The defense tech acquisition spree has begun: Autonomous factory startup Hadrian acquires Datum Source

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Datum Source founders Thomas Cobbs, Rob Pakalski and Ryan Nagle

Image Credits: Hadrian

Hadrian founder and CEO Chris Power got tired of turning away startups. 

Since 2020, Power has raised $220 million for Hadrian, a largely autonomous factory that mass-produces parts for space and defense companies.

While Hadrian has produced parts for major defense companies, it had to turn away some defense tech startups because startups have to rapidly iterate on product designs, meaning they need one hyper-specific part today and another design tomorrow. Hadrian, which was last valued at around $500 million, would have to constantly set up entirely new production lines, ruining the point of using its hyper-efficient automated factory.

But on Wednesday, Hadrian announced they bought Datum Source, a software company founded by SpaceX alums that uses AI to help hardware companies find manufacturing partners. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Datum Source has raised $5.6 million at a valuation of $30 million, according to PitchBook. With Datum Source, Hadrian can help match a startup with specific manufacturers any time it needs a new part, instead of the founders otherwise searching through hundreds of potential suppliers, Power said.

This lets Hadrian partner with the early-stage defense tech startups it’s been missing out on — and hopefully ensures that, as these companies grow, Hadrian is top of mind. Or, as Power put it, when a startup does win a big DoD contract and is ready to scale up production, he can promise that “we’re going to make all this stuff in an autonomous factory for you.” 

As a bonus, the acquisition brought Hadrian about 30 of Datum’s existing customers, with the bulk being early-stage startups. The company will also bring on Datum Source’s 14-person team to help guide early-stage companies through the procurement process.  

The acquisition is both a savvy move on Power’s part and a harbinger of things to come. Venture capital has poured $129.3 billion into defense tech startups since 2021, according to PitchBook, and, in a category where there can be very, very few winners, a rush of acquisitions will have to occur.

It looks like the time of consolidation is upon us. Anduril has bought at least five companies since 2021, and, three months ago, Shield AI bought AI company Sentient Vision Systems. 

Power also said that Datum Source will be the “first of many” acquisitions for Hadrian. In the future, he added, Hadrian might acquire startups that also offer automated manufacturing processes or, perhaps, even buy some that use legacy manufacturing systems.

Acquisitions are in defense tech’s DNA. To be a “defense prime” — basically, to compete with behemoths like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc. — a company has to be able to compete for contract after contract, each of which will require a different skillset or engineering capacity or design specialty.

So, for any defense tech startup to grow that big, they must continuously add to their offerings and must make them better than some of the best-capitalized companies on the planet. 

Most defense tech startups will likely never be able to produce one thing well enough to win a contract, much less multiple areas that win multiple contracts. So for those that have one or two great products, the best hope for an exit will probably be an acquisition by a bigger defense startup, which will scoop them up to compete for a specific contract or purpose. 

“I think you’re going to see a lot more acquisitions from the platform companies like Hadrian and Anduril in the next couple of years,” Power laughed. “Something is indeed happening.”

Editor’s note: This story has been modified to update Hadrian’s valuation.

Bluesky's UK surge has had little impact on X

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white clouds in blue sky

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Social networking startup Bluesky is benefiting from a surge of new users from the U.K., following Elon Musk’s controversial statements over the U.K. riots in recent weeks. Although the X exodus wasn’t yet visible in the app install or usage data for X’s biggest rival, Instagram Threads, Bluesky has been touting an increase in signups and a 60% jump in activity from U.K.-based accounts, it said earlier this week. The company on Wednesday repeated these claims, showing a chart displaying a sharp increase in U.K. activity on its network that’s spiking past all other countries on Bluesky right now.

Image Credits: Bluesky

The startup also noted on Tuesday that the U.K. had driven more Bluesky signups than any other country for five out of the past seven days.

Despite the influx of U.K. users to the decentralized social networking app and X alternative, other new data indicates that it’s still Meta’s Threads, not Bluesky, that’s better poised to challenge X, the Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter.

Image Credits: Similarweb

According to a new analysis from digital market intelligence company Similarweb, the impact of U.K.-based users joining Bluesky is still fairly small.

On August 11, Bluesky saw 67,800 U.K.-based daily active users, which although a recent peak, was not the highest-ever usage Bluesky has seen from U.K. users. In January of this year, for example, Bluesky’s app saw more than 100,000 daily active users, making this recent surge less remarkable in that broader context, the firm said.

