleet has lost ~one-third of its medium-range air defence capability. Estonia’s military intel: “this will certainly hamper air defence capability in the Kronstadt area for the future.”

@USNavy rescue in the Strait of Hormuz is a direct result of DIU’s Production-Ready, Inexpensive, Maritime Expeditionary (PRIME) Small Unmanned Surface Vehicle (sUSV) program. \n\nThe Saronic Corsair used in the operation was developed through DIU’s competitive","username":"DIU_x","name":"Defense Innovation Unit","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/2013986759550414848/9idqgMXZ_normal.jpg","date":"2026-06-10T13:11:10.000Z","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":7,"retweet_count":52,"like_count":244,"impression_count":17547,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":null,"video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

First-ever sea drone rescue operation: a Corsair unmanned surface vessel from Task Force 59 (US Fifth Fleet, Bahrain) rescued two US Army soldiers from a downed AH-64 Apache near Oman — shot down by an Iranian Shahed drone. Corsair specs: 24 ft, 1,000 lb payload, 35+ knots. The crew was recovered at 3:30 AM local, then hoisted into a helicopter. The Navy holds ~50 Corsairs and awarded a $392M contract for autonomous vessels last year.

Related:

Drone wars: Shooting down drones one at a time [VIDEO]… A $200 Drone Can Sink a US Coast Guard Boat. Nobody Is Fixing It… As technology levels the field between stronger and weaker nations, old-fashioned wars of conquest might no longer be possible

Senators want a new Robotic and Autonomous Systems Combatant Command — four-star general to lead it; special acquisition and T&E authorities; modeled partly on Ukraine’s drone-focused military service. SASC passed the NDAA version 18-9. Hegseth already announced a sub-unified command for autonomous warfare.
CCA race at Berlin Air Show: Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat flew in from Australia, teamed with Rheinmetall. Helsing’s CA-1KA (kinetic attack) targeting maiden flight early 2027. Airbus showing U760 Ravenstorm full-scale model. General Atomics says its Gambit is already in the US Air Force’s CCA program and “ready today.” Germany on the clock: Pistorius says if they want it by 2029, contract must close “by next year.”
Foundation Robotics’ Phantom humanoid robot — San Francisco-based, $24M in US military research contracts, two units in Ukrainian military trials. Capabilities: 80kg carry, autonomous navigation, potential frontline weaponization. Battlefield deployment still “some way off.”
War on the Rocks: wargaming as acquisition reform — the most consequential insight from recent Marine Corps logistics wargames: sensors are attrited earlier than previously assumed, and war reserve materiel is misaligned to actual conflict requirements. “A single monolithic joint wargame is too limited.” Recommendation: distributed service-level games first, then merge into a DoD institutional series.

Canadian bacon:

Montréal-based defence technology firm Marconi Technologies has been awarded a contract exceeding $10 million to supply made-in-Canada ORION tactical radios to Polish Cyber Command.
Estonian Industry Minister seeks to strengthen ties in first visit to Canada:
- “In 2025, [Estonia] committed to having innovation procurements account for at least 2 per cent of the volume of all public procurements and 5 per cent of all procurement costs. By 2035, the country aims to have those numbers increase to 5 and 10 per cent, respectively.”
If a foreign government can switch off the AI, the cloud, the chips, or the software your military and economy depend on, your physical security is on loan
GlobalEye NORAD integration faces a hard wall: the Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) used by F-35s is not shared with foreign companies. Without MADL, Canadian surveillance aircraft using Link 16 would “light up like a tree” to enemy EW. Experts say the likelihood of the US licensing MADL to Sweden is “virtually nonexistent.” A “bridge capability” workaround would take years and cost billions. Canada would need Trump’s explicit sign-off. 🍁
Canada is falling behind on Arctic strategic power delivery — northern communities still rely on diesel delivered by air and sea. Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation (CSA-funded) is developing nuclear microreactors for Arctic bases; Alberta is funding a $10M prototype; CSMC has a Telesat partnership for remote oversight. Sax wants DND to designate a Canadian Forces base as a demonstration site. 🍁
North Vector Dynamics CEO Paul Ziadé on the ProtoPod: building hypersonic propulsion + counter-drone systems in Canada. Core message: speed of execution is the sovereign capability. Academia to defence tech in one generation. 🍁
MaRS on dual-use: the Pentagon has already been investing millions into Canadian health startups for decades. “Canada is playing catch-up right now.” Ottawa’s $241M dual-use fund is on the table. Trevor Grosse: procurement is “so complex and opaque” that only a small community can navigate it. 🍁
DIB Accelerator Conference: Philadelphia, August 25–26 — DoD senior officials, investors, defence industrial base. “Solutions Proving Ground” for manufacturing, readiness, and operations. International participation welcome.

BDC StrongNorth's First Cyber Bet | Karl Holmqvist — Explorer Spotlight #2

May 27th, 2026 - Lastwall, a New Brunswick-based cybersecurity company, announced a $16m investment round led by BDC through the StrongNorth Fund as the fund’s first cybersecurity investment…

2 months ago · 2 likes · Ethan Marcoux

Ukrainian front: Inside Ukraine’s AI-Enabled Drone Campaign Targeting Russian Logistics Deep Behind The Lines… Ukraine is currently codifying 150 new systems per month

🛡️🌏 Not Those Shades of Gray 🌏🛡️

Red’s Hellscape: Far More Dangerous Than Blue’s

In a bid to deter war over Taiwan, Admiral Paparo has dripped details into public view of his Hellscape plan to turn the waters east of China into a fiery death box for any armada seeking to attack Taiwan. Lethal UUVs (Uncrewed Undersea Vessels), loitering munitions, and one-way USVs (Uncrewed Surface Vessels) would flood the Taiwan Strait. In the Penta…

2 years ago · 39 likes · 5 comments · Austin Gray

Mapping Canada’s Defence Innovation Landscape

Canada’s defence ecosystem is moving quickly.

Over the past several months, Canada’s defence and security accelerator, Vimy Forge, has had the opportunity to engage with founders, operators, investors, government officials, and industry leaders from across the country. We recently concluded our second residency week with the Black Flight cohort. One observation continues to surface:

There is significant innovation happening in Canada’s defence and dual-use sectors, but there is no comprehensive picture of where that innovation exists.

Read an update on the Vimy Forge Black Flight Cohort, which recently crossed the halfway point of its first program as Canada’s first Defence Accelerator.

As governments make decisions on policy and funding, financial institutions evaluate investment opportunities, and organizations like Vimy Forge design programs to support innovators, everyone is asking similar questions:

Who is building what?
Where are those companies located?
What capabilities are being developed?
How mature are those technologies? Where are the gaps?

Today, there is no single source of truth that provides those answers.

To help address this challenge, Vimy Forge is launching a national initiative to map Canada’s defence, security, and dual-use innovation landscape.

The objective is simple: build a living picture of Canadian capabilities, aligned to Canada’s Key Sovereign Capabilities and Technology Readiness Levels, creating better visibility across the ecosystem for innovators, industry, government, investors, and end users.

This is not an application to a Vimy Forge cohort or accelerator program. It is a collaborative effort to better understand the landscape and strengthen the connections needed to accelerate Canadian capability.

If your organization is developing technology relevant to defence, security, resilience, critical infrastructure, or sovereign capability, you are invited to participate.

Learn more about the initiative or complete the Expression of Interest to help map Canada’s defence innovation landscape.

🔫 Hot Shots

AI war: Three ex-DOGE staffers are raising $130M from a16z, Sequoia, and others for a startup that aims to use AI to secure government systems… Senate pushes DOD to create new combatant command for unmanned systems… ASML is the only company capable of manufacturing the machine that creates every advanced AI chip in the world

AI at the Edge Is About to Kill Your Cybersecurity Stack....

For most of the past two decades where I invested in dozens of Cyber Security companies, cybersecurity has been a layering exercise: another agent on the endpoint, another dashboard in the SOC (Security Operations Center), another stream of alerts that still ultimately depends on human triage. The acronyms have changed faster than the architecture—scan…

2 months ago · 3 likes · 3 comments · George Hoyem

Grey war:

US + Five Eyes officially warned that Russia could launch a military challenge to NATO by 2029. Nordic intelligence has documented Moscow stationing up to 115,000 troops along NATO’s Baltic perimeter. Russia’s drone attack on June 2: 656 drones, 73 missiles, 33 Iskander ballistic missiles, Tsirkon cruise missiles. Ukraine shot down 11 of 33 Iskanders.
DoD released its updated 1260H List of 188 Chinese military companies operating in the United States. List updates ongoing. Additional government actions reserved.
Pan-domain warfare: joint → combined → multi-domain → all-domain → pan-domain. Canada is already using the terminology. The gap is integration: “Even in Ukraine, seamless integration has proven challenging.” Adversaries are advancing with “greater clarity and coherence.”
Small Wars Journal on autonomous sabotage: third-party drone warfare enables near-zero political cost intervention. Creates “stalemate without the hurt” — reducing the pain threshold that drives peace negotiations. Deniability is the feature, not the bug.
Gardar’s thesis on Ukrainian builders: “There are more innovative ideas being developed and used by technologists on the front lines than there are startups productising them.” Norway is building the investor-founder-user triangle. Canada should be doing the same.
Russia seems to be threatening a *commercial* satellite that provides imaging services to Ukraine
- The most important thing SpaceX has built is a cost curve. Canada’s path to sovereign launch is no longer theoretical:

SpaceX & the Sentient Sun

2 months ago · 206 likes · 7 comments · Marc Andreessen and Michael McGuiness

Odds & ends: Subcontractor Flow-Down Obligations in Defence Supply Chains… It’s hardware’s turn to eat the world… Germany Drops Jet Project With France in Setback for European Defence Sovereignty… Software, not drones, will define the next war… Have you heard about the US Army Open Solicitation?… Pentagon Needs Flexible, Agile Production Facilities

Launching the Creative Defense Network

If you’ve followed Defense Tech and Acquisition, you know we don’t just analyze the defense acquisition system, we’ve spent our careers trying to transform it. From congressional panels, think tank c…

2 months ago · 27 likes · 6 comments · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

Launching a $100K Investment Prize

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:02:52 GMT

Editor’s note: One year ago, The Icebreaker sent its first issue to a handful of defence tech investors and curious founders.

Today, we’ve been cited in RBC’s defence finance white paper, featured on CIBC Capital Markets’ podcast, quoted by Canadian and international media over a dozen times, and invited to testify before Parliament. We’ve helped deploy $300K into Canadian startups, hosted the country’s first defence tech hackathon, brought over a dozen corporate sponsors into the fold, conducted two national studies that created proprietary defence tech data, and spoken at business forums across the country as a subject matter expert. None of it happens without you — thousands of community members holding us to a 45%+ average weekly open rate. Year two starts now.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Defence startup VC funding has already hit $14.6B in 2026 — eclipsing the full-year record of $9.6B set in 2025. Just six years ago, the number was $1.6B.

The shift is structural, not cyclical: Anduril’s $5B Series H alone at a $30.5B valuation anchors the surge, with Mach Industries ($300M at $1.8B), Shield AI ($2B), and Saronic ($1.75B) filling out a roster of newly minted unicorns. Applied Aerospace & Defense just went public on the NYSE at a $3.25B valuation — raising $650M. The exit landscape is maturing.

Doing our part:

DMZ Ventures is launching a $100K Dual-Use & Sovereign Tech Investment Prize, live at Startupfest in Montreal next month. The Icebreaker will be a guest judge.
We’re looking for founders building companies that matter, not just to markets, but for Canada.

Here’s the deal:

$100K investment from DMZ Ventures
Direct access to our network of operators, founders, and investors
Fast-tracked entry into DMZ’s flagship Incubator

No long application. No gatekeeping. Just show up. Pitch. Win.

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

🤝 Deal Corner

Canada confirms $2.6B HIMARS purchase — 26 M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems from Lockheed Martin, via US Foreign Military Sales. Delivery starts 2029. Range: 300km precision-guided — vs. the Canadian Army's current ~40km howitzers. Designed to incorporate future land-based anti-ship missile capability and protect Arctic coastlines. No Canadian manufacturer exists for the system. CBC confirms DND called this the only option that met operational requirements

Canada's first autonomous combat aircraft — Ottawa-based startup, founded by Eliot Pence (ex-Anduril), has C$21M seed (led by Georgian) + C$50M internally committed + C$500K NRC contract. Building a delta-wing ACP (Autonomous Collaborative Platform) for RCAF's Northern mandate: short/unimproved runway takeoff, Arctic range, heavy weapons load, satellite-linked ground supervision. Moving into a 35,000 sq ft Ottawa facility June 1. Subscale prototype target: 18–24 months

Calian + Cohere: sovereign generative AI for Canadian military ops — The two Ontario firms are partnering to deploy Cohere's North platform (secure enterprise AI) through Calian's defence training and mission support infrastructure. Use cases: mission planning, training assessments, workflow optimization. Extended through Calian VENTURES to give Canadian SMEs access. Cohere emphatically confirmed it is not working with Palantir — "Palantir is not a customer or partner." Context: DND has paid Palantir $46.8M to date

Zighra awarded DND contract for IntentHunter — Ottawa-based Zighra gets Innovative Solutions Canada contract to test IntentHunter: an AI platform that infers drone intent from multi-sensor fusion (RF, EO/IR, radar). Behavioural intent detection — not just signature matching. Designed for counter-UAS operator decision support

Allen Control Systems raises $200M at $2.2B valuation — Austin-based Bullfrog counter-drone AI turret company. Uses standard M240 machine gun + AI computer vision to kill drones. Series B led by Smash Capital. $120M+ in contracts: USSOCOM, Navy, Army, UAE, South Korea. Releasing thousands of units in next 12 months. Up from $170M valuation just a year ago

Mach Industries raises $300M at $1.8B valuation — Series C co-led by Infinite Capital + Ribbit Capital. CEO is a 22-year-old college dropout. Products: Stratos (stratospheric platform), Viper (turbojet one-way attack UAS), Pike (long-range strike drone), Dart (kinetic interceptor), Glide (high-altitude strike). Acquired propulsion firm Exquadrum for $50M. All publicly released products are under contract

Anduril $2B counter-drone sale to Kuwait — State Dept approved ~$1.98B FMS deal days after Iran attacked Kuwait’s airport with missiles and drones (June 3, 1 killed). Systems: Roadrunner-Munition, Anvil-Kinetic, Pulsar EW, Lattice C2, Sentry Towers. Kuwait’s pivot: from Patriot-only to layered low-altitude network

Deterrence + General Dynamics team up on munitions manufacturing — Automated manufacturing startup Deterrence (founded 2023) deploying AI-driven robotics and factory optimization software at GDOTS’s Mesquite, TX facility (155mm artillery projectile bodies). Long-term partnership; evaluating expansion across GDOTS ecosystem

Scotiabank: Canada’s defence scale-up by the numbers — Defence strategy targets: 70% Canadian share of acquisitions, 50% export growth, 85% R&D increase, 240%+ revenue growth. To hit 5% of GDP by 2035, PBO estimates ~$68B/yr above baseline — federal debt rises 6+ percentage points. The harder problem: Canada’s defence supply chain is still only 55% domestically captured. UAS domestic content: 30%

Defence Tech Grows Up: The question for families and investors is not simply whether defence tech matters. It is whether a specific company can move from promise to procurement, from demonstration to production, and from strategic relevance to repeatable revenue.

Vanguard Canada’s data portrait of the industry — $17.3B revenue (+87% since 2014), 70% of exports go to Five Eyes, European sales up 78% since 2022, R&D grants up 309%:

30 Startups for a Sovereign Canada | Canadian30

Canada is recognizing the need for national sovereignty through hundreds of billions of dollars in generational investments, such as the Defence Industrial Strategy, the Canada Strong Fund, and its new National Artificial Intelligence Strategy. According to The Canadian Shield Institute, Canada's defence spending is projected to increase…

2 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Ethan Marcoux

Keeping the Drone Swarm Alive

2 months ago · 156 likes · 6 comments · John Aguillard and Ryan McEntush

Related:

General Petraeus is warning that $54.6B in autonomous warfare spending — a 24,000% year-over-year increase — won’t produce an effective fighting force without doctrine, training, and force structure. Less than 2% of the autonomous warfare budget is directed toward doctrine and integration. “A drone without doctrinal concepts for employment is not a weapons system — it is an asset on a spreadsheet.” The bottleneck isn’t money or hardware. It’s the institutional machinery that turns both into capability
Andreessen Horowitz has led an $11M seed round in Westmag by David Hansen, a new drone motor company in the US
Six companies — AZAK, HavocAI, Leonardo DRS, Allen Control Systems, Picogrid, and Anduril — walked into a demonstration with separate products and walked out days later with a fully integrated autonomous hunter-killer ground vehicle system, presented directly to the Secretary of the Army. Built in under a week. The Hunter: AZAK chassis + Leonardo DRS ACHR radar. The Killer: AZAK chassis + Allen Control Systems Bullfrog counter-drone turret. Picogrid integrated the data flows. Anduril’s Lattice ran command and control. This is what modular open architecture actually looks like in practice — not a slide deck
KPMG on the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank — Canada hosting HQ, 6 Canadian banks signed on as partners, AAA-rated bonds, World Bank model
CD Howe: C.D. Howe did this in 1939 — Canada was the 4th-largest allied war materials producer within years; annual defence spending could approach $150B within a decade
BetaKit on public procurement as a growth lever — Buy Canadian policy currently reserves only 25% of contracts over $25M; US Buy American threshold is $10,000
CGAI on unlocking the minor capital portfolio — double the allocation to $1B/yr, raise threshold to $99M, ring-fence SME access
CIGI: Canada at economic war — 360-degree threat environment, every form of national power is a potential weapon
Canada as a global defence finance center

ROAR brings together the people shaping the future of robotics, autonomy, and public safety innovation in Canada

