Software-defined radio maker gets Blue Delta's backing

Software-defined radio maker Herrick Technology Laboratories has received a $25 million investment from Blue Delta Capital Partners, the government market-focused investment firm that acquires non-controlling stakes in emerging businesses.

HTL started out in 2000 as a research-and-development laboratory focused on signal detection and exploitation systems for the Defense Department.

The Germantown, Maryland-headquartered company has since shifted from that type of initial prototyping work to the design and manufacture of products for use in signals intelligence and electronic warfare.

Acie Vickers, HTL's co-founder and chief executive, wrote in an email that the company will look to accelerate the development of its next-generation radios with an eye toward rolling them out later this year.

"We are making a big push towards improving our software capabilities, especially in the area of radar processing and autonomous operation," Vickers wrote. "We will also be looking to make small, tuck-in acquisitions to improve our capabilities in areas such as drone integration and AI (artificial intelligence)."

HTL also maintains a facility in Manchester, New Hampshire that remains predominantly an R&D and production lab that focuses on design, assembly and testing of prototypes along with low-quantity production runs.

In his email, Vickers characterized much of today's demand landscape as looking to take in lessons learned for how technologies are being used in the Ukraine conflict.

"(Customers) have not been satisfied with existing solutions and are holding out for better. Once they’re satisfied that a product or system meets their needs, they are buying," Vickers wrote. "Equipment sales in our space have been slow, but they are expected to pick up this year and next as new solutions hit the market."

Raymond James and Cooley acted as the financial and legal advisers respectively to HTL, while Holland & Knight worked as legal counsel to Blue Delta.