In addition, Bluesky’s U.K.-based monthly active users were unchanged from June to July, whereas monthly active users were up a slight 8.6% for Threads in the U.K. (Overall, however, the firm had earlier reported that X’s fluctuations in daily and weekly usage were still within normal ranges, despite reports of users fleeing X.)

Meanwhile, the impact of this U.K.-driven shift on X is underwhelming. Though August 11 was one of X’s weakest days of the year, Similarweb said, the Musk-owned app still had 6 million daily active users from the U.K. — far more than either Threads or Bluesky, the data indicates.

Image Credits: Similarweb

Generally speaking, X’s userbase tends to fluctuate, but monthly active users from June to July were up 2.6% in the U.K. and 3.4% in the U.S. That may not be the best time frame to analyze, though, since the stabbing attack that triggered the U.K. riots, which were fueled by online misinformation, took place near the end of July, but Musk’s comments riled up X users and U.K. officials in August.

Still, Similarweb’s analysis of Android data worldwide shows that X is still far ahead of Threads and Bluesky even as of August 12, with 91.0 million global daily active users compared with 34.9 million and 594,700 global daily actives for Threads and Bluesky, respectively. On the web, X.com saw 192.5 million daily web visits on August 12, compared with just 3.7 million for Threads and 616,200 for Bluesky.

That said, X’s lead is wider in the U.S. than it is in the U.K.

X is 5.9 times larger than Threads in the U.S. and just a little more than three times larger in the U.K. in terms of monthly active users. That narrower lead could potentially make it easier for a competitor like Bluesky or Threads to win the U.K. demographic if the switching trend were to grow over time.

Jeff Bezos' brother’s firm has launched a debut $100M VC fund called HIPstr

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in brief, cryptocurrency, crypto

Image Credits: We Are / Getty Images

HighPost Capital, a private equity firm run by Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos’ younger brother, and PE veteran David Moross, has launched a new venture capital arm called HIPstr. And with it, fresh capital to invest in startups.

The new entity just announced its first VC fund of $100 million. HighPost Capital focuses on consumer companies and HIPstr aims to take advantage of dramatically lower startup valuations of the past couple of years, Bloomberg reported. The fund has already invested in half a dozen early-stage startups, including Wild Common, a liquor company started by Kylie Jenner, and After.com, a cremation services provider that raised a $10 million Series A round last month.

The Waymo robotaxi honking problem has been resolved for real this time

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Waymo robotaxi

Image Credits: Waymo

The great nightly Waymo honk-a-thon — in which the company’s robotaxis erupted into a chorus of honking at night’s end in a San Francisco parking lot— was resolved, then not. Now it is again.

The backstory: Software engineer Sophia Tung set up a livestream of the parking lot that captured the robotaxis streaming in to park — and honk — for up to an hour around 4 a.m.  

Waymo last week issued a software patch to ensure the robotaxis — often in close quarters — would not honk at each other. But at 4 a.m. Saturday morning, the livestream captured, yes, more honking.

Now, another patch has been issued, per an interview Monday between Tung and Waymo Director of Product and Operations Vishay Nihalani on her livestream. Nihalani explained that while it makes a lot of sense for Waymos to honk on public roads, the group honking was an unintended consequence.

Ring’s new battery doorbell has head-to-toe video

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Ring Battery Doorbell

Image Credits: Ring

Ring announced on Wednesday the next generation of its Battery Doorbell. For $100, customers get extended battery life, color night vision, a head-to-toe view of visitors and a new push-pin mounting system. 

Head-to-toe HD video was previously only available with the Doorbell Plus and Pro models. Now, according to Ring, the Battery Doorbell provides a 66% taller view of visitors compared to Ring Video Doorbell 2nd Gen, the previous generation of the company’s budget-friendly battery-powered product. The addition of a 150-degree by 150-degree field of view allows customers to see a full top-to-bottom view of what’s on their doorstep, making it easier to check which packages were just delivered. 

Head-to-toe view has become a common and expected feature for users interested in advanced video doorbells. Ring was one of the first smart doorbells to enter the market and has faced competition from various emerging competitors. By adding head-to-toe video to its budget battery doorbell, Ring is now in line with competitors such as Arlo, Google Nest and Wyze, all of which offer this feature.

Image Credits: Ring

The new doorbell’s battery life has also been extended from the previous model, delivering up to 23% longer battery life. Ring made it easier to charge the battery with a redesigned mount system that allows customers to remove it from the door using a push-pin tool. 