Get your tickets: https://www.roarconference.ca/conferences/east

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Ukraine’s Droid TW 12.7 robot held a contested intersection for 45 days — 12.7mm M2 Browning, operated from 10km, serviced every 2 days. Zero casualties. Zelenskyy wants 50,000 UGVs minimum. Russia already fields 32 distinct ground robotics systems
China published HG-STR — a “kill them all” swarm algorithm: autonomous targeting across a jammed, vision-blocked battlefield. Fixed-wing drones. 100% coverage rate in ideal conditions. Designed to hunt and eliminate every enemy target with no human command
Modern warfare aspires to be pan‑domain. What does that mean for western militaries?
Helsing officially launches Area 9 research division + RX-1 robot dog — Europe’s answer to Boston Dynamics. Led by Helsing Chief Scientist Antoine Bordes. Partnered with ETH Zurich and INRIA Paris. “Until now, robotics research in Europe meant depending on platforms built elsewhere.”
Thales RapidDestroyer RF directed energy weapon swept 80 drones in trials. Four-panel effector. Longer-range engagement
Lockheed blasted a Shahed-style drone using a JAGM from a Grizzly containerized launcher at Yuma Proving Ground — first time. Managed by AI-driven Sanctum platform + Fortem R40 radar. Integration completed in under 45 days. Grizzly fits in a standard 10-foot shipping container
Anduril set to win sole-source Marine Corps ACV counter-drone contract — Pulsar-L EW platform (25 lbs, Yeti-cooler size) for Amphibious Combat Vehicles. “Unusual and compelling urgency.” Already holds a $642M, 10-year Marine Corps cUAS program of record
Estonia rolls out drone detection network across 25+ cities. Meanwhile Canada has no national UAS detection architecture

Related:

Canadian bacon: Canada in discussions to join $1.6-billion NATO Innovation Fund… DND’s Strategic Partnership Framework is live: time-limited MOUs, 5-year reviews, sovereignty-first requirements (substantive decision-making authority in Canada, IP in Canada, audit rights). Selection: DIA + ISED + DND at Deputy Minister level. Approval: Secretary of State (Defence Procurement). UAS currently has only 30% Canadian content — the lowest of any sovereign capability area
Assured access to space underpins navigation, communications, and surveillance for the Canadian Armed Forces and our allies
Defence Advisory Forum structure: co-chaired by Secretary of State (Defence Procurement), Minister of National Defence, and Minister of Industry. Meets twice yearly. First meeting: September 2026. Industry members serve on rotation. Does not address specific procurement
Open IDEaS challenges this week — AI sensor fusion (up to $6.75M, deadline July 14) | Urban AI situational awareness (up to $6.75M, deadline July 14) | True North Precision: laser ranging on small drones ($2.1M, deadline June 10) | Sentinel Shield counter-UAS wide-area detection (up to $1M + $20M follow-on, deadline June 25) | ISED satellite cybersecurity ($2M, deadline July 2)

Europe's Hypersonic Moment - with Philipp Kerth, Co-founder of Hypersonica

2 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Louise Boucher

Iran roundup: A $35,000 Shahed drone costs 220x less than the Patriot interceptor used to kill it. Gulf states burned through over 1,000 Patriots in the first 10 days while Patriot production runs at ~600 per year. The US won’t replenish Tomahawks until late 2030. The lesson isn’t just about restocking — it’s about rethinking what “layered defence” actually means. Fences, helicopters, and gun systems do most of the work. Prestige platforms handle the rest
- New era of air and missile defence: four structural failures exposed — magazine exhaustion, limited penetrations still had strategic effect, insufficient coalition integration, cost asymmetry. Fix: fire-control-level integration + disaggregated survivable architectures + affordable magazine depth + offensive action as the centre of defence. Fixed systems are targets. Mobility is a survival requirement
- NYT interactive on Iran war drone cost asymmetry: Shahed-136 = $35,000. APKWS II intercept = $65,000. Coyote = $253,000. SM-2 = $4.2M. PAC-3 MSE = $8M per two-shot salvo. Directed energy laser = $3/shot. DoD allocated $1B in FY25 to research directed energy
Elbit America + Anduril team up on SIGMA mobile tactical cannon for Army self-propelled howitzer modernization — 155mm, 52-caliber, fully automated, on an Oshkosh 10×10. Anduril integrating Lattice. Built in the US with 300+ suppliers

Mapping Canada’s Defence Innovation Landscape

Canada’s defence ecosystem is moving quickly.

There is significant innovation happening in Canada’s defence and dual-use sectors, but there is no comprehensive picture of where that innovation exists.

Read an update on the Vimy Forge Black Flight Cohort, which recently crossed the halfway point of its first program as Canada’s first Defence Accelerator.

Who is building what?
Where are those companies located?
What capabilities are being developed?
How mature are those technologies? Where are the gaps?

Today, there is no single source of truth that provides those answers.

To help address this challenge, Vimy Forge is launching a national initiative to map Canada’s defence, security, and dual-use innovation landscape.

If your organization is developing technology relevant to defence, security, resilience, critical infrastructure, or sovereign capability, you are invited to participate.

Learn more about the initiative or complete the Expression of Interest to help map Canada’s defence innovation landscape.

🔫 Hot Shots

AI war: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft AI CEOs all signed a letter calling on Congress to mandate DNA synthesis screening — the AI biosecurity threat is real: AI lowers the knowledge barrier to engineering pathogens. A 2017 precedent: Canadian researchers recreated horsepox for $100,000 in mail-ordered DNA. Gene synthesis is now cheaper… Anthropic Urges Global Pause in AI Development, Flags ‘Self-Improvement’ Risk
Why does AI in War matter?
Trump signed an AI security executive order — stops short of mandatory safety tests. Instead: voluntary 30-day government review window before public model release. Creates an AI vulnerability clearinghouse. Delayed two weeks over innovation-stifling concerns
DoD expanded classified AI work to 8 companies: SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle. Anthropic excluded — blacklisted as a “supply chain risk” after contract dispute over ethical constraints on AI in warfare

Grey war: Five Eyes (FBI, MI5, Australia, Canada, New Zealand) issued an unprecedented joint warning on Chinese LinkedIn spying — targeting government and military personnel with access to classified info via professional networking sites… New cyber force would cost up to $11 billion to start, commission says
Electronic warfare does not arrive politely after the operation begins
A Ukrainian naval drone lost control under Russian EW and self-detonated in Romania’s Constanța port — a NATO member state. Three other Ukrainian drones blew up the same day. Russia’s EW is now routinely redirecting weapons into allied territory… Ukrainian drones are now autonomously intercepting Shaheds
War on the Rocks: the Pentagon’s AI edge is being distilled away — adversaries don’t need to hack US systems; they harvest frontier model outputs through APIs. The “Arena” leaderboard gap between US and Chinese models has narrowed from 17% in 2023 to 2.7%. Stanford researchers distilled Meta’s Llama for $600 vs. $82,000. Anthropic accused DeepSeek and Moonshot AI of generating millions of fraudulent API calls to extract Claude’s capabilities
Small Wars Journal on covert drone warfare: third-party state intervention via drone allows combat participation with near-zero political cost and high deniability. Creates “stalemate without the hurt” — reducing the pain threshold that drives peace negotiations
China’s new sailless mystery submarine spotted at JN Shipyard in Shanghai satellite imagery (June 1). ~120m long, X-form rudders, no traditional sail. Possible pumpjet propulsion. Faster, quieter, potentially seabed-focused. A second similar boat may have launched at Huludao — the nuclear-only shipyard. China has launched 15–20 submarines in 5 years across at least 8 new classes

Odds & ends: VanTech Journal: “Buy Canadian” in defence software is hollow without teeth — a vendor can satisfy one of three requirements (auditability, data residency, Canadian-controlled IP) and still win a contract. Azure holds ~4x the federal cloud volume of AWS. The F-35 review is still open because the data-control question turned out to be real
Canadian Shield Institute: data residency ≠ data sovereignty — CLOUD Act and FISA allow US agencies to compel data from US-headquartered cloud providers regardless of where servers are. Microsoft’s own lawyer confirmed before French lawmakers that European-held data could be transmitted to US authorities
CBC: Canada’s cloud market is “broken” — Amazon, Google, Microsoft control ~85% of Canadian cloud market. Switching costs are prohibitive. Domestic “sovereign” providers are “maplewashed dependencies” without interoperability rules
Xona Space Systems ($170M Series C) targeting Canadian Arctic with LEO Pulsar PNT network — signals 100x stronger than GPS, jam-resistant, cryptographically secure. DRDC funding: $850K. NRC + ISED partnership to distribute Canada’s UTC standard through the network. North of Edmonton: GPS coverage degrades
DIANA’s Challenges for 2027 have launched!
Ghost Bat sales poised to take off
Introducing the UK’s 13 defence unicorns
Anduril engineers introduce a pre-execution reliability layer that verifies and repairs agent decision before any execution occurs
The CAF wants UGVs
Japan’s Hidden Arsenal: The Sub-Component Revolution Nobody Is Talking About
Government as customer and capital source: Silicon Valley itself was built on this defence relationship
Pure-play space companies are carving out a growing share of the commercial space industry

US Out of Tomahawks Until 2030

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:02:02 GMT

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Silicon Valley Defense Group (SVDG) released its annual NatSec100, an annual pulse check on the overall health of the emerging defence technology ecosystem in the US.

The top 100 received $4.3B in US federal obligations in FY25 (+22% YoY); $16B lifetime (+36%). 38 new entrants made this year’s list.

Tectonic reports that SVDG teamed up with J.P. Morgan this year, with a big focus not only on helping Silicon Valley connect with defence, but also on helping institutional capital better understand how to deploy later-stage capital into these defence tech companies.

Source: Defense Tech and Acquisition

Pete Modigliani at Defense Tech and Acquisition writes that this year’s report captured six shifts in the defence tech landscape:

Washington Rewired the Rules. Executive orders, the Acquisition Transformation Strategy, DRPMs, OSC, EDU, Reconciliation, and the Innovation Adoption Kit.
The Battlefield Imperative. Lessons from Ukraine and Iran resulted in increase in AI and autonomy experimentation to central DoW modernization priority and reshaped capital flows, procurement priorities, and operational doctrine.
Production as the Bottleneck. Drones, counter-drone systems, munitions, advanced manufacturing, and shipbuilding are all facing the same constraint: production capacity has not kept pace with demand signals or private investment.
The Capital Stack is Being Rebuilt. OSC, EDU, equity stakes, DPA-backed financing, leasing arrangements, and large IDIQs represent a new theory of how public and private capital should work together in national security.
The Primes Are Adapting. Corporate venture capital funds are expanding significantly. Prime CapEx investment is up roughly 35% for 2026. Compensation ceiling tensions, subcontracting relationships, and M&A activity are all shifting.
The Exit Landscape is Maturing. Approximately 20 companies have graduated from the NatSec100 through acquisition or public offering since 2023. These exits represent the clearest evidence yet that defence tech is producing real liquidity events and that the asset class is becoming durable.

Related:

US defence startups at 1.3% of Pentagon obligations (up from 0.6%), still stuck moving from production to programming of record

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

🤝 Deal Corner

Canadian drones will head to Ukrainian battlefield under production deal

Drones made in Canada could be headed for the battlefield in Ukraine, thanks to a new corporate partnership between Canadian and Ukrainian drone makers.

National Defence says the drones will be made by the Ukrainian company Airlogix and Canadian drone maker Sentinel R&D, which is based out of Hamilton, Ont.

Also last week: Defence tech founders are frustrated with Canada’s approach to “dual-use” [N.B. This Toronto Tech Week event was co-hosted by The Icebreaker]

Eliot Pence: Canada’s defence buying timelines are “irrelevant” for modern warfare
Defence companies call on government, investors for more support
Why Canada’s defence tech needs to rewrite the operating model
At CANSEC, the PM announced a series of new supports, including new ITB rules, and a defence concierge service that will be available to SMEs
- Ottawa is also designating domestic defence champions — a Strategic Partnership Framework that lets the government bypass traditional procurement
- Ottawa has pledged to boost military spending. Canada’s defence companies want to know what it will buy — and when

Red Team Hackathon winners from Ottawa last week

Related:

Lastwall raises $16 million to defend critical infrastructure in cyberspace
Canada + Poland lock in drone deal via EU SAFE funds
PitchBook analysts identify PE and VC winners and losers across industrials amid Iran war
- Defence tech VC hits record quarter as combat, procurement, and AI signals converge
- BCI public comps for the month include defence (thanks Christian Grunt!)
Q&A: Erin O’Toole says Canada needs to play catch-up on defence innovation
Canadian defence supply chain: There are 2,880 organizations holding Controlled Goods Program registration in Canada, and 2,458 of them have no observed prime contract

This Founder Left Washington To Defend Canada’s Arctic
How Aurmada threads the needle of fashion and defence tech

SpaceX wins $4.16 billion US Space Force contract for threat-detection satellites
- The largest IPO in history
The Growing Canadian Defence Tech Bubble is Real, and It’s Going to Hurt
Telesat and Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation announce strategic collaboration agreement to ensure Canada’s sovereign energy future
Defence start-ups face a financing wall
The US ports and bases that would actually keep a mass of autonomous systems in the fight are treated as background infrastructure:

How I Spend My Time as a NatSec Venture Capitalist

No two days are ever alike in venture capital (VC), and no two venture capitalists spend their time in the same way. Each successful VC has their own unique strategy to see, pick, win, and support the best early stage technology companies. VC feedback cycles are long – it can take 5-10 years to know if an early stage investment is successful. As such, I…

2 months ago · 21 likes · Maggie Gray

Accelerating Canada’s Quantum Capabilities for Defence Will Unlock Broader Economic Opportunities

Special Guest POV by Gordon Harling, President and CEO, CMC Microsystems

The Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) underscores how critical Canada’s quantum industry is to national defence readiness, sovereign capability, cyber resilience, and allied interoperability.

After decades of early investment and visionary research, Canada has established itself as a global leader in quantum technologies. Quantum follows semiconductors as critical infrastructure across many applications beyond defence including vaccine discovery, materials research, and crop management.

Canada’s quantum strategy, as it relates to defence, is about more than just owning quantum computers; it is about retaining critical IP, manufacturing expertise, and research and development capability in Canada as quantum technology heads toward commercial viability. The government’s focus on bolstering sovereignty includes making Canada less dependent on foreign firms for sensitive technologies like quantum.

Recent defence spending and broader government investments are being used to accelerate innovation ecosystems, scale domestic quantum companies, speed commercialization, and support adoption of quantum technologies by the Canadian Armed Forces – and industry at large.

Canada punches above its weight in quantum technologies, whether it’s computing, sensors, or communications. All have been identified as key dual-use capabilities that can contribute to national defence ambitions and map directly onto current Canadian military requirements, and all three have been identified by Canada’s National Quantum Strategy (NQS) as key priorities.

The FABrIC program, managed by CMC Microsystems, is building domestic capacity in advanced technologies such as compound semiconductors, photonics, integrated sensors, and superconductors which are all critical for the fabrication of domestic quantum computers. FABrIC enables the creation of custom components from Canadian factories in support of many advanced technologies, including quantum. FABrIC also provides high-quality training for the designers of the future who will create trusted electronic components, components for secure communications, and advanced sensors.

Canada’s quantum industry is critical to helping the country defend its networks, field advanced military systems, and preserve technological sovereignty in a world where quantum advantage may shape both conflict and competitiveness.

Article continues here. [French translation available].

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Airbus picks Mistral AI as its sovereign defence AI partner

Airbus signed a full partnership agreement with Mistral AI, the Paris-based large language model company, to deploy AI across its commercial aircraft, helicopter, defence, and space divisions. The deal gives Airbus the ability to run models on-premises.

The Defense Post writes that on-premises AI deployment means running model inference on hardware physically inside a secure facility, air-gapped from external networks. The challenge beyond security is compute: large language models require substantial GPU infrastructure to run at useful latency. Mistral’s models are generally smaller and more efficient than US frontier models, making them better suited for on-prem deployment in resource-constrained environments.

The Factory Floor Nobody Imagined

2 months ago · 21 likes · 3 comments · Louise Boucher

Related:

Christian Leuprecht described current investments as barely getting Canada “out of the starting blocks” on a 100-metre run to sovereign defence. Canada still hasn’t finalized a comprehensive list of military needs, and may not be buying the best kit
Why Swindon is emerging as a centre for Britain’s drone industry
This Sam Altman- And Peter Thiel-Backed Aviation Company Achieves Supersonic Flight
Canadian bacon: Once overlooked, Davie now occupies a critical nexus between three allies that have pledged to shore up their icebreaking capabilities… Canada picks Swedish early-warning aircraft tech over U.S. bidders - was it a good idea… After the GlobalEye program, the Carney government is eyeing Gripen fighter jets… Ontario Unveils Framework for Defence Industrial Strategy
- Canadian Victoria Cross — independent military honours review board for Afghan cases established

Thought leadership: It’s time to rethink Canada’s space agency through a national security and innovation lens… Non-Arctic State Policies and Strategies Alignments with Canada… A Third Option for Canadian defence SMEs after the Permanent Joint Board on Defence Pause… Sovereign capabilities are not built on spending alone. They are built on the architecture that enables partnerships… Canada calls for NATO strategy to secure Arctic as northern flank of military alliance
- Easier to start, harder to win — the dangerous delusion of modern war
Drone wars: Seven Companies Advance to the US Navy’s MUSV Prototype Phase… Drone on drone intercept [VIDEO]… AUKUS to develop unmanned undersea vehicles, delivery set for 2027… President Trump says that the new ballroom will have a “Drone Port”
Uncommon Leadership
The Drone War Is Moving at the Speed of Conversation. The Pentagon Isn’t.
By Pete Newell…
Read more
2 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · BMNT

Iran roundup: The US won’t replenish its Tomahawk inventory until late 2030 — 1,000+ were fired in the Iran war; fewer than 200 are produced per year… The next hot defence category is cheaper and smarter missiles — a list of startups building them… DoD reverted to spreadsheets and phone calls during Operation Epic Fury to track munitions… During the Iran war, the US relied on Canada’s embassy in Abu Dhabi to distribute passports to ~1,000 Americans after US embassies closed

Arctic shelf: Polar regions are critical to space access: China leased antennas in Kiruna, Sweden (not being renewed) and is building its 6th Antarctic station

From the Ukrainian front: Ukraine is turning the tables, using AI drones to strike vital convoys supplying Russian troops… US Military Is Built for the Wrong Century… Russian EW capabilities… How China is secretly arming Russia’s drone arsenal

🔫 Hot Shots

AI war: A Helsing wargame found that 12,000 HX-2 AI-enabled strike drones could collapse a Russian three-front Baltic invasion (targeting Lithuania) within days — Russia would lose 1/3 of attacking troops in 10 days. The HX-2 runs at 60–80% accuracy in Ukraine. Semi-autonomous swarms: 1 pilot to 10+ drones… Anthropic’s Claude has been integrated into Palantir’s Maven Smart System and was used in US strikes on Iran… McKinsey survey: 600+ AI efforts across DoD. Most leaders are not yet seeing scaled impact… A Quiet Navy Shipbuilding Move Just Put Palantir’s Software Deeper Into the Yard

Grey war: China now controls 50.7% of global shipbuilding output — up from 35.9% nine years ago, backed by ~$132B in state support. The US holds 0.1%. A projected 200,000–250,000 worker shortfall over the next decade. The maintenance backlog is now 26 years deep… UK GCHQ Director Anne Keast-Butler: “China is now a science and tech superpower… the ground beneath our feet is shifting.” The West is “running out of time” to maintain its technological edge… Chinese forces used electronic warfare to drive off Dutch frigate HNLMS De Ruyter near the Paracel Islands during the Pacific Archer mission… MIGS Institute: Beijing’s United Front Work Department is conducting foreign interference across all G7 nations. Canada is explicitly named… Finland - ‘Cellular also impacted by interference’… What is a forward-deployed engineer?

