Darkhive completes $21M Series A round for uncrewed vehicle development
Two Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial vehicles on the tarmac at a Northrop Grumman test facility in Palmdale, California. Gettyimages.com/ Stocktrek Images
By
Ross Wilkers
Darkhive started with the premise of helping operators manage their fleets and devices that are in the field. This new round of investors includes RTX.
Darkhive, a three-year old startup that manufactures uncrewed aerial vehicles, has captured $21 million in Series A capital from investors to support its product development and expansion efforts.
Ten Eleven Ventures, a global investment firm focused on cybersecurity, led the round that closed one year after Darkhive fetched $4 million in initial seed funding. Darkhive said Tuesday that Crosslink Capital, RTX Ventures and Stellar Ventures also participated in the Series A round.
RTX Ventures is that aerospace-and-defense hardware giant’s arm for investing in startups whose technologies and business models show promise.
A veteran-owned and -founded company, Darkhive develops the vehicles and their software to run on an open architecture model and with a continuous delivery approach for updates.
Darkhive started in 2021 and is seeking to further enable comprehensive fleet and device management in the field. The company plans to use this newfound capital for expanding its product lineup, resourcing its U.S. government contract work and new business pursuits.
“The current UAS landscape is full of hurdles that leave users in the field at an extreme disadvantage; Chinese offerings are intuitive to use and affordable, but have known cyber security vulnerabilities,” Darkhive’s chief executive John Goodson said in a release. “While American-made products are secure, they're expensive and difficult to use effectively. We owe it to the men and women on the front line to provide a complete solution that is secure, affordable, reliable, and can be used by anyone in the field.”
Since its launch, Darkhive has progressed on a series of Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Program contracts with agencies to further iterate the technologies.
In December, Darkhive secured a $95.1 million contract with the Air Force’s AFWERX accelerator team for continued development of the products. Darkhive was also tasked to work on the integration of new autonomy infrastructures and platforms.
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