Additionally, the color night vision feature enables them to see clearly day or night.

Every doorbell in Ring’s lineup is capable of sending motion alerts, providing a live view of the camera footage, enabling two-way talk and allowing for the customization of motion zones. Paired with the Ring Protect plan, which costs $5 per month or $50 per year, users can receive person and package alerts and access 180 days of video history.

Ring’s Battery Doorbell is available for preorder today on Ring.com and Amazon.com. It’ll ship out to customers starting on September 4.

Bluesky's UK surge has had little impact on X

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white clouds in blue sky

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Social networking startup Bluesky is benefiting from a surge of new users from the U.K., following Elon Musk’s controversial statements over the U.K. riots in recent weeks. Although the X exodus wasn’t yet visible in the app install or usage data for X’s biggest rival, Instagram Threads, Bluesky has been touting an increase in signups and a 60% jump in activity from U.K.-based accounts, it said earlier this week. The company on Wednesday repeated these claims, showing a chart displaying a sharp increase in U.K. activity on its network that’s spiking past all other countries on Bluesky right now.

Image Credits: Bluesky

The startup also noted on Tuesday that the U.K. had driven more Bluesky signups than any other country for five out of the past seven days.

Despite the influx of U.K. users to the decentralized social networking app and X alternative, other new data indicates that it’s still Meta’s Threads, not Bluesky, that’s better poised to challenge X, the Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter.

Image Credits: Similarweb

According to a new analysis from digital market intelligence company Similarweb, the impact of U.K.-based users joining Bluesky is still fairly small.

On August 11, Bluesky saw 67,800 U.K.-based daily active users, which although a recent peak, was not the highest-ever usage Bluesky has seen from U.K. users. In January of this year, for example, Bluesky’s app saw more than 100,000 daily active users, making this recent surge less remarkable in that broader context, the firm said.

In addition, Bluesky’s U.K.-based monthly active users were unchanged from June to July, whereas monthly active users were up a slight 8.6% for Threads in the U.K. (Overall, however, the firm had earlier reported that X’s fluctuations in daily and weekly usage were still within normal ranges, despite reports of users fleeing X.)

Meanwhile, the impact of this U.K.-driven shift on X is underwhelming. Though August 11 was one of X’s weakest days of the year, Similarweb said, the Musk-owned app still had 6 million daily active users from the U.K. — far more than either Threads or Bluesky, the data indicates.

Image Credits: Similarweb

Generally speaking, X’s userbase tends to fluctuate, but monthly active users from June to July were up 2.6% in the U.K. and 3.4% in the U.S. That may not be the best time frame to analyze, though, since the stabbing attack that triggered the U.K. riots, which were fueled by online misinformation, took place near the end of July, but Musk’s comments riled up X users and U.K. officials in August.

Still, Similarweb’s analysis of Android data worldwide shows that X is still far ahead of Threads and Bluesky even as of August 12, with 91.0 million global daily active users compared with 34.9 million and 594,700 global daily actives for Threads and Bluesky, respectively. On the web, X.com saw 192.5 million daily web visits on August 12, compared with just 3.7 million for Threads and 616,200 for Bluesky.

That said, X’s lead is wider in the U.S. than it is in the U.K.

X is 5.9 times larger than Threads in the U.S. and just a little more than three times larger in the U.K. in terms of monthly active users. That narrower lead could potentially make it easier for a competitor like Bluesky or Threads to win the U.K. demographic if the switching trend were to grow over time.

Jeff Bezos' brother’s firm has launched a debut $100M VC fund called HIPstr

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in brief, cryptocurrency, crypto

Image Credits: We Are / Getty Images

HighPost Capital, a private equity firm run by Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos’ younger brother, and PE veteran David Moross, has launched a new venture capital arm called HIPstr. And with it, fresh capital to invest in startups.

The new entity just announced its first VC fund of $100 million. HighPost Capital focuses on consumer companies and HIPstr aims to take advantage of dramatically lower startup valuations of the past couple of years, Bloomberg reported. The fund has already invested in half a dozen early-stage startups, including Wild Common, a liquor company started by Kylie Jenner, and After.com, a cremation services provider that raised a $10 million Series A round last month.

The defense tech acquisition spree has begun: Autonomous factory startup Hadrian acquires Datum Source

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Hadrian founder and CEO Chris Power got tired of turning startups away. 

Since 2020, Power has raised $220 million for Hadrian, a largely autonomous factory that mass produces parts for space and defense companies.