Odds & ends: The Swedish deal, the defence bank and the West’s awakening from its long dream… Germany is pledging 4 Type 212-CD submarines by 2036, with both Germany and Norway each yielding one vessel from existing orders to prioritize Canada… Algoma Steel would supply material for the possible manufacturing of land defence vehicles in Canada… Convergence Design Services (Arnprior) and 13 Canadian partners built an all-Canadian electric military vehicle — autonomous and manned variants — in 4 months for a seven-figure prototype cost… Fulfilling The Promise of Canada: Charting a National Strategy for an Unstable World… AERALIS: Innovation, Hype, or the Reality of Defence Procurement?
- Canada is the only G7 country without a geodetic station… Warfighting and War Winning in Space… Blue Origin’s New Glenn failure is a reminder of how unforgiving spaceflight remains
  - The AI supply crunch is here
  - There is no country that can fully design and manufacture a chip independently
  - How the AI age is replaying history’s oldest power game — and why the dollar is still the answer:
  Currency of Power
  The Pax Without Peace
  Pax means peace. The Roman Senate coined the phrase, the historians burnished it, and every hegemon since has borrowed the concept. Yet if you survey the world in 2026 — trade wars, export controls, chip embargoes, rare earth weaponisation, drone-contested borders, stablecoin legislation passed in the shadow of geopolitical anxiety — peace is the last word that comes to mind. Even the …
  Read more
  2 months ago · 3 likes · Marieke Flament and Nicolas Colin

Mind of Things

PhDs who can fight

I had the pleasure of spending the last several days with Australian mates. Over that time, Admiral Bradley embodied Bill Donovan’s saying, “We want PhDs that can win bar fights.” This was the hallmark of what the OSS looked for, at least sometimes. The OSS recruited hard, smart men. They also recruited Julia Child. What does this tell us about the educ…

2 months ago · 11 likes · Justin Mc

The 60+ Companies Shaping Europe’s Security: Defence Database

Ukraine’s Battlefield Innovation Loop

Tue, 26 May 2026 10:02:50 GMT

Editor’s note: This morning, we’re co-hosting 100+ folks at Arctic Edge, one of Toronto Tech Week’s most oversubscribed events, in partnership with CSMC, Torys LLP, and RBCx.

Thanks to CIBC for hosting The Icebreaker at its Defence and Resiliency Summit last week in Toronto.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Ukraine’s edge is not just better drones. It’s a frontline innovation loop where soldiers report failures directly, engineers patch fast, and products either survive combat conditions or get exposed immediately.

In Ukraine, soldiers can flag failures straight to manufacturers, frontline labs can prototype fixes fast, and bad tech gets exposed immediately under real battlefield conditions. That is why “tested in Ukraine” only means something when a system has survived multiple rotations, operator feedback, and Russian electronic warfare — not a staged demo and a photo.

Reality check: Most Western firms still optimize for procurement cycles, not adaptation cycles. The best partners keep engineers near the fight, ship updates quickly, and build around end-user feedback; the rest are still designing for Western buyers while treating Ukraine like a side market.

Canadian drone maker Sentinel to build drones for Ukraine through joint venture.

Bottom Line: The real partnership model is not Western primes leading and Ukraine subcontracting. It is Ukraine owning the fast iteration loop, while Western partners bring certification, capital, and production scale — because the lesson from this war is clear: speed, affordability, and feedback density now matter as much as technical sophistication.

Related:

BetaKit Most Ambitious names Canada’s national security innovators to watch
- “We have no idea if there are Russian subs sitting on the ocean seabed under the ice.”
Canadian defence companies call on government, investors for more support
Defence Industrial Strategy will succeed or fail in the procurement office: Detailed technical requirements written in 2024 will be outdated on arrival, obsolete by 2025 and a liability by 2026
- Five steps SMB’s need to take to get into Canadian defence fast!
  - Do I need CMMC, or CPCSC, or both – and what is the difference anyway?

Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

🤝 Deal Corner

Shield AI Tapped for LUCAS Autonomy

Tectonic reports that autonomy giant Shield AI has been been tapped by the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (OUSW R&E) to build its Hivemind autonomy software onto LUCAS—the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System.

Peter Walker

Hivemind will play AI pilot for the Shahed-like attack drone, “enabling groups of drones to coordinate, maneuver, and adapt together to changing conditions in real time, based on warfighter input.”

The company has raised about $3.15B in funding—most recently, a $2B Series G at a $12.7B valuation.

Related:

Ottawa spending $5M on defence testing at Ontario Tech University
Earlybird and AVP Reportedly Raising €500M Defence Fund
The $50 Million Rocket Deal Fueled by Trump’s Hypersonic Dreams
- Mach Industries Snaps Up Rocket Motor-Maker Exquadrum
Is HawkEye 360 the road map for defence tech and tough tech start ups?
Helsing, on the cusp of a $1.2B raise, forms space JV with OHB to build AI-based targeting systems
Manufacturing Startup Amca Closes $300M Series B
Canadians want defence dollars spent on Canadian-owned firms, not U.S. companies or their subsidiaries
Historic Marconi name returns as Canadian investors launch defence tech firm
How defence spending will shrink global imbalances and weaken US
NAV CANADA sells foundational Aireon stake in US$166M sale to Iridium
$21M provincial investment takes U of A defence innovation to the next level
Japan to support growth of dual-use tech startups with early payments
“Demand for Ukrainian defence technologies is systemic and growing in both the US and Europe” — Oleksandr Soroka, Network VC
PE deal count in aerospace & defence more than doubles in Q1 2026 as defence budgets and geopolitics drive record activity

The Venturist

Dear friends…

3 months ago · 14 likes · 3 comments · Roko Karanusic

Venture capital opportunities in Canada’s defence sector
- Canada’s defence build-up and the new M&A playbook
Anduril Unveils Voyager 1 for Mobile Compute and Comms
Harvard has a defence-tech incubator. Pete Hegseth should visit it
Perennial Autonomy Scores $500M JIATF 401 IDIQ
SBQuantum announces two new contracts (totaling $3 million CAD), to deliver arrays of its quantum sensors alongside its magnetic intelligence platform
Strike drones startup Stark targeting blockbuster new funding round, sources say
Three ex-Bundeswehr officers are building Europe’s land prime
TKMS and Isar Aerospace have agreed on a landmark industrial cooperation project to build an independent Canadian space capability… Reaction Dynamics and Hanwha Ocean sign MOU to explore strategic investment in Reaction Dynamics as part of Hanwha Ocean’s broader commitment to supporting high-potential Canadian companies through a dedicated venture capital fund
Canada’s Future in Space: How We Got Here, and Where We’re Headed
Ondas Inc. Q1: $50.1M revenue. +1,000% YoY. EBITDA profitability at the product-company level — six months ahead of plan
Edge Computing Company Armada Raises $230M at $2B Valuation
A wave of maritime startups bet that the future of naval power looks nothing like the past
JPMorganChase Expands Security and Resiliency Initiative Across Europe
European deep tech has a recurring failure mode
CDR’s Top 100 Defence Companies list
Interested in becoming part of NATO DIANA’s 2027 cohort of innovators?
Updated list of Europe-domiciled VC funds investing in defence, security and resilience
Sitreps Salary Explorer and asked veterans to share their private sector comp anonymously

📢 Dual-Use & Defence 101 Day | June 15, 2026

The defence and dual-use sector is one of the most consequential and fastest-growing spaces in Canada, and one of the hardest to break into without the right context.

Sandbox Centre, in partnership with PerceptX, Invest Barrie, and supported by Simcoe County, is hosting a Dual-Use & Defence 101 Day, a free, full-day event in Barrie, Ontario designed for companies and individuals who want to understand how the sector actually works.

We are bringing together a rare group: senior leaders with deep defence experience, alongside individuals who are actively working in the defence space today.

Speakers include Troy Crosby (Former ADM Materiel, National Defence), Andre Filion (Former ADM Defence and Marine Procurement, PSPC), Darcy Byrtus (Former President, BMT Fleet Technology), Mike Petric (Managing Director, PerceptX), Darian Harris (Founder and CEO, Fuse Ventures), Albert Behr (President and CEO, Behr and Associates), Frank Taylor (Canadian Special Operations Forces JTF2 Operator), and Adam Varey (Ballistics Expert, Former Military Police).
Partners and speakers are flying in from Singapore, the United States, and from across the province. Additional speakers and panelists to be announced.

As part of the day, 10 companies will be selected for dedicated one-on-one sessions with our defence practitioners, a focused conversation to help you understand where your organization might fit within the defence market.

This is a curated event with limited capacity.

Submit a request to join our Dual-Use and Defence 101 Day and learn about the additional opportunities we will be offering throughout the year, including our upcoming demo days and future defence programming.

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

The United States is Betting Big on Affordable Missiles

Four American companies have been selected to potentially deliver over 10,000 mini cruise missiles between 2027 and 2029 under the Low-Cost Containerized Missile program. These are Anduril’s SLB-500M, CoAspire’s GHOST, and as yet unconfirmed systems from Leidos and Zone 5 Technologies. Production contracts will be awarded following an evaluation and assessment phase scheduled to begin in June 2026.

Jordan Yashari

The Solid Rocket Motor Problem

Russia builds Shahed drones for roughly $30,000 each and launches them at Ukrainian cities in waves. The interceptors America and its allies fire to shoot them down cost ten to twenty times that, take more than a year to manufacture, and run on a supply chain so consolidated that a single chemical from a single company sits at the bottom of the whole th…

2 months ago · 4 likes · Investing in Organized Chaos

Debating Canadian Defence

Related:

BlitzBox Packs 100 Weaponized Drones Into An Unassuming Container
The Pentagon wants more missiles. The supply chain has… two engine makers
- Why 3D Printing Is Becoming The Pentagon’s Most Vital Asset
IAI’s new Diamond naval offering envisions flexible drones, missiles for small vessels
The US Navy Needs Precise Mass and Here Is How to Get There
- How a former Navy officer’s will to serve is shaping the future of hardware development
Germany chooses EU analytics company over US-based Palantir
- NATO commander: Europe has no alternative to Palantir’s warfare tech
- L3Harris-Palantir combo nets night vision production gains
- Someone just open-sourced Palantir
- Palantir fights Pentagon over key intelligence contract
This GPS-guided mortar system is meant to automate the call for fire
Drones could mean the end of sprawling bases seen during Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
Europe’s secret Plan B to replace NATO
Inside Israel’s High-Tech Campaign to Kill or Capture Every Oct. 7 Attacker
Canadian bacon: Pentagon gave Canada classified paper detailing defence priorities… Pentagon doubles down on Canada rebuke with demand for NATO spending road map, F-35 decision… The Pentagon has posted notice that Canada has purchased a number of HIMARS systems for $1.1 billion. DND has said it plans to buy long-range missile capability. But it won’t confirm this purchase… Investing in the Canadian Armed Forces is an insurance policy… Ottawa nominates chief of defence staff for key NATO role… Will Canada get to 3.5%?… ‘Keeping an eye on Canada’: U.S. DEA plans to open new offices north of the border… Canada releases updated sanctions guidance for the aerospace and defence sectors… Canada’s Snowbirds jets grounded until 2030s as replacement aircraft identified… Canada’s $1-trillion defence commitment: whose future are we defending?… Adapt or Adopt? Canada, Sweden, and Whole-of-Society Defence… Military asks personnel in capital region to return field gear, citing ‘critical equipment shortages’
- With its pause on the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, the U.S. is attempting to constrain Canada
- Project Athena is a veteran-built web map where soldiers who served in Afghanistan can upload their photos, pin them to the exact location they were taken, and become part of a living record of the war

Putting the PJBD on hiatus

The Permanent Joint Board on Defense (PJBD) has apparently been suspended by the United States. Elbridge Colby, the American Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, announced the decision on X. Created in 1940, the PJBD was the first institution of continental defence cooperation set up by the United States and Canada. Since then, the PJBD has become far…

3 months ago · 50 likes · 18 comments · Philippe Lagassé

Thought leadership: Canadian advanced manufacturing builds world-class IP – then gives it away… Transforming the Canadian Army for High-Intensity Warfare at the Divisional Level: A Digital and Structural Blueprint for Continuous Modernization… Procurement is no longer just an administrative function, it’s a crucial strategic capability… Reliable short-term capability will deliver long-term defence strength… Drones in the African Battlespaces… Alex MacDonald urges rapid Canadian pivot to lunar surface robotics… Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy: Structural Shift or Just Another Spending Surge?… Time to Bring Back the U.S. Maritime Service to Support America’s Maritime Revival and a Wartime Economy… Canadian armored vehicles defending Ukraine: key facts about the Roshel Senator MRAP
- 2025 State of the Canadian Space Sector Report
- State of Canada’s Defence Industry Report
- 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗼𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗼𝗳𝗳𝘀 𝗮𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺
Drone wars: 48 companies have been invited to compete in the Phase 2 Drone Dominance Qualifier at Camp Grayling, MI, testing approximately 78 unique drones across Long Range Strike and Tactical Assault in Close Quarters mission areas — including Canada’s Volatus Aerospace… Hyfix raises $15 million to build a U.S. alternative to DJI’s drone dominance… US soldiers learn to identify drones by sound
- CAF seeking innovative solutions for cost-effective range finding and targeting capabilities to be used on small drones… U.S. firm builds a 360-degree rotating turret to kill drone swarms… U.S. Army evaluates secretive Disruptor kamikaze drone… Vietnamese army showing off armed USV made out of commercially available technologies [VIDEO]… Crashed mothership drone that is carrying 2 FPV drones [VIDEO]
- Ukraine reached interceptor drone production of roughly 1,500 units a day in January, per its defence ministry. Output in the first four months of 2026 already exceeded the whole of 2025

Noahpinion

All non-drone militaries are obsolete

Drone warfare has been a fascination of mine for a very long time. When I read Daphne du Maurier’s “The Birds” as a kid, I imagined what would happen if the attacking swarms were mechanical birds, controlled with AI. When I read about Japanese kamikazes in WW2, I reasoned that someday we’d have drones do the same. In 2013, I wrote…

3 months ago · 715 likes · 151 comments · Noah Smith and Latent.Space

Iran roundup: Rewriting The Air Defence Equation: The Lessons Of Epic Fury… Sweeping the strait: the companies gearing up to clear the Gulf of mines… Missiles Aren’t Strategy: Lessons From Iran for a Pacific Air War

Arctic shelf: Economic statecraft harmonization via the Arctic?… DND and ISED launch $5.5M in challenges for Arctic optical comms and quantum repeaters… The New Cold War: Capital, Conflict, and the Race for the Arctic… Canadian troops are steeling to fight Russia. Will Ottawa back them?… Canadian Coast Guard getting $816M to boost Arctic security, secure southern waters

From the Ukrainian front: New Ukrainian tactic: launch a Hornet from a balloon at 8 km, drop it 42 km downrange with 95% battery intact… A Ukrainian FP2 UAV is reportedly launching rockets toward targets in Crimea [VIDEO]… Drones are transforming warfare, but you won’t find a Ukrainian commander who wouldn’t ask for more artillery or more ammunition… How China quietly helps Russia in Ukraine… Russian sapphire giant that armed missiles now faces collapse… Small FPV drones, weighing only a few kilograms, are now striking Russian supply depots… China can produce four billion FPV drones per year. Ukraine, a country that has been at war for three years and is building faster than anyone in the West, manages four million

🔫 Hot Shots

AI war: Booz Allen’s mission software and cyber capabilities now run on Anduril Industries’ Menace compute and communications systems and are integrated with Anduril’s Lattice software… AI is moving ahead but Defence and Intelligence systems are still catching up… Lyzr AI raises from In-Q-Tel… Frontier AI deployments in the US military… AI eats the world, and moves the needle more than drones in warfare

@davidu on Google bailing out of Project Maven:\n\n\"Silicon Valley’s origin was in helping the government with the best technology.\"\n\n\"There was a big protest inside Google. People decided they didn't want to participate.\"\n\n\"Google was bailing out of supporting the government.\" ","username":"sourceryy","name":"sourcery","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1983214024767553537/IenNgEX1_normal.jpg","date":"2026-05-18T15:46:52.000Z","photos":[{"img_url":"https://substackcdn.com/image/upload/w_1028,c_limit,q_auto:best/l_twitter_play_button_rvaygk,w_88/c3kau9lbcz45lr3utf1l","link_url":"https://t.co/j2wxqftXgY"}],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":1,"retweet_count":5,"like_count":71,"impression_count":194678,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":"https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2056398895090118656/vid/avc1/1280x720/_b_v8k7BRADYQt4-.mp4","video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

Grey war: Quantum Systems and Helsing Europe’s Defence Paradox - Why Fragmentation, Not Funding, Is Holding Back Scale and Innovation… Regulatory Friendly Fire: How ITAR Undermines the Alliance It Was Built to Protect… From Innovation to Weaponisation: How China Exploits the Australian and New Zealand Open Scientific Systems… Xi Has $1.2 Trillion Rare Earths Leverage Ahead of Trump Visit… Treat critical minerals as a national security asset… Patents are “Chinese instruction manuals”

Canadian Cyber in Context

Microsoft and American Hyperscalers Refuse to Accept Reality About Canadian Digital Sovereignty

3 months ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · Alexander Rudolph

Odds & ends: Poland has spent fifty billion dollars on American weapons. Last week the Pentagon scrapped plans to deploy 4,200 troops to Poland… Cogs of War seeking defence finance writers… South Korea’s Hanwha showcases submarine as Ottawa mulls multibillion-dollar contract… Beyond Capability: The Strategic Calculus Behind Canada’s Submarine Procurement … You can’t surge a sub workforce overnight… CAF seeking innovative research and development (R&D) solutions to provide a secure and resilient information eco-system by leveraging optical links via a transportable Optical Ground Station (OGS) capable of establishing communication with low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites; multi-modal AI for advanced situational decisions; virtual and physical training system for semi-autonomous teleoperated manipulators; drone surge… SpaceX has produced 1300+ founders that raised over $5.2B in total funding… Operational Reform Must Accompany ITB Modernization… Canadian SMEs: How to fully benefit from the Industrial and Technological Benefits Policy… BridgeLine was built for that intersection: translating military experience into civilian capability so institutions can better identify, absorb, and deploy high-value talent
- SpaceX IPO: “...and (ii) the Company’s completion of non-Earth-based data centers capable of delivering 100 terawatts of compute per year”.

Special Forces Advance Tech and Ops

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition…

2 months ago · 15 likes · 10 comments · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

Drones Are Eating Defence Budgets

Tue, 19 May 2026 10:02:51 GMT

Editor’s note: The Icebreaker will join a panel on AI & Warfare: When Machines Make Decisions on May 25th at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, hosted by the NATO Association of Canada and Canadian International Council (CIC).

Thanks to CIBC Capital Markets for hosting The Icebreaker on its podcast, discussing opportunities available to tech entrepreneurs in the defence sector. Thanks also to Dentons and the TSX for featuring The Icebreaker at its Defence Capital Forum last week.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

VC fund Tech Horizons has become the first European investor in North Vector Dynamics (NVD), a Canadian defence technology company developing advanced autonomous air defence systems, precision-guided missiles and hypersonics.

NVD’s counter-UAS solution, the development of which has been financed in part by the Canadian government, is designed to provide an effective and cost-efficient response to mass-deployed drones and loitering munitions. The technology is also built for compatibility with NATO command-and-control systems.

“North Vector Dynamics stood out to us because of the depth of its founding team. Scientists who have spent years operating at the frontier of hard engineering, from nuclear reactors to hypersonic technologies.
We see NVD as a strong potential partner for Europe: the technologies they are developing alongside the Canadian government are directly relevant to European security and to the wider alliance. Cost-effective, layered air defence against Shahed-class threats and hypersonic weapons remains an unsolved problem, and we are proud to be joining NVD as they help solve it.” — Matej Luhový, Partner at Tech Horizons

How (I hope) They Designed Deal Team Six

Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

🤝 Deal Corner

Anduril’s $5 billion raise turns defence AI into venture’s new prize

Anduril has raised $5 billion at a $61 billion valuation, giving Palmer Luckey’s defence technology company one of the most striking private-market price tags in the AI economy. The Series H round, led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, roughly doubles the company’s value from its last major raise near $30.5 billion in June 2025.

Operation Epic Fury made the cost-exchange problem impossible to ignore. The math of expensive interceptors against cheap drones doesn’t hold at scale. Expect mounting pressure on primes and procurement to field software-defined systems tied to cheaper hardware and shorter production cycles.

The United States Department of War has reached new framework agreements with a slate of disruptive new entrants to aggressively expand the United States military’s lethal cruise missile and hypersonic missile strike capabilities:

“Once Castelion achieves testing and validation, the Department will award a multi-year contract for a minimum of 500 Blackbeard missiles annually.”

Related:

Zelenskyy says Ukraine has a ‘drone deal’ with Canada in the works
RBC advising Ontario on $500-million ‘resilience bond’ to fund defence projects
Dominion Dynamics included in Black Flag’s Top 100 for 2026
Moment Energy raises $40M to meet ‘infinite demand for power’ with EV batteries
How a former Air Force weapons officer turned the U.S. military’s space playbook into $1.03 billion in private capital, and what could unmake the trade
30 European dual-use startups that raised $10M+ (last 12 months)
- 🔥 Defence tech is the fastest growing sector in Europe (+150% YoY)
BVVC is hunting tier-one defence investor talent
Canada’s Future Drone Innovators and Founders Take Flight at Area X.O
- CAF seeking innovative solutions for cost-effective range finding and targeting capabilities to be used on small drones. The goal is to increase battlefield awareness and support indirect fire missions through aerial surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance
A five-year-old Munich AI-defence startup is closing a $1.2B round at an $18B valuation, led by Dragoneer and co-led by Lightspeed
NordSpace unveils Chronos, its own imaging payload developed in-house for edge-AI real-time intelligence in low earth orbit (LEO), initially trained for wildfire and arctic monitoring, and to practice wide-field-of-view space domain awareness
German drone maker Quantum Systems is acquiring the Estonian intelligence management platform scaleup, SensusQ
Photonic raises $200-million, becoming latest Canadian quantum developer to reach multibillion-dollar valuation
Germany’s pushback against Palantir is becoming much bigger than a single procurement disagreement
CMC Microsystems picks 11 winners for $10.7-million edge computing challenge

Mind of Things

When I was younger, I had a commander who said, “doctrine is for those who can’t.” This is a pithy way of saying that he expected people to problem-solve and defend rationales for why we should do something, not just fall back on “because the book said so.” In some ways, this seems anathema to…

3 months ago · 4 likes · Justin Mc

📢 Dual-Use & Defence 101 Day | June 15, 2026

The defence and dual-use sector is one of the most consequential and fastest-growing spaces in Canada, and one of the hardest to break into without the right context.

We are bringing together a rare group: senior leaders with deep defence experience, alongside individuals who are actively working in the defence space today.

Speakers include Troy Crosby (Former ADM Materiel, National Defence), Andre Filion (Former ADM Defence and Marine Procurement, PSPC), Darcy Byrtus (Former President, BMT Fleet Technology), Mike Petric (Managing Director, PerceptX), Darian Harris (Founder and CEO, Fuse Ventures), Albert Behr (President and CEO, Behr and Associates), Frank Taylor (Canadian Special Operations Forces JTF2 Operator), and Adam Varey (Ballistics Expert, Former Military Police).
Partners and speakers are flying in from Singapore, the United States, and from across the province. Additional speakers and panelists to be announced.

This is a curated event with limited capacity.

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

This Arkansas Town Is Humming With the Sound of Missile Making

When the Pentagon put out an urgent call for rocket launchers and ammunition to send to Ukraine and replenish supplies at home in 2022, an answer came from an unlikely place: this remote southern pine-belt town, population around 10,000.

The town faced a basic challenge: where to find enough workers to meet a surge in demand for weapons?

Related:

The future of America’s military industrial complex
Anduril UK Selected to Build Autonomous Wingmen for Apaches
Enter the Killer Robots: The Ukrainian Forging the Future of Warfare
Pentagon strikes agreements with defence firms on containerized missiles
The US Army has awarded Anduril a contract to deliver the Battle Management solution for missile defence in the region
Introducing “𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫” - a modular robotic unit built around a centralized control hub, integrating multiple lethal unmanned platforms into a single operational system
Canadian bacon: NATO wants to build a state-of-the-art satellite ground station in Canada… Angus Topshee, outspoken head of Canada’s navy, promoted to vice chief of defence staff… Export Development Canada is hiring a Global Trade Director, Defence & Security… Pentagon walks away from Canada-U.S. defence board… Harjit Sajjan reports for duty

Tank Talks with Matt Cohen

Inside Canada’s Most Ambitious Space Infrastructure Company with Mina Mitry of Kepler Communications

In this episode of Tank Talks, host Matt Cohen sits down with Mina Mitry, CEO and Co-Founder of Kepler Communications, one of the world’s most ambitious space infrastructure companies. With a journey that spans from winning $75,000 in university pitch competitions to building the world’s first commercial optical data relay network, Mina’s experience off…

3 months ago · 1 like · Ripple Ventures

Thought leadership: “We need to stop buying THINGS—by way of rigid requirements, contracts, and timelines—and instead start figuring out how to develop and deliver CAPABILITIES—by way of continuous evolution, experimentation, failure acceptance, and relational contracting.”
- Potential reforms to Canada’s ITB Policy
- The Iran War May Be the Best Argument Against Buying US Weapons
- Dear Canada, Don’t Buy a Submarine… buy a seat at the table
- The Soldier’s Handbook on the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) – Applicable to Land Warfare
- On Ottawa’s semiconductor strategy
- Sovereignty-Enabling Exemptions in the DIAA?
- Thousands of small manufacturers underpin the U.S. defence industrial base. With limited succession planning, critical industrial capabilities will soon deteriorate — or disappear altogether
- Navigating Canada’s Crowded Defence Industrial Frontier
- The seven distinct archetypes of Canada’s defence industrial base
Drone wars: Ground zero: NATO’s drone war comes down to earth in Latvia… Telekom and Rheinmetall are developing a nationwide counter-drone defence network for German cities… Modeling the Lethality of Small Attack Drones and Loitering Munitions

Iran roundup: “In less than 40 days of major combat operations, USCENTCOM forces systematically dismantled what Iran spent four decades and tens of billions of dollars building”… UAE Building Massive ‘Cope Cages’ To Protect Energy Facilities From Iranian Drone Attacks

Arctic shelf: The Other Border Problem: How Russia and China’s Lawfare Threaten the Arctic… How Canada plans to defend the Arctic, according to a reporter who travelled with military Rangers

From the Ukrainian front: Ukraine no longer needs the US?… The great Starlink sting: how Ukrainian hackers are duping Russian troops… At Crystal Arrow war games in Latvia, Canada and NATO allies test out tactics from Ukraine… Palantir’s role in Ukraine… In Latvia, military robots roll across a new communication challenge: woodlands… Ukrainian drone pilots turn a military exercise in Sweden into a critical warning for NATO… In the night of 13-14 May, Russians destroyed the Kyiv office of the Ukrainian defence tech company Skyeton

🔫 Hot Shots

AI war: SpaceX, Google, and Anthropic are racing to put compute infrastructure in orbit… Do you actually own SpaceX shares?

Grey war: Electronic warfare is still massively underestimated across Europe… Zighra takes a different path… How Bill C-22 Went Off the Rails… Bill C-22 Surveils Ordinary Canadians While Leaving Cartel Networks Untouched… I Ran the N.S.A. This Is How to Defeat China’s Hacker Army

Odds & ends: Ottawa asks defence industry for options on replacements for aging tank fleet… Canada eyes Turkey as a fellow mid-power ally in weapons development… The US shipbuilding crisis… UBC Sauder Launches New Scale Up Program during Web Summit Vancouver to Accelerate Canadian Defence and Dual-Use Innovation… Booz Allen Ventures on how to build in defence tech… Sourcing suppliers and manufacturing partners in Taiwan

Joanna

The Autonomous Machine in Rock Creek Park

A 197-year-old gristmill illuminates the architecture of autonomy, the elemental core we still rely on today, and perspective about how to scale Drone Dominance…

3 months ago · 3 likes · Joanna

Low Cost Munitions, Higher Quantity Ships

In the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition we cover…

3 months ago · 19 likes · 2 comments · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

Debating Canadian Defence

Procurement Reform, With Teeth

Tue, 12 May 2026 10:03:43 GMT

Editor’s note: This week The Icebreaker will moderate a panel on building Canada’s defence innovation ecosystem at the Dentons x TMX Defence Capital Forum in Toronto.

Thanks to RBC Thought Leadership for quoting The Icebreaker’s research in its recent executive briefing on how to advance defence finance in Canada. Reach out to thomas.ashcroft@rbc.com to request a copy.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Murray Brewster reports the federal government will give the newly created Defence Investment Agency (DIA) broad powers to ditch the routine process for the procurement of military equipment, and new authority that will extend into other areas of the economy.

Analyzing the Defence Investment Agency Act

The Defence Investment Agency Act has been tabled, tucked into Division 16 of the government’s recent ways and means motion. This Act provides a statutory framework for the Defence Investment Agency (DIA) and makes significant changes to the Defence Production Act…

3 months ago · 32 likes · 13 comments · Philippe Lagassé

Ottawa keeps announcing funding for defence tech and Canadian innovation — but the way government actually buys technology still rewards paperwork over performance, according to defence tech entrepreneurs and at least one Senator. The current “waterfall” procurement model asks vendors to respond to massive, highly specific RFPs, which big incumbents can handle and startups often can’t. The result: Canadian innovators get screened out before they can prove their tech works.

Why it matters: This is not just bureaucratic friction. It is industrial policy working backwards. If Canadian startups cannot win early reference customers at home, they go abroad for revenue, credibility, capital, and eventually scale. That means Canada funds innovation, then watches the IP and commercial upside migrate elsewhere.

A better way: Move from giant upfront RFPs to agile procurement: small trials, rapid pilots, measurable performance gates, and the ability to stop funding what does not work. Instead of asking companies to write novels, ask them to solve the problem — then test the results.

Bottom line: Canada does not have an innovation problem. It has a buyer problem. Until procurement rewards demonstrated performance over compliance theatre, Ottawa will keep paying to create startups that other countries scale. The DIA appears to be a promising step in the right direction.

Related:

Why Canada and Ukraine Must Team Up on Defence Innovation [N.B. The Icebreaker is quoted in Ukraine’s largest English language newspaper]
- “We have also begun preparations for the Drone Deal with Canada”, says President Zelenskyy:

Europe’s defence startups face even bigger hurdles than America’s
- European defence procurement practices must evolve to embrace innovative startups and small firms, in order to meet modern battlefield needs

FABrIC’s Quantum Computing Sandbox is stimulating the development of industrially relevant applications of quantum in areas of strategic importance, and driving adoption by end-use sectors.

🤝 Deal Corner

First Canada, then the world: nation’s rocket builders see a bigger opening in space

Canadian rocket builders want Canada to stop hitching rides to space at the discretion of foreign providers, and the federal government has put a significant sum towards changing that:

The Age Of Space Maneuver Warfare Is Imminent
SpaceX didn’t become a trillion-dollar company by building rockets
As one of the earliest investors in startups building satellites and rockets, IQT helped launch the private space industry

Related:

Canada has to build new industries while solidifying the old ones
Drone start-up Helsing set for $18bn valuation as investors pile into defence
Europe races to build the low-cost weapons of future
- Start-ups complain they are helping British military modernise on the cheap… If Britain is nimble and responsive to this global crisis, there are reasons to be cheerful… CSG: Why the Largest Military IPO in European History Is Combusting
Ontario firm’s extended-range hydrogen drone prototype lands RCMP contract
Why you don’t need a PhD to invest in deep tech
Darkhive Secures $30M in Series B Funding
🛡️ Who supplies the chips for Canada’s defence systems?
Top 10 Armored Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (AUUV) Companies – Market Share Analysis
DIA seeking industry input to support the Department of National Defence’s Worldwide Satellite Communications – Protected Military Satellite Communications Tactical (WSC PMT) project
Swedish TNT Startup SWEBAL Raises €30M
Q-CTRL Showcases Quantum Navigation System at Singapore Airshow
Denmark has billions in defence offsets. It doesn’t know where to spend it
Anello Photonics Raises $25M to Scale
Heaviside Emerges from Stealth with $28M Series A
M&A lawyers on how regulatory changes driven by geopolitical instability are affecting deals
T Rowe Price release its investment thesis for Hadrian
If you’re a Canadian start-up in a sensitive sector — AI, quantum, advanced robotics, biotech, space tech — and you’re raising from a US venture capital fund, amendments to the Investment Canada Act are about to change your deal timeline in a way that almost no one is talking about

📢 Dual-Use & Defence 101 Day | June 15, 2026

The defence and dual-use sector is one of the most consequential and fastest-growing spaces in Canada, and one of the hardest to break into without the right context.

We are bringing together a rare group: senior leaders with deep defence experience, alongside individuals who are actively working in the defence space today.

Speakers include Troy Crosby (Former ADM Materiel, National Defence), Andre Filion (Former ADM Defence and Marine Procurement, PSPC), Darcy Byrtus (Former President, BMT Fleet Technology), Mike Petric (Managing Director, PerceptX), Darian Harris (Founder and CEO, Fuse Ventures), Albert Behr (President and CEO, Behr and Associates), Frank Taylor (Canadian Special Operations Forces JTF2 Operator), and Adam Varey (Ballistics Expert, Former Military Police).
Partners and speakers are flying in from Singapore, the United States, and from across the province. Additional speakers and panelists to be announced.

This is a curated event with limited capacity.

Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

2026 Red Team Hackathon Series continues in Ottawa May 30, 2026

A national defence-tech innovation challenge for Canada’s brightest entrepreneurs, startups, and future leaders.

The 2026 Red Team Defence Tech Hackathon Series continues in Ottawa at Bayview Yards. This national series brings together entrepreneurial teams and early-stage startups from across Canada to compete for $200,000 in total prize money, potential grants, and exclusive internship opportunities — all while solving critical dual-use challenges that matter to Canada’s defence and security ecosystem.

Modern Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operations increasingly rely on drones, ground robots, maritime vessels, sensors, and networked platforms operating in complex and contested environments. As system density increases, cognitive load on operators rises — creating operational friction, delays, and potential mission risk.

The Ottawa Event

May 30, 2026 Bayview Yards, Ottawa, ON
Ten selected teams will compete for a $20,000 prize pool and the opportunity to advance to the Grand Final in Ottawa November 21.

Verified Canadian Supply Chain: Cryptographic Provenance for Buy Canadian Procurement

The Challenge: With the rollout of Canada’s Buy Canadian Policy, verifying whether products are truly Canadian has become increasingly complex. Global supply chains involve multiple tiers of suppliers, making it difficult to confirm origin claims like Product of Canada or Made in Canada. Today, these claims rely heavily on self-reporting, which is difficult to validate and vulnerable to misrepresentation.

What’s at Stake: Teams will design and prototype a system that creates a trusted, tamper-evident record of product origin. Using cryptographic attestations from verified suppliers, the system should track materials, labour, and production across the entire supply chain—ensuring transparency and integrity from source to final product. The Canadian drone sector will serve as the primary use case.

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

The drone war comes home: Canada scrambles to shield military bases in legal grey zone

The Canadian military has quietly started deploying counter-drone systems around its major ports and air bases as it grapples with both the technology and the legalities of shooting down uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), CBC News has learned.

Related:

Cheap Missiles, Not Drones, Will Win the Next Air War
- Missile startups are ‘the new wave’ in European defence
Inside Anduril: Meet the quiet engineer-CEO building America’s $31 billion weapons startup
Alex Karp on why America’s decisive advantage is technology
In-Q-Tel pivots strategy for “forward-deployed” warfare and espionage
- Solving contested logistics is critical, urgent, and non-negotiable.
Data to decision making: TerraSense Analytics
Sapper Labs: if it’s not sovereign, it’s not secure
- Fusion on paper or in practice? Making the cloud work for ISR and NATO
- Shaping the understanding and implementation of the UK’s landmark integrated targeting initiative

@PalmerLuckey tells @demarest_colin on The Axios Show what weapons he would (and wouldn’t) build.\n\n“I think that nuclear weapons have been one of the most stabilizing forces in history ever.” ","username":"axios","name":"Axios","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1641458976049995776/GtO-0zYe_normal.jpg","date":"2026-03-16T18:30:06.000Z","photos":[{"img_url":"https://substackcdn.com/image/upload/w_1028,c_limit,q_auto:best/l_twitter_play_button_rvaygk,w_88/t8hojpfahfxg9jpyfgia","link_url":"https://t.co/meff4xaesE"}],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":203,"retweet_count":168,"like_count":3434,"impression_count":35828352,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":"https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2033611166799245312/vid/avc1/1280x720/X3f_z_2Oy8STTMqj.mp4","video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

Canadian bacon: Canada breaks ground on national monument to Afghanistan Mission… Why Canada is seeing its biggest military recruitment surge in 30 years… The CAF recruitment system is failing everyone… Ottawa plans to spin off federal semiconductor facility into “commercial entity”… The Next Challenge in Defence Procurement Reform: Catching up to the Future… ResolveHD is featured in Amii (Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute) Spring 2026 AI Startups Pitchbook, alongside 35 other promising AI startups in Amii’s network
- Procurement readiness: Achieving CPCSC Level 1 Readiness… Canadian and U.S. defence contractors are facing a new compliance reality: CMMC in the United States and CPCSC in Canada… CPCSC enforcement starts in July… Level 1 is harmonized with US rules

Thought leadership: Aligning Canada’s Policy Architecture with the Defence Industrial Strategy… Buy Canadian must mean building Canadian capability… How the Pentagon Should Define Affordable Mass… Canada’s universities: Safeguarding our democracy and sovereignty… BCG on US Navy targets vs. projected output… The New Lessons of the Battle of the Atlantic
Drone wars: Airlogix COO: we plan 10x growth in Ukraine, six joint ventures and four new products by year-end… Drone Swarms Packed Into Unassuming Containers Sought By DARPA… The tiny network reshaping defence tech… Ornadyne (YC P26) is building autonomous bird-like drones for military reconnaissance. Drones that look, fly, and sound like real birds… The Rise of Drone Interceptors During the War in Ukraine… Firestorm’s $82 Million Bet: How A San Diego Startup Is Reimagining Where Drones Come From… Firestorm Snags $30M APFIT Contract… Japan’s ultra-cheap cardboard drone swarms… A new man-portable drone interceptor in Ukraine [VIDEO]… Adversarial Use of Humanoid Robotics - a snippet from the Global Drone Threat Report 2026… American Innovation: a German design, copied by Israel, mass-produced by Iran, used and improved by Russia and then handed off by Ukraine?
- When a drone ‘goes dark’
- Europe’s Counter-UAS market is at an inflection point

Arctic shelf: Dominion Dynamics tests technology during Operation ‘Nanook’… On patrol in the Arctic… TKMS pitches undersea research centre focused on Arctic… Arctic ports and the shipping boom they aren’t ready for… Ottawa to pull plug on Arctic naval facility… The U.S. Army’s ‘Big Experiment’ in the Arctic Cold… Canadian Rangers quietly, confidently assert Arctic sovereignty

From the Ukrainian front: Fibre-optic drones become significantly more expensive on Brave1 Market: manufacturers explain why… Ukraine’s rapid rise as an anti-drone powerhouse

Notes from Kyiv: One Year Later

3 months ago · 9 likes · Louise Boucher

🔫 Hot Shots

AI war: How AI is transforming warfare and the US military… Five Eyes spook shops warn rapid rollouts of agentic AI are too risky… Labour market impacts of China shock vs. AI shock… Notes from inside China’s AI labs… Joe Lonsdale on the AI arms race… Will AI robots on the frontline mark the end of human soldiers?… Stop Selling Software. Start Selling Outcomes: Inside the AI Services Shift… US government, allies publish guidance on how to safely deploy AI agents… How International Law and Big Tech are Eroding the State
Grey war: ‘We are not at war, but we’re not at peace either,’ warns German cyber chief… FCC pushes ban on security updates for foreign-made routers, drones to 2029… A DOD contractor’s API flaw exposed military course data and service member records… Banned drones and routers in the US will still get critical updates until 2029… A major Chinese antenna manufacturer is supplying Russia with critical anti-jamming satellite antennas for its Geran (Shahed) kamikaze drones

Odds & ends: Congrats to BOREALIS’ Mark D. Robbins for joining the Royal Canadian Air Force Reserves… Why a World Leading AI Investor is Moving into Power… Peter Thiel backs $1bn ocean data centre start-up powered by waves… US military looks underground to protect wounded troops as drones force changes to wartime medicine… Turning Defence Demand Into Growth
- Defence capital is taking over mining… Where are the exits in mining tech going to come from?

First Breakfast

Building the WAR MACHINE

We often default to a particular version of World War II. It’s the one everyone knows: D-Day, carrier battles in the Pacific, armored divisions pushing across Europe. It’s a story about tactics and decisive moments. The Band of Brothers war, you could call it…

3 months ago · 35 likes · Greg Little, Shyam Sankar, Madeline Hart, and Blake Seitz

The Pentagon: Can the Pentagon Embrace Commercial Acquisition?… Applications for the second cohort of the American Tech Fellowship for Veterans (ATF-V) are live now… What if the defence acquisition problem had nothing to do with the regulations at all, and everything to do with the training of the people executing them?… A new Executive Order on fixed-price contracting

Speed Wins in Space Acquisition

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition…

3 months ago · 19 likes · 3 comments · Matt MacGregor and Pete Modigliani

RFPs don’t win fights

Tue, 05 May 2026 10:03:32 GMT

Editor’s note: Thanks to Sentinel R&D for the live flight demo last week in Hamilton, Ontario.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Special guest POV by 🍁 Jozsef Hamari, Co-Founder at TerraSense Analytics

Last week, two dozen industry reps spent the day at CFB Petawawa with the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (2 RCHA). We watched live as drones enabled artillery fires on a modern battlefield. Far more importantly, we learned exactly where they fail to live up to their potential.

Canadian Army artillery team demonstrates indirect fires to industry during MINERVA event at CFB Petawawa, 29 Apr 2026.

Waiting for the buses that morning, the mood among colleagues was a mix of excitement and deep skepticism. But everyone agreed: this level of transparency is completely new to Canadian defence procurement. By the end of the day, even the skeptics were sold. This is how procurement must happen moving forward.

In the defence sector, it’s dangerously easy to get trapped in the sterile world of procurement paperwork. You read the requirements, check the boxes, and deliver a product. But RFPs don’t win fights.

At TerraSense, I’ve always taken immense pride in how far we’re willing to go to find out what the actual uniformed end-users need, not just what the contract demands. The philosophy is simple: probe deep into the operator’s pain points. Obsessively ask the real people who live and work with real problems in the mud and cold, not just the requirements scorecard.
When an RFP drops, our first move is to find out who really needs this product. What their real capability gap is.

Sometimes this gets us into a little bit of trouble and earns us a scolding from an overly cautious bureaucrat who knows that saying ‘no’ has never lost anyone their job. But I believe this is fundamental to building a product that will deliver maximum, decisive impact.

TerraSense Analytics field team learning from the Canadian Army Leopard 2 tank crew at CFB Edmonton.

Importantly, this boots-on-the-ground obsession serves both our warfighters and our partners in industry. Because our technology is custom-moulded to the operational realities of the Canadian Armed Forces, we make integration and interoperability incredibly seamless. We de-risk the AI component so primes can deliver comprehensive, winning solutions without the usual friction.

What MINERVA and the Canadian Army are doing here is important. It’s one of the first signs that Canada really meant all the talk of ‘partnership’ in the new Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS). When you show us the real gaps, we can forge real capabilities. And this is how we’re building an enduring company that truly backs the operators who defend us.

Related:

Parliamentary testimony from new Defence Investment Agency (DIA) head Doug Guzman
- DIS roadshow goes cross-country
- ADM of the DIA on a new era of materiel management

Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

The defence tech gold rush is testing the limits of venture capital

The Logic reports that a gold rush mentality is forming around defence tech in Canada due to promises of billions in additional federal spending:

“Amid the excitement, however, investors and entrepreneurs warn that defence tech — with its long timelines and massive capital needs — isn’t a natural fit for the traditional VC playbook.”

US data from Pitchbook validates this challenge: Government capital is now structural. Office of Strategic Capital, In-Q-Tel, and Defense Innovation Unit are acting as co-investors and validators, not just background support.

In parallel, former defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s new startup is laying the groundwork for public listing. Juno Industries has secured $12 million in commitments to list on TSXV in reverse takeover deal.

Last week, Canada was chosen as host country of the new multinational defence bank:

Related:

ONE9’s Founder and Managing Director, Glenn Cowan, spent 10 days in Europe, including a few days with the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade Latvia
OMERS, other Canadian VC backers sitting on massive Xanadu stock returns – but they can’t sell yet
‘America’s seed fund’ is being revamped for modern warfare
24 European defence startups that raised $5M+ in the past year
US Allies Are Becoming All-Star Weapons Sellers
Defence Space Startup True Anomaly Raises $650 Million
- Canada at ‘mercy of others’ while it can’t launch payloads into space: former NASA chief economist
L3Harris closes $1bn DoW investment in missile solutions business
Skyfire AI Closes $11M Seed Round
Firestorm Labs raises $82M to take drone factories into the field
Scout AI Raises $100M to Build Robo-Warfare’s Brain
Defence primes are no longer the only gateway into joint ventures
15 hardware startups to watch in 2026, according to VCs
NordSpace announces new rocket manufacturing milestone
Texas’ hard tech cowboy ranch
Y Combinator publishes request for counter-drone swarms
Germany’s military shuns Palantir for now, cyber chief tells Handelsblatt

Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

The Canadian company tasked with purifying water on the moon

As NASA moves towards establishing a permanent presence on the moon, a Canadian company is hoping to solve one of the biggest challenges for astronauts in deep space – accessing drinkable water.

The challenge aimed to identify innovative companies that could develop technologies “to purify moon water for human deep-space missions.”

The Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation (CSMC) was recently awarded $400,000 in grant funding after it won the Aqualunar Challenge, led by the Canadian Space Agency in partnership with Impact Canada.

Related:

Dominion Dynamics’ CEO — the man turning Canada’s defence procurement upside down — on how the company is taking a different approach to developing defence technology for the warfighter [VIDEO], and on having a frontier mindset
- New cabinet position coming for defence procurement, new funding for Ukraine announced

DHS Demanded Google Surrender Data on Canadian’s Activity, Location Over Anti-ICE Posts
Ottawa commits millions to study micro nuclear reactors for Northern defence facilities
Carney’s Canada: A New Defence and Security Posture, Yet to be Tested
China’s Massive Stealth Flying Wings Spotted Together At Secretive Test Base
A.I. Bots Told Scientists How to Make Biological Weapons
Iran roundup:

How Startups, AI, and Drones Shaped the Iran War: Lessons from Operation Epic Fury

Defense tech startups have raised more than $200B since 2020, with a record $49.1B raised in 2025 alone. In February 2026, the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury, its first major military operation since the defense tech funding boom. The military technology landscape has massively shifted since the last major military conflicts involving the U.S. during…

3 months ago · 14 likes · 7 comments · Maggie Gray

Canadian bacon: Pentagon procurement post reveals Canada quietly locked into HIMARS deal… You Have No Idea How Much You Still Use BlackBerry… U.S. secures contract with Lockheed Martin to sell artillery rocket systems to Canada, other allies… Contest nearly over to provide Canadians submarines… “Canada fears entanglement with the USA, while Australia fears abandonment”… Feds roll out new cybersecurity certification for defence procurement… F-35 vs Gripen-E: Canadians say mission more important than jobs or defence cooperation when choosing the best jet fighter solution

“Twice in my adult life, I have watched the Government of Canada procure at speed. The first was in Afghanistan and the second was during the pandemic. In both cases, Canadians were dying. Each time the crisis passed, procurement reverted to its status quo paradigm. Why?” — Ret. VAdm Ron Lloyd

Thought leadership: Canada didn’t just “evolve” into a service-based economy. We systematically dismantled our status as a global peer to become a branch plant for the United States… CSIS Public Report 2025… A look at Canada’s plan to boost the military with skills training… Kepler’s CEO on Canada’s space ambitions… Arctic Strategies and KPMG Canada collaborate to advance
major Arctic initiatives… Defence spending must include health spending too
Drone wars: A primer on the burgeoning CUAS industry… A part-by-part breakdown of a typical first-person-view drone shows the strength of China’s stranglehold… Man-portable interceptors are here [VIDEO]… Japan Is Building Cardboard Suicide Drones… Swarmer and HIMERA Partner to Integrate Resilient Communications into Advanced Autonomous Systems

Alex Dolan

Firestorm vs. Purple Rhombus

Firestorm and Purple Rhombus. Distributed UAS production versus centralized UAS production. Two AFWERKX awards. Two production philosophies. The same broad timeline…

3 months ago · 1 like · Alex Dolan

Arctic shelf: Amazon, SpaceX, and Telesat are all converging on the same part of the sky. After fifty years as a broadband desert, the Arctic is now the center of a multi-billion dollar buildout… A reporter embeds with the Canadian Rangers in Yukon… How Rangers crossed this dangerous Arctic expanse by snowmobile… Finns accepting applications for Arctic Warrior Experiment

From the Ukrainian front: Ukraine to allow drone sales abroad, with caveats… A compilation of drone interception footage [VIDEO]… Ukraine’s killer robots show how war is changing… Russia entered the war with a fleet of roughly 2,000 unmanned aerial vehicles, in 2024 they used 1.5 million, and now we are talking about several millions… An open-source database of drone warfare in Ukraine… Ukraine’s Drone-Hunting An-28 Turboprop Is Now Launching Interceptor Drones

Missile Matters — with Fabian Hoffmann

Can Ukraine Jam Russian Ballistic Missiles? Evaluating Soft-Kill Options for Ballistic Missile Defense

Picture: Mil.ru via Wikimedia Commons…

3 months ago · 79 likes · 10 comments · Fabian Hoffmann

🔫 Hot Shots

Grey war: Finland reporting aviation, maritime, and cellular impacts from GNSS interference… Uncovering Global Telecom Exploitation by Covert Surveillance Actors… Amazon agreed to acquire Globalstar for $11.57 billion

Odds & ends: Denmark to procure state-of-the-art Canadian assault rifle before Canada does… In 1956, Canadair’s chief designer, Frederick Phillips, proposed a radically new airplane design… $1.3M award funds space technology innovation research at York… Financing Defence Readiness kicks off today in Ottawa… The U.S. and Taiwan Plan to Turn the Strait Into a Drone Hellscape to Stop China… NATO looking at Canadian aircraft for its new airborne warning fleet… US Navy chief wants big lasers on warships ASAP
- Canada’s top general says military won’t renew program to prevent avalanches on Trans-Canada Highway
  - AVSS collaborates with the Government of Canada through Innovative Solutions Canada to perform avalanche control work with drones [VIDEO]

Paul Wells

The Q&A: "The human may not be able to make decisions at the speed modern war requires"

Mood-swinging on the Russia-Ukraine war has lately swung toward unaccustomed optimism among supporters of Ukraine in its long defence against Russian attack. In March Ukraine said it took back more territory than Russia gained, for the first time in three years. Of course in a chaotic conflict with sky-high stakes, much could change. But Australian defence analyst Mick Ryan, a retired major-general, has…

3 months ago · 90 likes · 19 comments · Paul Wells and Olena Kryzhanivska

The Pentagon: The Assistant Secretary of War for Mission Capabilities (ASW(MC)), in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (OUSW(R&E)), is hosting a Technical Exchange Meeting (TEM) with industry… How to sell as a US defence startup… Half of ‘long shot’ Polymarket bets on military action are successful… Australia’s Speartooth submarine drone enters U.S. service… Aligning the U.S. and Canadian Defence Industrial Bases

@DeptofWar entered into agreements with SEVEN of the world's leading frontier AI model and infrastructure companies to deploy frontier capabilities on the Department's classified networks:\n\n• SpaceX\n• OpenAI\n• Google\n• NVIDIA\n• Reflection\n• Microsoft\n• Amazon ","username":"DoWCTO","name":"Department of War CTO","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1964078111819018241/rEfcWmQh_normal.jpg","date":"2026-05-01T11:30:02.000Z","photos":[{"img_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/media/HHOwIBQXcAAVpQV.png","link_url":"https://t.co/HGQoQ68uBF"}],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":389,"retweet_count":1059,"like_count":4897,"impression_count":709503,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":null,"video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

ChinaTalk

WarTalk: Still Out of Ammo

Two weeks into the US-Iran ceasefire, CENTCOM is requesting Dark Eagle hypersonics, the 82nd Airborne is flowing into theater, and the wargames keep telling us the same thing — there’s no military solution to the Strait of Hormuz…

3 months ago · 58 likes · 1 comment · Jordan Schneider

The Battlefield Has Gone Disposable

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:03:07 GMT

Editor’s note: You are cordially invited to Arctic Edge: Canadian Defence Tech & Investment, hosted with our partners CSMC, RBCx, and Torys LLP, on May 26 during Toronto Tech Week. Space is limited.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Ukraine is proving that drones are not “poor man’s airpower” — they are the foundation of a new way of war. Cheap, precise, mass-produced unmanned systems are replacing parts of the old precision-strike model built around scarce, expensive platforms. The result is affordable precise mass: millions of drones, mid-range strike systems, long-range one-way attack UAVs, and robotic platforms that can surveil, strike, and adapt faster than legacy militaries can procure.

What It Means: The bigger disruption is doctrinal. Air superiority no longer guarantees freedom of movement, because the air domain has split into layers: jets may control the high sky while low-altitude drones still make the ground battlefield nearly transparent. Large formations are punished, manoeuvre is harder, and the winning unit is increasingly small, dispersed, networked, and plugged into fast sensor-to-shooter loops like Ukraine’s Delta system. The drone is often just the last mile; the real weapon is the network.

Hamilton, Ontario’s Sentinel R&D in talks to make drones in Canada for Ukraine through joint venture, sources say

Bottom Line: The scariest lesson for NATO is not technical — it is organizational. Ukraine’s advantage comes from rapid iteration between frontline units, engineers, volunteers, and manufacturers, with changes happening in days or weeks. Western militaries still rely on slow procurement, restricted repair, exquisite platforms, and expensive interceptors. If they do not adapt, they risk preparing for a war whose basic assumptions have already expired.

Related:

Startups say Ottawa’s defence-spending boom hasn’t reached them yet
Pentagon Seeks $75 Billion for Drones in Record Budget Ask
Defence Industry Thought Leaders see Domestic-made Canadian Drones as Next Frontier

Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

For startups, working with the US Department of War (DoW) can feel like stepping into a fortress of bureaucracy

Selling to the DoW isn’t as simple as pitching a product and securing a contract. The military operates on a rigid, multi-year budgeting system — PPBE: Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution — that dictates what gets funded, how, and when. Unlike the fast pace of technology startups, DoW funding moves slowly through layers of approval:

DoW Contracting for Startups 101

3 months ago · 54 likes · 1 comment · Ryan McEntush, Leila Hay, and Alex Oliver

In Canada: Why firms and the government are co-conspirators in procurement complexity
- Defence procurement 101 in Canada
- Cybersecurity has become a prerequisite for participation in Canada’s defence supply chain

Public defence comps from BCI: At 13.4x, autonomy now trades above every defence category and most growth software
What do recent PE exits tell us about defence startup valuations?:

Related:

A history of DARPA: Washington Rewrites the Rules of Funding Technological Innovation
- The Pentagon’s ‘Last Supper’ is still costing billions
- To defeat foreign foes, Palantir’s chief technology officer urges us to confront the naysayers entrenched within the Pentagon
Cohere to acquire Germany’s Aleph Alpha in sovereign AI play
Nomi Capital Closes $50M Defence Tech Fund I
The upstarts shaking up the defence industry
Private-Sector Sleuthing Becomes Big Business for US Tech Startup
CPPIB’s John Graham says pension fund ‘open for business’ to invest in defence sector
Toronto-based INKAS touts French-Canadian armoured vehicle in response to Ottawa’s call for diversification in defence
Saildrone Unveils Spectre, Built with Lockheed Martin
As Canada rebuilds its military, Waterloo region moves to front lines
Castelion Awarded $105M U.S. Navy Contract to Field Blackbeard on the F/A-18 Super Hornet in 2027
Inside the UK’s Munitions Bet
Ten Canadian defence founders choose a hero from history
This is the defence sector’s fastest grower — and a $20 billion trade most investors are missing
Skydio Raises $110M at $4.4B Valuation
The economics underpinning Shield AI
Norrsken Evolve backs Bubble Robotics’ $5M raise to deploy an autonomous workforce at sea
UK MoD meets with defence VCs
$85 billion of exit value generated in Aerospace & Defence M&A across Europe and Israel since 2022
The AI in defence tech market map
Which European Defence Companies Are Most Exposed to SAFE Eligibility Constraints and Foreign-Control Screening Risk?
Capital markets brief: Spotlight on orbital warfare & Space Force acquisition reform

Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

2026 Red Team Hackathon Series continues in Ottawa May 30, 2026

A national defence-tech innovation challenge for Canada’s brightest entrepreneurs, startups, and future leaders.

The Ottawa Event

May 30, 2026 Bayview Yards, Ottawa, ON
Ten selected teams will compete for a $20,000 prize pool and the opportunity to advance to the Grand Final in Ottawa November 21.

Verified Canadian Supply Chain: Cryptographic Provenance for Buy Canadian Procurement

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Ottawa opens regulatory doors to space launches in Canada

The federal government has introduced legislation to enable Canadian satellite builders and launch providers to go where they have never gone before – at least, not from their home turf. The Royal Canadian Air Force also named its first Space Major-General.

Canadian entrepreneurs are working to make it happen:

NASA and Russia are struggling, so Bachar Elzein founded Reaction Dynamics to launch rockets from Canada

NordSpace Corp. has been awarded approx. $250,000 in funding under the Department of National Defence (DND) IDEaS program to advance its Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellite constellation technology for resilient non-terrestrial networks (NTN)
Everything you need to know about the ‘spaceport’ in Nova Scotia

However, not everyone is impressed with recent developments:

NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) is calling innovators to help shape the future of Arctic operations through Innovation Continuum 2026 and Task Force X Arctic
- NATO DIANA’s Rapid Adoption Service enables first R&D contract between Allies and industry
  - NATO DIANA Decision Superiority for NATO Warfighters Challenge is now open
Northrop Grumman swaps autonomy software mid-flight
Iran roundup: Indian tanker falls for IRGC crypto scam… The Iran war burned through America’s L-RASM, JASSM-ER, and Tomahawk stockpiles — weapons designed for a Pacific fight against the PLA Navy… Newly Deciphered Sabotage Malware May Have Targeted Iran’s Nuclear Program—and Predates Stuxnet
Canadian bacon: Dominion Dynamics introduces modular intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) tower, as its CEO joins PM’s Canada/US advisory group… Inside Sapper Labs, the veteran-led Ottawa firm wiring Canada’s defence intelligence… Canada Rethinks Global Telecom Networks Amid Rising US Tensions… DND seeking AI-driven solutions that fuse heterogeneous multi-domain data streams to provide real-time, explainable, and policy-aware situational awareness for operational decision-making… The luxury parka company that wants to wire soldiers’ clothing… Kraken Robotics is changing mine countermeasures

Thought leadership: The “America Is Out of Missiles” Story Collapses Under Scrutiny… European Defence Should Rely on European Technology… America’s new defence-tech industry should be a model for Europe… Building a Canadian Dual-Use Industrial Commons… Canada is entering a defence spending supercycle… How Military Demand Is Reshaping The Future of Critical Minerals… A new baseline for Canada’s Arctic

Drone wars: Rise of the ‘wolf pack’: China’s canine robots evolve to think as one for urban combat… Drones Tested for Avalanche Control in Canadian Rockies

Arctic shelf: On patrol with Canadian forces securing the Arctic as global threats grow… Ship traffic is growing in the High Arctic, but very unevenly… $1B Arctic fund now accepting proposals… Square dances and cell signal dead zones: Rangers confront Canada’s Arctic reality

From the Ukrainian front: Ukrainian soldiers deploy ground robot to evacuate senior citizen… Inside Ukraine’s robot war revolution… Japan Just Put a Weapon in Ukraine’s War, and It Cost $2,500… Why Do Many Western Defence Tech Firms Struggle in Ukraine?… Footage of a French Mistral SAM shooting down a Russian Cruise Missile [VIDEO]… Russia Is Building Tomorrow’s War Machine… In a first, Ukraine’s drone force launches interceptor drone from USV to destroy Shahed… Ukraine intel exposes Russia’s Krasnopol ammo that syncs with drones… Putin’s High-Tech Russian Submarines Goad NATO Deep Below the Atlantic

3 months ago · 7 likes · 2 comments · Louise Boucher

The First Robotized War

The F-35 Is a Masterpiece Built for the Wrong War
Warfare in a Box: Executive Outcomes and the making of the modern mercenary

🔫 Hot Shots

Grey war: Toronto police seize ‘SMS blasters,’ a cybercrime weapon never before seen in Canada… A team at Stanford and Arc Institute fed a language model a DNA sequence and asked it to write a new virus… CISA lacks access to Anthropic’s Mythos… Huawei spinoff Honor wants to sell smartphones in Canada

Chris's Substack

Backdoors Are Not Secrets

There is a moment in WarGames that still captures something essential about cyber, long before the term entered military doctrine. Matthew Broderick’s character visits a technology company and asks how its engineers broke into a system. One engineer casually suggests looking for a backdoor. Another snaps, “Hey, you’re giving away all our best secrets.” …

3 months ago · 3 likes

Odds & ends: Victoria Cross fight reignited as MPs back independent honours review… FBI ‘spooked’ by sophisticated theft of agricultural drones in New Jersey… SpaceX rideshare is full up until 2029… Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Roads University agree to new post-secondary education pathway… Lithuania’s playbook for surviving economic warfare, and what Canada can learn… How Portugal shaped Canada’s new submarines and fine-tuned Arctic defence… TKMS and Havguard AS signed a teaming agreement… Why is Canada’s submarine project such a big deal for South Korea?… McKinsey Partner’s Secret Drone Bet: How Conflicts of Interest Are Redefining Elite Consulting Careers… Ursa Major — Printing a way out of the SRM bottleneck

Canadian Cyber in Context

Canadian Program for Cyber Security Certification (CPCSC): Evaluation Findings Explained

3 months ago · 4 likes · Alexander Rudolph

The Pentagon: A visual of US military spending as a percentage of GDP over time [hint — line goes down not up]… Pentagon pulls the plug on one of the military’s most troubled space programs… The White House announced that grid infrastructure is essential to national defence

How Ukraine Scaled to Millions of Drones

Game of Drones

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 10:01:25 GMT

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Canada’s defence-tech scene is having a “why not us?” moment. As Ottawa prepares to pour billions into military modernization, a wave of Canadian drone companies is racing to prove the country can build its own next-gen systems across air, land, and sea.

“Everybody knows drones are the new warfare. Rifles used to be the first line of resistance. They’re now the last line.” — Glen Lynch, Volatus Aerospace Corp.

What’s Next: The bet is simple: drones are cheaper, faster to build, and far more expendable than legacy military hardware — which makes them increasingly central to modern warfare. Companies like Volatus, Sentinel, Kraken, Open Ocean, and INKAS see a rare opening to turn Canada’s engineering talent into sovereign capability.

“Drones are the splashy cousin… and the ground robot is the workhorse.” — Philip Reece, InDro Robotics

Bottom Line: RBC says Canadian defence spending could generate $100 billion for Canadian companies and transform Canada from a defence equipment importer into a contributor to allied military capabilities.

It all hinges on whether government procurement can finally move at startup speed. If Ottawa follows through, this could be the start of a real domestic defence-industrial base. If not, Canadian innovators may keep doing what they’ve always done — selling abroad first.

Related:

How Iran’s Cheap, Low-Tech Drones Have Cost the U.S.
Drone wars: The strategic convergence between Ukraine and Iran
Killer robots are coming: Ukraine is using unmanned ground vehicles armed with bombs, guns or rockets to carry out attacks and keep its soldiers out of harm’s way
‘Robots don’t bleed’: Ukraine sends machines into the battlefield in place of human soldiers
DND seeking to advance methods to assess, calibrate, and maintain trust in real-time when humans work with autonomous systems

ChinaTalk

Ukrainian drone manufacturing. How has the country been able to scale from thousands to millions of drones over the past four years? What dependencies does its industrial base still have on China? And what lessons does its rapid scaling offer for the US…

4 months ago · 45 likes · 4 comments · Jordan Schneider, Chris Miller, and Phoebe Chow

Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation takes one small step to support life on the Moon

The Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation (CSMC) has won grant funding for two projects that could one day help humans live and operate on the Moon.

The Kitchener-Waterloo-based space and defence tech company has been awarded $1.2 million in federal funding to build manufacturing capacity for its nuclear microreactor, which is intended to power facilities both in the Arctic and on the Moon. The award follows CSMC winning the $400,000 top prize of the Canadian Space Agency’s Aqualunar Challenge last week for its lunar water purification technology.

Related:

Converting Canada’s quantum leadership into operational advantage
Landing Zones Canada Secures First Investment from BDC’s New StrongNorth Defence Fund
U.S. defence company looking to raise up to $100-million to build Ontario arms factory
SBQuantum nabs $4 million USD, new CEO as it preps for US expansion
Norwegian Startup Stendr Secures $5.4M to Combat Drone Threats
Kepler to lead testing of European Space Agency’s high-speed data network
- Canada formalizes subscriptions to four new European Space Agency programs
- ESA’s €18.6 Million Bet on Kepler Communications Reveals How Europe Plans to Build the Backbone of Space-Based Internet
Tungsten Collaborative receives National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) funding for drone development
Lockheed Martin bumps up VC investment fund to $1bn
- Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works launches UK Technology Roadmaps initiative alongside MTC partnership expansion
Ulysses Raises $46M Seed + Series A
Finland’s Kelluu Raises €15M NIF-led Series A
Aevex CEO Drops Bombshell on $320M IPO Surge: Why Defence Drones Are the Next Trillion-Dollar Bet
The European Defence Fund (EDF) 2025 results are in
- EU pumps over $1 billion into defence R&D, centered around Ukraine war lessons
Wars Impose Lasting Economic Costs, While More Defence Spending Means Hard Choices
US NatSec Innovation Report Card

Space Race: The Canadarm launched 25 years ago this week
- NATO Defence Giant Licenced To Serve Satellites for China’s Military
- Telesat’s Rebuild Gets Boost From Canada’s Defence War Chest… Amazon to Buy Satellite Company Globalstar for $11.6 Billion

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Dominion Dynamics awaits military procurement reform after successful Arctic deployment of sensor tech

After meeting with the Prime Minister and embedding in the Arctic with the Canadian Rangers, defence tech company Dominion Dynamics is reconsidering its next steps as it waits for federal procurement processes to catch up.

Meet the neo-primes: Anduril, Palantir and SpaceX are changing how America wages war
- Federal report: Evaluation of Capability Acquisition Modernization
- Audit warns military procurement faces ‘persistent’ hurdles

How the new primes actually won — and what it means for everyone else

4 months ago · 8 likes · Louise Boucher

🎙️ Ep 22 - Armada: Building American Edge AI Dominance

In the latest episode of the Mission Matters Podcast, Akhil and I sat down with Dan Wright and Pradeep Nair, co-founders of Armada, which is building distributed AI infrastructure for the world’s most demanding environments…

3 months ago · Maggie Gray and Akhil Iyer

Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

Iran roundup: How did the US run out of missiles in Iran?
BAE Systems trials low-cost counter drone solution for Eurofighter Typhoon
Canadian bacon: A new Ontario defence association… New Canadian trade association seeks to represent domestic defence industry… Canadian military beats recruitment target after 1,400 permanent residents sign up… BBE and Det’on Cho Logistics Launch Arctic Defence Logistics Platform to Strengthen Canada’s Northern Readiness… Built in Canada, Armed for the World: Roshel’s Bet on Sovereign Defence… Civil defence and Canada’s critical infrastructure
One app to check all UAS geographic zones across Europe
Sweden is allocating SEK 30 billion of its expanded defence borrowing to transport infrastructure
Boeing commits $36 Million CAD to Aerospace Manufacturing R&D in Winnipeg
Anthropic’s AI model sparks rush from industry, government to batten down defence hatches
Thought leadership: The Pentagon Has The Fast Lanes Now. Defense Catalyst Is Training the Drivers… How Emerging Technologies Are Redefining Modern Defence… Canadian Dynamism: From Survival to Triumph… NAV CANADA Study Projects Drones Will Reshape Canada’s Low-Level Airspace, Economy and Daily Life (Status check on drone licenses across Canada)… How Hyperspectral Data Is Changing Maritime Domain Awareness… Crafting a Canada-Made Critical Minerals Strategy

Drone wars: Are water drones in for an investment bonanza as defence budgets spike?… Building “Swarming” Software for Drones… Rheinmetall wins €300mn drone order from German armed forces… Estonia to halt $587M Infantry Fighting Vehicle buy in favor of drones, air defence… The West is preparing for cheap drone attacks, but many businesses and civilians can only watch, not stop them… Germany Orders “Thousands” of Auterion-Airlogix UAVs… Gambit Awarded OTA by U.S. Army GVSC to Advance Integrated C-UAS Simulation and Coordinated Autonomy… The Gulf’s counter-drone problem is that operators have been forced to burn $4M to $7M PAC-3 interceptors on $30K Shaheds because nothing cheaper existed at volume:

Arctic shelf: We deployed AuraNet in the High Arctic. Here’s what we learned working with Rangers for eight weeks… Canada, Nordic countries can work together to defend the Arctic, Finnish President says… How the US military is preparing for the future of arctic warfare… We’re spending $35B on Arctic defence. Why are we doing that?… Canadian Coast Guard tests Arctic surveillance drone as air force delivery stalls… Ottawa wants LNG to be shipped from Port of Churchill by 2030… I Went to Greenland and Saw a Warning for Canada

True North Strategic Review

So, What The Hell Is An Arctic Mobile Base?

Usually, I wouldn't write about a project this early in its development…

3 months ago · 26 likes · 15 comments · Noah

From the Ukrainian front: Ukraine unveils universal ground control station for fiber-optic drones to eliminate the “zoo” of systems… Visiting a drone factory in Ukraine… The Ukrainians are claiming to have intercepted a Shahed with an interceptor drone from a surface platform… Ukraine’s Future Vision and Current Capabilities for Waging AI-Enabled Autonomous Warfare

🔫 Hot Shots

Grey war: Here’s how cyber heavyweights in the US and UK are dealing with Claude Mythos… Canada urgently needs a civilian defence strategy — before the next crisis forces one… The Finns have suggestions for Canada… Push to secure Canadian IP in defence procurement needs a ‘clear plan’ of execution… UK to help Belgium build electronic warfare centre… Why Did China Buy Up the World’s Ports?
- Canadian Program for Cyber Security Certification (CPCSC) has released its level 1 self-assessment tool and scoping guide. CPCSC will eventually become the cyber security standards for Canada’s defence supply chain and will start to be required as part of certain defence contracts

Odds & ends: Comprehensive list of European defence funds… How to get your robot on an airplane… The Alaska Highway was constructed in just eight months after the attack on Pearl Harbour. Soldiers, not civilians, built it. Today it continues to serve as a transformative piece of linear infrastructure that supports significant elements of the economies of BC, Yukon, and Alaska… NorthStar Earth & Space Announces Plans to Become Publicly Traded via Merger with Viking Acquisition Corp… UVic to get more than $5M for aerospace, AI projects… 10 defence tech startups on a hiring spree… What Ukraine Has Taught Us: The Critical Role of Textiles and Equipment in Modern War… The Largest SME Opportunity in Canadian Defence History — And Why Most Founders Will Miss It

Decouple

Arctic Baseload: Russia's Floating Nuclear Power Plant Dominance

4 months ago · 42 likes · 2 comments · Chris Keefer

The Pentagon: America’s Fourth Coast Could Help Close the Shipbuilding Gap With China… A Private Equity Billionaire Mounts His Biggest Takeover Yet: the Pentagon… The three valleys: why American defence tech cannot scale at the speed of strategic competition… $7.2B to the Missile Defense Agency — 41% of the $17.5B Golden Dome for America Fund in the FY27 request

@SecArmy Sec Dan Driscoll says the Army is doing with the new MV-75 Cheyenne II. Cost-saving replacements that immediately meet the needs of soldiers. Gen. George touched on this process generally during our panel at Reagan, but this Hill testimony makes","username":"CarlaBNewsmax","name":"Carla Babb","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/783778179261538304/patHxgMv_normal.jpg","date":"2026-04-16T16:36:09.000Z","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":4,"retweet_count":13,"like_count":70,"impression_count":12705,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":null,"video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

Why Business is Reluctant to Rally Around the Flag. It’s not 1988

Canada First, at Last

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:03:11 GMT

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

The Royal Canadian Navy will shortly be launching a new approach to building naval warfare capability, designed to strengthen how the Navy works with industry from the earliest stages of capability development. They’ve asked The Icebreaker for some help reaching out to homegrown startups:

How It Works: The RCN’s new industry engagement model starts with operational problems, not predefined solutions. Through an upcoming pilot from Director of Naval Requirements 4: Warfare Systems, the RCN wants companies to begin thinking early about priority warfare challenges and potential concepts shaped with end-user realities in mind:

“Rather than defining detailed requirements upfront, the Navy will articulate the operational problems we need to solve and work with industry to explore, shape, and mature potential solutions through direct engagement with end users. The intent is to improve alignment, reduce misinterpretation of operational need, and ensure that emerging capabilities are grounded in how the Fleet actually operates.
Our intent is to deliberately shape a solution space in a way that respects the principles of transparent and fair procurement. This approach is designed to deliver the capabilities the Royal Canadian Navy needs to succeed on operations, while enabling industry to develop solutions that are competitive for Canada and in global markets.”

What’s Next: No submissions are being requested yet, but industry should treat this as an early signal to start exploring where it can contribute. The Navy says fuller guidance on participation will follow once final approvals are complete.

Bottom Line: The RCN is signaling a notable shift in how it wants to work with defence industry: less prescription, more problem-solving. A forthcoming capability development pilot from the Navy’s warfare systems requirements team will ask companies to orient around operational problem statements instead of waiting for highly specified requirements.

The slide deck from Cdr Phillip C. Durand is a bit too big to share, but reply here, and we are authorized to send you a copy directly!

Related:

IDEaS gets a contract vehicle: The POINT pilot is being tested on select IDEaS contract-based challenges to help streamline the acquisition of innovations that have successfully completed IDEaS funding
As drones upend tank warfare, Canada’s army races to rethink its armour
FUBAR: How Canadian Defence Procurement Can’t Shoot Straight
Canada seeking observer role in sixth generation fighter jet project
- Dominion Dynamics, which recently met with the PM, presented its approach to building collaborative combat aircraft in Canada to a government delegation of over 30 stakeholders from DND, ISED, NRC, DRDC
- Canada killed its own fighter jet industry twice

SAGE

Dale Eisler is a former Assistant Deputy Minister and Consul General in the U.S. He is currently a Senior Policy Fellow at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy…

4 months ago · 17 likes · 3 comments · Dale Eisler

Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

PM announces Canada First defence policy

“The days when we sent 70 cents of every dollar in military spending to the United States are over forever. This is not an act of hostility, but an act of self-respect. We cannot claim to be a sovereign nation if every bolt in our aircraft and every line of code in our radar systems is built and controlled in the U.S.
As of today, the ‘Canada First’ defence policy is no longer a slogan - it is an unbreakable mandate.” — PM Mark Carney

Related:

Hermeus Hits $1B Valuation, Raises $350M and Moves HQ from Atlanta to Los Angeles
Space analytics firm HawkEye’s revenue jumped 74% in 2025, US IPO filing shows

Industrial Base Alpha

The Valuation Trap

BLUF: Defense tech founders are raising at valuations calibrated for IPOs in a market where the realistic exit is an M&A transaction at a fraction of that price. The gap between entry valuation and likely exit multiple is widening, and almost no one in the room is saying so out loud. Venture capitalists competing for limited talent are bidding prices up…

4 months ago · 13 likes · 5 comments · Matthew Bernard

Why Astranis, Red 6, Merlin, and Slingshot are among Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2026
The comprehensive list of specialist European defence funds
RBC plans to invest up to $1 billion through new Canadian growth fund
- A new global defence bank will help Canada’s startups more than its military
- RBC and Treble Victor Group on deploying veteran talent
- Defence, infrastructure, and a $3.5 billion organization you’re probably not watching
CCC is pleased to announce that it was awarded a new 5-year contract with the United States Department of Defense (U.S. DoD) for maintenance services by StandardAero at its facility in Winnipeg
KONGSBERG Vanguard LP awarded federal contract to design the Canadian Coast Guard’s future Mid-Shore Multi-Mission vessels
Pentagon’s Little-known DAWG Fetches $54.6B In Spending Plan
Algoma forms joint venture with armoured vehicle company Roshel
Bravo Dynamics, developer of a mesh communications system, has raised investment from Freedom Fund VC
Trae Stephens: Silicon Valley and Washington Must Build Together
- Defence’s Silicon Valley pivot: Ukraine, Iran wars challenge the legacy playbook
- Trump praises Palantir as stock has worst week in over a year and Iran conflict drags on

Pirate Wires

How the Military Is Using Palantir to Fight Wars

The first substantial profile on how Palantir and the Pentagon are actually using AI in warfare, with a closer look at Palantir’s unique approach to problem-solving, which unlocked targeting software the military has wanted since Vietnam…

4 months ago · 87 likes · 12 comments · Blake Dodge

Space Race: Canada’s spotty support for innovation is grounding its space ambitions
- Canada’s space industry faces its moment of truth
- When the Moon Met Canada
- Why NASA footage rarely shows satellites [VISUAL]
- Canada has joined the ranks of the world’s most adventurous lunar explorers
- T-28 days until the Canadian Space Launch Conference in Ottawa on May 5th
- SpaceX bankers bend over backwards to bag IPO role
- MDA Space announces “MDA MIDNIGHT” space control platform for the defence market
- Your spacecraft is flying through debris right now that no public catalog will ever show you… Over 13,000 active payloads are now in lower LEO
- Space Force taps 14 firms for $1.8 billion GEO surveillance program
- A worst-case solar storm could knock out satellites, GPS and power grids, report warns
- Monarch Quantum Raises US$55 Million for Quantum Photonics Hardware

Why I Joined Qunnect’s Board — And What Everyone Gets Wrong About Quantum Networks

Quantum Networking, Q‑Day, and Why I Joined Qunnect’s Board…

4 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · George Hoyem

Saab dangles sovereign data centre in Montreal to undercut F-35 fighter contract
Ottawa gives South Korean, German submarine builders opportunity to revise bids
- TKMS and Finkl Steel – Sorel Sign Teaming Agreement to Explore Cooperation on Strategic Materials for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project
While most people see UAVs and drones as a VC story, PE is increasingly investing in this space
- Drones are about to unlock an entirely new operating layer for the physical economy
UK Signs Drone Interceptor Deal With Cambridge Aerospace
Defence executives worry Trump’s proposed military splurge could backfire
B Riley Securities Q1 2026 Aerospace and Defence report
Italian government poised to replace Leonardo’s CEO who oversaw order surge

Steve Blank

Nowhere is Safe

Drones in Ukraine and in the War with Iran have made the surface of the earth a contested space. The U.S. has discovered that 1) air superiority and missile defense systems (THAAD, Patriot batteries) designed to counter tens or hundreds of aircraft and missiles is insufficient against asymmetric attacks of thousands of drones. And that 2) undefended hig…

4 months ago · 32 likes · 3 comments · Steve Blank

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Epic Fury Already Stress Testing More Agile Army Acquisition System, US General Says

“As I look back on the past 30 days in Operation Epic Fury, we had some immediate requests from the field in the first week,” Phillips said. “Those immediate requests in the field returned on a requirements document with the [Army Future Capabilities Directorate] and [Army Transformation and Training Command] in about 48 hours, who turned on a contract in about 72 hours. And I can say that we’ve had soldiers out training and testing the capabilities they’re going to deploy with in real time in the past 10 days. So we’ve got industry fully engaged.”

New US Navy Budget Wants $3B for New Tomahawks, $4.3B for SM-6s
- The biggest constraint in missile production isn’t funding
Mutually Automated Destruction: The Escalating Global A.I. Arms Race
How This Precision Weapon Reengineered Modern War

When you transform defence you set off a dual-use chain reaction that might just spark a monumental economic transformation. Could this be Canada’s Mars-shot?

Iran roundup: Iran is trying to turn off America’s water… The top secret CIA tool ‘Ghost Murmur’ used to save US airman downed in Iran by detecting his heartbeat… Operation Epic Fury U.S. Aircraft Losses Visualized… Iran’s Asymmetric Counterair Campaign: Attacking the U.S. Air Force’s Nests and Eggs… America’s Underwater Drone Strategy Is Reshaping Naval Warfare in the Strait of Hormuz

China Seizes An Island While The World Is Watching Iran
US Air Force taps AIM for autonomous air base construction
U.S. Navy Destroyer Equipped With New Launcher For Unknown Weapons
I Went to China to See Its Progress on A.I. We Can’t Beat It
Decentralize or Defeat: How Institutional Ego Slows U.S. Military Intelligence
Canadian bacon: Most Canadians prefer a NATO without the US, to a NATO that bows to Trump’s demands… A fixation on Trump and American politics is blinding Canada and its allies to the challenges that will define the next quarter century… NORAD commander says F-35-type aircraft not needed to defend North America… The U.S. isn’t happy about Canada’s quest for digital sovereignty… Building Whole-of-Society Resilience Against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference in Canada… Beyond Regions: Why Canada and South Korea Need a New Security Narrative
Thought leadership: Is CANDU a solution to the reprocessed Uranium problem?… The Pentagon is calling for rapid industrial modernization, but the largest defence primes returned over $20B to shareholders in 2024-2025 while investing just 2-3% of revenue back into physical assets. The real burden of building America’s defence capacity falls on small and mid-size suppliers… NATO Sec Gen 2025 Annual Report

Drone wars: Estonia cancel a €500M combat vehicle procurement and redirect those funds toward air defence, drones, and unmanned systems… U.S. Develops Acoustic-Guided System to Intercept FPV Drones… Recent viral reports are highlighting a new Chinese system dubbed the “Baby Shahed”… He built Ukraine’s first bomber drone flying 3km in May 2022. Now it reaches 65km… How America’s Shahed-136 Kamikaze Drone Clone Suddenly Became An “Indispensable” Weapon Of War… China still controls 70–90% of Europe’s critical drone component supply chains with propulsion and raw materials most exposed at 90%+ in the 5th year of the war:

Drones, Dollars, and Disruption

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition…

4 months ago · 18 likes · 1 comment · Matt MacGregor and Pete Modigliani

Arctic shelf: Arctic Fever: Canada’s Ambitions in the North… Training above the 80th parallel [PHOTOS]… Defence experts warn Canada lags far behind in efforts to secure the Arctic… Rangers end ‘majestic’ snowmobile trek through Canada’s North in Churchill… Arctic advantage: China’s new tech boosts sub detection capabilities near Alaskan waters
From the Ukrainian front: Drone warfare in Ukraine: munitions, cameras, and fiber optics… New battlefield footage appears to show a North Korean Type-75 107 mm MLRS mounted on the Russian NRTK “Courier” ground robotic platform [VIDEO]… Footage of a Russian drone dodging interceptor drones while being shot at from the ground with machine guns [VIDEO]

Missile Matters — with Fabian Hoffmann

Ukraine's Deep-Strike Drone Campaign Against Russian Oil Infrastructure

Picture: Ukrainian Armed Forces, 14th UAV Regt…

4 months ago · 106 likes · 8 comments · Fabian Hoffmann

Security Compass aligns engineering outputs to SA&A security expectations with structured evidence and change-aware monitoring. Make reassessments simpler by showing what’s implemented, what changed, and what’s validated.

🔫 Hot Shots

Grey war: The Beginning of the End of Cybersecurity… Russia is not just sabotaging cables and pipelines. It is normalizing underwater warfare as a permanent feature of European security… CIA director quietly elevated agency’s cyber espionage division… A hacker has allegedly breached one of China’s supercomputers and is attempting to sell a trove of stolen data… CIA employees will get AI ‘coworkers’—and eventually run teams of AI agents, deputy says

Odds & ends: Europe’s New Defence Core… Aerospace, Defence Parts Maker Arxis Seeks $1.06 Billion in IPO… Xona Space Systems debuts satellite manufacturing facility in Burlingame… Japan and Australia eye joint missile and drone production amid U.S. stockpile concerns… Europe is winning the AI and drone science race. It’s losing the deployment war… France to increase defence spending by $42 billion, mulls new tank effort… Drones could change avalanche control in Canada. Here’s how… Gulf Allies Turn Away From U.S. for Fresh Ammo
The Pentagon: For acquisition reform to succeed, the Pentagon needs civilian agency budget flexibilities
- Defence budgets are rising but most suppliers still will not benefit
- Just over two months ago, the United States Department of War launched the “Patent Holiday” pilot program. This initiative offers industry partners a two-year, no-fee license to evaluate and commercialize a curated list of patented technologies from the Department
How Canadian military members violated intelligence-gathering rules during COVID-19
Power and Dominance: The carrier-SSN balance in modern warfare is a necessity
Canada’s defence investment: Can we action a strategy for sovereign strength and the future of industry?
- How defence spending could help Canada beyond the military

Second Tour

The Arsenal of the Midwest

My father spent twenty-eight years on the line at Pontiac Assembly. He came home most nights smelling of paint and metal in a neighborhood where nearly every other father did the same. The street ran on General Motors time. Shift changes set the rhythm. First, second, or third shifts. What I understood growing up, without anyone having to explain it, wa…

4 months ago · 5 likes · Nick Ondovcsik

The Future of War Is Here. The Guest List Is Still Stuck in the Past.

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:01:34 GMT

Editor’s note: This week, The Icebreaker will share the stage with private capital leaders at OMERS’ Critical Minerals & Arctic Defence Summit, which it is hosting on Vimy Ridge Day (April 9).

Save the Date: Along with CSMC, RBCx, and Torys LLP, we will be hosting a breakfast event on May 26 during Toronto Tech Week. Details to come.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

This week, the CAF is hosting Outlooks in Ottawa — an opportunity to hear directly from Canada’s top military leadership as they discuss their goals for tomorrow’s Army, Air Force, and Navy. Unfortunately, you must be a CADSI member to participate.

The goal is the right one — get government, the CAF, and industry aligned on future requirements. But that only works if the right companies are actually in the room.

Tsk, Tsk: Limiting this to one industry group’s members effectively shuts out many Canadian-owned, Canadian-controlled companies — especially newer and smaller firms.

At a moment when Canada says it wants more domestic capability, more Canadian content, and more new entrants in defence, it makes little sense to gate access through a single industry association. That is not how you build a broader defence industrial base. It is not how you surface the best new suppliers. And it is not consistent with the logic of the Defence Industrial Strategy.

Moving On: In spite of this gatekeeping, contacts in the CAF have quietly consulted with The Icebreaker given our national defence census work, so we’ve gotten a sneak peek at early versions of what will be shared. Participants should expect genuinely progressive pilots from really thoughtful CAF leaders, that will address problem articulation and end user access, and be scoped at very low TRLs.

Bottom Line: CAF leaders are doing their best within the parameters they have to work with — but the parameters still represent a broken architecture. Do not expect the fundamental procurement architecture, IP, or anything pertaining to attritable mass doctrine, to be addressed here. These efforts still likely feed into multi-year procurement funnels.

Related:

Canada Buys is now able to track your CPCSC and CMMC certification level
Ottawa Hands Billions to Firms Calling Themselves Canadian. Most Aren’t
Canada’s biggest banks get into defence after years of avoiding military financing
Canada’s $150-billion challenge: How to build a homegrown defence sector and fast

Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

AI boat maker Saronic smashes $9 billion valuation

Led by Kleiner Perkins, robot shipbuilder Saronic raised nearly $2 billion to expand production and develop new vessels as the Navy seeks refined options for medium unmanned surface vessels.

The Technology Race to GPS‑Denied Autonomy

This piece is a deep dive into the weeds of GPS‑denied navigation and assured PNT (Positioning, Navigation, and Timing) —full of acronyms, sensor specs, and niche technology stacks. It’s written for readers who are genuinely interested in how photonic gyros, quantum sensors, SLAM, MagNav, and LEO PNT constellations fit together, and what that means for …

4 months ago · 8 likes · 4 comments · George Hoyem

Related:

Defence gave back gains in BCI’s monthly public comps
- $6.8 billion: That's the size of Ukraine's defence technology market in 2025
Palmer Luckey-Backed Nuclear Startup Valar Lands $2 Billion Valuation
Darkhive Secures $49.7M APFIT Contract
Overmatch Raises $250M to Expand Defence Tech Investments
Lockheed Martin Canada invests $3.6 million into Lemay.ai
With Ottawa’s defence push, Calgary’s ATCO eyes more deals after investing in Arctic venture
Brit Box: The UK’s SME Action Plan for defence will not be published until after the delayed Defence Investment Plan is finalized… These drones can take on Putin but can’t beat British bureaucrats… UK defence tech alliance targets 20 spinouts a year
Larus awarded $8.3 million IDEaS Test Drive contract by the Department of National Defence to advance the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) in tactical planning and decision intelligence
PacifiCan invests $13.8 million to advance defence innovation in AI and aerospace in British Columbia
Navy, Hadrian launch partnership, open facility to build submarine parts
Dominion Dynamics presented its approach to building collaborative combat aircraft in Canada to a government delegation of over 30 stakeholders from DND, ISED, NRC, DRDC
The Calgary firm with a wildly different plan for the AI infrastructure boom
U of A researcher on battery-free sensor to track vital signs in extreme cold
Inturai to fast-track combat defence and infrastructure technologies with veteran-owned defence technology company VEXSL
Westinghouse is Canada’s choice for proven and ready now nuclear energy… the Americans think it belongs to them
From Lockheed to European start-ups, arms makers jostle for Iran war orders
15 defence startups to watch in 2026, according to VCs

Emerging Defense

Emerging Defense March Recap

Summary…

4 months ago · Scripps Wilkinson

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Ex-CIA director David Petraeus says U.S. needs to learn “whole new concept of warfare” from Ukraine

“In some Western countries right now, they think that innovativeness is giving 50 drones to an armored battalion,” he said. “No. What we should do is scrap the armored battalions and replace them with a drone battalion.”

The war Rheinmetall thinks it’s fighting is not the one Ukraine is winning
- Autonomous swarms are the future of drone warfare
- Iran is ending the dream of remote-controlled war
Integrated Air & Missile Defence (IAMD) in Canada
America’s ‘Featherweight’ Missile Is Unlike Anything China Has. It Could Rewrite the Hypersonic Arms Race
Anduril’s EagleEye helmet enables soldiers to see through objects by using real-time drone and sensor data
Acoustic Drone-Sensing Startup RADD Emerges from Stealth
New business models in defence tech:

Beyond SaaS: New Business Models in Defense Tech

Traditional venture-backed business models – SaaS, marketplaces, consumer platforms – are built for large, competitive markets with many buyers. Defense is the opposite: one customer, constrained budgets, and procurement systems that don’t neatly reward off-the-shelf products…

4 months ago · 25 likes · Maggie Gray

Security Compass aligns engineering outputs to SA&A security expectations with structured evidence and change-aware monitoring. Make reassessments simpler by showing what’s implemented, what changed, and what’s validated.

Iran roundup: The US Burned 14 Years of Missiles in 30 Days… Shutting Hormuz is a template for China in Taiwan… A former C.I.A. officer says that he recruited scientists as part of the United States’ effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program… Israel targets Iran’s leaders with lethal expertise using new AI platform… Europe imports 80% of the hydrocarbons it consumes and that oil and gas keeps getting more expensive as they unplug from Russian gas and become hostages of America’s War on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz… Iran Is Piercing Israel’s Ballistic Missile Defences With High Altitude Cluster Warhead Releases

#cdnmedia reporting that USAF used ⁦@DeHavilland⁩ Dash8’s to rescue US airmen stranded in Iran,the US build C-130 would not work?The Canadian Aerospace industry rocks! /cc ⁦@DavidMcGuinty⁩ ⁦@MarkJCarney⁩ #cdnpoli #CanadaStrong🇨🇦 dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…","username":"etowncat","name":"James 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇬🇱🇬🇧🇪🇺","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1966225698760327168/agkR6veG_normal.jpg","date":"2026-04-05T22:38:28.000Z","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":0,"retweet_count":1,"like_count":3,"impression_count":119,"expanded_url":{"url":"https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15708191/US-Special-Forces-daring-operation-history-rescue-airman-Iran.html","title":"Step by step, how US rescued airman with 'most daring operation ever'","description":"Hunkered down in a mountain-top ravine, armed only with a pistol, and with gun-toting tribesmen bearing down on him, the US Airforce colonel probably had slim hopes for his survival.","domain":"dailymail.co.uk","image":"https://pbs.substack.com/news_img/2040849118269210624/nU3kDmhd?format=jpg&name=orig"},"video_url":null,"video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

Clearpath Robotics’ Ryan Gariepy on killer robots and Canada’s defence strategy
The cutting-edge robots that can hunt some of Iran’s most notorious weapons
Scaling Golden Dome’s Model For Multi-Vendor Developed Solutions
Seagliders and the Future of Maritime Defence
The U.S. Military Risks Letting Contractors Define How It Sees the Battlefield
Airbus seeks to expand defence footprint in Canada
Canadian bacon: Canada’s Arctic Energy Security: Infrastructure Vulnerabilities and NATO Resilience Requirements… Cole Rosentreter on why your flight is delayed and how Canadian tech can fix it… Canada could help in the Strait of Hormuz, but must we?… Five big moves Mark Carney must make to secure Canada’s place in the world… Everything You Should Know About CAF Cyber Command… Defending distant, unsurveyed Arctic ‘more complicated,’ top naval commander says… A Steep Climb: Financing Canada’s NATO Commitment while Maintaining Fiscal Discipline… How Canada Can Get the Most Out of Its Defence Spending Surge… To meet next NATO spending target, Canada needs a credible fiscal plan, think-tank says… Diego Garcia was the warning shot Canada cannot afford to ignore

Thought leadership: Across the CAF, NATO, and the wider Five Eyes community, one truth is becoming unavoidable: we’re no longer dealing with isolated security crises… Robert Dimitrieff on the layers of the industrial sovereignty system… Innovation Policy in Canada: A Practitioner’s Perspective… People Must Be at the Core of Canada’s New Defence Ecosystem… Alexander MacDonald, the Canadian who served as NASA’s first chief economist:

Drone wars: US Army Tests Northrop Grumman’s Lumberjack Group 3 Strike Drone, kitted out with Palantir’s Maven… The Mongols, Drones, and the Future of War… The Drone Dominance Program Lethality Prize Challenge is now live… America Needs to Get Serious About Drones… France goes big on missiles and drones in multibillion-euro defence plan… People keep calling Shahed “a drone.” It’s not. It’s a mass attack system. And the real complexity is not the drone itself… America’s Best New Weapon in Iran Is a Drone Inspired by Iran… Ukraine is developing interceptor drone swarms to defend against Russian attacks… Europe’s Untapped Arsenal

Arctic shelf: Inside NATO’s race to secure the Arctic… Ottawa earmarks up to $8B for 5 Wing Goose Bay but falls short of offering details… In war-torn times, allies are taking a keener interest in this Nordic nation’s culture of preparedness
From the Ukrainian front: Drones haven’t won the fight in Ukraine. That matters as the West learns new ways of war… ‘The frontline is like Terminator’: fighting robots give Ukraine hope in war with Russia… How to Measure Russia’s Munitions Throughput—and How to Disrupt It

Space race: ‘This feels fragile’: how a satellite-smashing chain reaction could spiral out of control… SpaceX tries to convince FCC that Amazon put satellites into wrong altitude… Inside Canada’s race for space sovereignty… Canada charts a new path in space, with the US… Sherbrooke-based SBQuantum put its quantum diamond magnetometer aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare as part of the MagQuest Challenge… SpaceX files for IPO… Roshel takes Jeremy Hansen to launch… Direct-to-device and NTN mobility are often framed as coverage solutions

🔫 Hot Shots

Grey war: After 16 years and $8 billion, the military’s new GPS software still doesn’t work… Data centers emerge as targets in warfare’s AI era… A.I. Is on Its Way to Upending Cybersecurity… The front lines of irregular warfare are not found only on battlefields. They also run through banks, export regimes, and critical supply chains… Chinese firms market Iran war intelligence ‘exposing’ U.S. forces… Strategic Capabilities Office Launching Cognitive Warfare Project… China maps ocean floor as it prepares for submarine warfare with US… China is a prisoner of energy geography

Odds & ends: How American Camouflage Conquered the World… An increasing percentage of Canadians report that they would be willing to serve in the Armed Forces if Canada were involved in a major conflict… Pax Americana — who paid for what?… The Crumbling Foundations of American Strength… German men must ask army for permission to leave country… China’s EV success formula — and Canada’s dilemma… Afghanistan veteran William MacDonald on being considered for the Canadian Victoria Cross
Budgeting: The US FY2027 defence budget request totals $1.5 trillion, an unprecedented 44% increase over current levels. Here’s what stands out… Budget would cut Pentagon research by one-third. Can industry compensate?… DARPA’s budget for 2026 is $4.9 billion, a 12% jump from 2025

The Byproduct Theory of Defense Innovation

The Deep Brief

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made asymmetric warfare impossible to ignore. On the Eastern front, cheap, adaptive systems — iterated fast, tested under fire — have consistently outperformed expensive, slow ones…

4 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Herbert Mangesius and Nicolas Colin

Trae Stephens: Silicon Valley and Washington Must Build Together

Revenue Multiples vs. Damage Multiples

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:03:33 GMT

Editor’s notes: Tomorrow, The Icebreaker will take the stage at NGen’s N3 Summit, where Canada’s advanced industries converge on the topic of defence tech. Come and say hi if you’re attending.

One week to go: Make sure your voice is heard in the Icebreaker x BDC national defence census, which will help governments and capital providers understand the challenges and supports Canadian SMEs need to win in defence.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Special guest POV by 🍁 Katheron Intson, CEO at Sentinel R&D

A lot of people looked at Swarmer’s Nasdaq debut and saw absurdity: a company with just $309,920 in 2025 revenue and a net loss of about $8.5 million trading like it had already arrived. On a conventional software screen, that looks detached from fundamentals. But conventional screens are built for normal commercial markets, not for companies whose products are still being validated under live battlefield conditions.

The author in Kyiv last week with the Unmanned Systems Forces and Ukrainian industry partners

Reality Check: Swarmer is not a normal software company. Public reporting linked the company to Operation Spiderweb, the June 1, 2025 Ukrainian strike inside Russia. The clearest public account described Swarmer as “the invisible brain” behind the operation’s autonomous drone control layer. That does not mean Swarmer alone created Spiderweb, or that it should be credited with the entirety of the operation’s outcome. It means the company has been publicly tied to one of the most consequential drone operations of the war, which proved that low-cost autonomous systems could help impose strategic costs on extremely expensive military assets.

Think Bigger: Swarmer has been in its combat testing and validation stage. Yet according to both its SEC filing and company materials, drones equipped with its Trident OS have already flown more than 100,000 combat missions since 2023, and the company says those missions were conducted under active electronic warfare and GPS-denied conditions. That is not peacetime testing. It is live operational validation at a scale almost no Western defence software startup can match.

This is where the usual valuation language starts to break down. Revenue is one metric. Backlog is another. But neither fully captures what investors may actually be looking at here: a wartime autonomy stack being refined through repeated operational use, and through its demonstrated contribution to losses imposed on the adversary, before commercialization has fully caught up.

Public markets may be trying to price not merely software sales, but combat-proven relevance, battlefield-hardened data, and the possibility that this testing phase is already producing an asset of genuine strategic value.

That matters because value does not begin only when a contract is signed. In defence technology, especially during wartime, a system can be enormously valuable long before procurement channels have translated that value into recognized revenue. If software contributes to missions that destroy or degrade assets worth many times more than the company’s own current income, the absence of near-term sales does not necessarily mean the absence of substance. It may simply mean that the machinery of acquisition is moving more slowly than the machinery of war.

That does not mean Swarmer should be valued dollar-for-dollar on the reported damage associated with Spiderweb or any other mission. Damage is not revenue, and combat contribution is not the same thing as durable market power. But it does raise a serious and underexplored question: how should markets value a company that appears to have contributed to an operation associated with billions in reported losses, and to more than 100,000 combat missions beyond that, while still effectively in the validation phase of its life as a business?

Bottom Line: Swarmer’s debut makes more sense if you stop looking at it like an immature software company and start looking at it like a combat-validated autonomy layer. The market was not buying $300,000 of revenue. It was buying the possibility that software tested across more than 100,000 real combat missions, and publicly linked to a major strategic operation like Spiderweb, may already have demonstrated a kind of value that conventional financial statements are too early to capture.

Related:

Volatus Aerospace Announces Strategic Collaboration with Sentinel R&D to Support Canadian Sovereign UAV Capability
Defence tech founder warns Canada is getting “wishy-washy” about defining sovereignty
DND seeking innovative solutions for Sentinel Shield: Wide-area detection for early warning against uncrewed aerial systems
The Defence Industrial Strategy’s initial spending is not as Canadian as hoped… Canada formally launches Defence Investment Agency, expected to reduce $100-million contract minimum… What comes next on the contracting front?
The Icebreaker’s parliamentary testimony frames final government report on reforming defence procurement:

“The old approach to procurement does not work at the speed of modern threats.”

Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

Canada Ex-Defence Minister’s Startup Juno Sees Anduril-Type Role

Vancouver-based Juno Industries Inc. hopes to close a Series A round of about C$10 million by mid-April.

New North Ventures

Founded last April, the company is developing a hub for communications, drones and sensors in Arctic environments called Polar Nexus, which CEO Hunter Scharfe said will be “the first of many sensor nodes and deployment platforms” from the company.

“Autonomous systems are going to become the forefront of defence investment,” and “those systems are very powerful and have a lot of different data capabilities,” Scharfe said. But the issue, he said, is what platform will be trusted to trawl through the data, interpret it, and provide officials options for action.

Juno’s ambition is to be a “neo-prime,” a term used for fast-growth startups like Anduril Industries Inc. that are racing with the traditional “prime” defence contractors like Lockheed Martin Corp. to deliver new security technology.

The Free Press

February 27, 2026, was a flash point in the cold war between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C…

4 months ago · 51 likes · 17 comments · Trae Stephens

Hill & Valley 2026: What the US Tech-Defence Alliance Actually Believes

4 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Louise Boucher

Related:

Behind the scenes in Canadian defence procurement:

Not long ago, I was entrusted to lead the business development effort, technical compliance strategy, proposal structure, and OEM engagement for a bid valued at up to $60M. Here’s what that looks like.

Pitchbook: “The Most Investable Corner of Defence? Electronics”
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The most innovative defence tech companies of 2026
The United States Department of War announced 25 companies competing for its $1.1B Drone Dominance Program. Check out their cap tables
- Shield AI Raises $2B Series G at $12.7B Valuation
Anduril, Palantir Developing Golden Dome Missile Shield’s Software, Source Says
SBQuantum wants to help the world navigate in a post-GPS era
Denvr signs two defence deals to deepen sovereign AI push in Canada
Edmonton’s Wyvern Inc. to track rogue vessels as feds earmark $6M for defence research
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Airbus and L3Harris Win $1.1 Billion Deals for Canada Fleet Support
Carlyle Said to Plan Defence Fund as Governments Hike Spending
Sailbotix announces initial deployment of one of the most advanced hand-deployable data buoys
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- Ontario seeks private-sector manager for new $4-billion Protect Ontario investment fund
Pete Hegseth’s broker attempted to make defence investments before Iran war

Acquisition Marketplaces Are Blooming

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition. We salute all those overseas serving in Operation Epic Fury and those stateside ensuring they are fully supported. Your work is vitally …

4 months ago · 17 likes · 1 comment · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Former top general says we need to start building our own long-range missiles

Wayne Eyre, who was Canada’s top soldier as Chief of the Defence Staff until summer 2024, said this country desperately needs its own production lines for many of these munitions. “This includes using our inherent strength in the aerospace industry to produce our own long-range strike and air defence missiles, along with lower cost drones and counter-drone systems,” he said in an interview:

Fly Straight

Canada needs a "wartime mentality" in a disordered world

Sixty eight years ago this week, the Avro Arrow interceptor fighter took its maiden flight - arguably the pinnacle of Canadian aeronautical engineering history…

4 months ago · 35 likes · 5 comments · John Ivison

Ottawa’s defence spending plan has ambition, but half of the equation is missing
Money alone does not build security: capacity does
- Ukraine Is Making Home-Brew Long-Range Missiles
In 1952, Canada was spending 8% (!) of GDP on defence
Canada’s push to develop nitrocellulose hinges on real industrial integration… CellCore Technologies Emerges from Stealth at DEFSEC West, announces plans for new nitrocellulose facility
As Canada hits NATO 2% goal, Carney vows more as warfare ‘rapidly’ changes
- Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said Ukrainian drone makers were housewives with 3D printers and that their work was not real innovation. Ukrainians responded.

“If every housewife in Ukraine can really make drones, then every housewife in Ukraine can be the ⁠CEO of Rheinmetall,” Zelenskiy told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.

Security Compass aligns engineering outputs to SA&A security expectations with structured evidence and change-aware monitoring. Make reassessments simpler by showing what’s implemented, what changed, and what’s validated.

Iran roundup: Ukrainian cheap interceptor drone blows up Iranian Shahed drone in spectacular hit [VIDEO]… Iran built a vast camera network to control dissent. Israel turned it into a targeting tool… Images show destroyed US E-3 Sentry AWACS at Prince Sultan Air Base… Iranians Don’t Have a Missile Alert System, So Volunteers Built Their Own Warning Map

4 months ago · 23 likes · Stuart Lodge

Electromagnetism Secretly Runs the World
China’s robot wolves have been put through a simulated street battle [VIDEO]
A blueprint for Chinese global leadership
Why China Is Stepping Up Its Reusable Rocket Push
Hellscape Taiwan: A Porcupine Defence in the Drone Age
US and UK teaming up to destroy underwater drones
Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence: Meet the Gods of AI Warfare
Canadian bacon: The push to create a Canadian rival to GPS… Calgary-born astronaut to be voice link to Artemis II moon mission… Canada clears NATO’s 2% bar — after years of lagging and a last-minute lift… Saab CEO says company, Canada still in ‘intensive’ talks… Toronto Argonaut turned military outfitter wants Canadian Army to be ‘brilliant at the basics’… Farewell, Victoria! On Hanwha Ocean’s Bid for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project… As oil pipelines become an ace in ‘Canada’s deck,’ should country place bet on path south or west?… Canadian Army overhaul looms as DND finalizes mobilization plans

Thought leadership: The Luxury Beliefs That Broke Europe’s Energy System… NATO on how emerging technologies advance… Artificial intelligence is increasingly being incorporated into maritime surveillance, navigation, and decision-support systems… Kraken Robotics’ Chief Technology Officer, David Shea, “Dispelling Myths About Synthetic Aperture Sonar”
Drone wars: Noah Gairn on CUAS… Dutch armed forces to add drone operators to combat brigades… VW in talks with Israel’s Iron Dome maker to shift from cars to missile defence… Kinetic interception, Russian style [VIDEO]… Yesterday, a $𝟱,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗲 destroyed a $𝟲,𝟬𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗸 equipped with the world’s most advanced protection system… The Pentagon Copied Tehran’s Technology but Is Still Struggling to Keep Up

Arctic shelf: In Canada’s far north, some fret Carney’s military plan overlooks everyday needs… Scenes From the Canadian Arctic
From the Ukrainian front: Ukrainian drone architect talks to 60 Minutes on the cost per kill metric… Ukraine is offering Gulf states 1,000 drone interceptors per day. Each Sting interceptor costs $2,100. Each Patriot missile it replaces costs $3.9 million… Vibe-coded visualization of publicly available data relating to Unmanned Systems that have been used during the Russian invasion… A choice of deadly drones is a few clicks away for Ukrainian troops… Ukraine Is Building the Drone Warfare Machine NATO Still Does Not Understand… Ukrainian drones have made artillery and armored vehicles look obsolete. Why is the world still buying them?
Why defence can’t scale innovation, by Stuart Lodge:

First Breakfast

The 1-to-100 Trap

Canada Rocket Company is building our sovereign launch capability. We’re hiring 10+ roles. Apply here.

🔫 Hot Shots

Grey war: Reservists killed in Kuwait a few weeks ago were targeted using adtech; Iranians used it to trace their movements to the port… Chinese Hackers Caught Deep Within Telecom Backbone Infrastructure… APT Iran hacking group advertises 375TB of data purportedly exfiltrated from Lockheed Martin for $600M… Buy a cheap satellite dish and listen: SMS, payment data, and military secrets will fall from the sky… Hacked hospitals, hidden spyware: Iran conflict shows how digital fight is ingrained in warfare… Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish photos and documents

Odds & ends: “Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl” was a Canadian icon representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions, weapons, and equipment during the Second World War… More money for Canada’s military should mean more transparency and accountability… Why foreign investment has surged into Canada