While Hadrian has produced parts for major defense companies, it had to turn away some defense tech startups because startups have to rapidly iterate on product designs, meaning they need one hyper-specific part today and another design tomorrow. Hadrian, which was last publicly valued at $275 million, would have to constantly set up entirely new production lines, ruining the point of using its hyper-efficient automated factory.

But on Wednesday Hadrian announced they bought Datum Source, a software company founded by SpaceX alums that uses AI to help hardware companies find manufacturing partners. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Datum Source has raised $5.6 million at a valuation of $30 million, according to Pitchbook. With Datum Source, Hadrian can help match a startup with specific manufacturers any time it needs a new part, instead of the founders otherwise searching through hundreds of potential suppliers, Power said.

This lets Hadrian partner with the early stage defense tech startups it’s been missing out on — and hopefully ensures that, as these companies grow, Hadrian is top of mind. Or, as Power put it, when a startup does win a big DoD contract and is ready to scale up production, he can promise that “we’re going to make all this stuff in an autonomous factory for you.” 

As a bonus, the acquisition brought Hadrian about thirty of Datum’s existing customers, with the bulk being early stage startups. The company will also bring on Datum Source’s 14-person team to help guide early stage companies through the procurement process.  

The acquisition is both a savvy move on Power’s part and a harbinger of things to come. Venture capital has poured $129.3 billion into defense tech startups since 2021, according to PitchBook, and, in a category where there can be very, very few winners, a rush of acquisitions will have to occur.

It looks like the time of consolidation is upon us. Anduril has bought at least five companies since 2021, and, three months ago, Shield AI bought AI company Sentient Vision Systems. 

Power also said that Datum Source will be the “first of many” acquisitions for Hadrian. In the future, he added, Hadrian might acquire startups that also offer automated manufacturing processes or, perhaps, even buy some that use legacy manufacturing systems.

Acquisitions are in defense tech’s DNA. To be a “defense prime” — basically, to compete with behemoths like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc — a company has to be able to compete for contract after contract, each of which will require a different skillset or engineering capacity or design speciality.

So, for any defense tech startup to grow that big, they must continuously add to their offerings and must make them better than some of the best-capitalized companies on the planet. 

Most defense tech startups will likely never be able to produce one thing well enough to win a contract, much less multiple areas that win multiple contracts. So for those that have one or two great products, the best hope for an exit will probably be an acquisition by a bigger defense startup, which will scoop them up to compete for a specific contract or purpose. 

“I think you’re going to see a lot more acquisitions from the platform companies like Hadrian and Anduril in the next couple of years,” he laughed. “Something is indeed happening.”

She grew up a gearhead — now her startup has raised $4.3M to cut CO2 from trucking

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From left, Christy McCaig (Nine Realms), Danielle Walsh (Clearly), Katharina Neisinger (Pace Ventures). Photo by Hubert Cecil

Image Credits: From left, Christy McCaig (Nine Realms), Danielle Walsh (Clearly), Katharina Neisinger (Pace Ventures). Photo by Hubert Cecil

The irony was not lost on her. Growing up the daughter of a family obsessed with car racing, Danielle Walsh had become — in her late 20s — the head of HSBC’s ‘Future Cities’ project, the global banking giant’s effort to serve clients’ climate change mandates.

It was 2018, and she was reporting both into the banks’ technology M&A and also its Chief Data Officer.

“After a year and a half of living on a plane and talking to clients, I realized that the world would need to spend trillions annually just to get to the ‘net zero’ climate goals that had been set in road transportation alone,” Walsh recalled. She realized this was an opportunity, and launched her startup to tackle the issue in 2021. 

Fast-forward to today, as the founder and CEO of her startup Clearly, Walsh (pictured above, center, with her two investors) has now closed a Seed round of $4.3 million to bolster its flagship product: an AI-driven ‘climate intelligence’ platform aimed at transport fleet operators. The platform, claims Walsh, is granular enough to know when to alert a driver to pump up a vehicle’s tires in order to achieve the optimum climate-friendly performance. 

The funding round has been led by Pace Ventures and Nine Realms, and also saw participation from existing mobility investors Mobilion, Next Gear and M1720 alongside angels including Lord Nash and Margaux Primat.

The problem Clearly is addressing may seem obvious, but the devil is in the details. Although we are all aware of trucks and delivery cars on our streets, and sometimes of how much exhaust they belch out, decarbonizing the underlying both the transportation fleet and the supply chains is a vast and costly conundrum. 

The transport sector accounts for 25% of global emissions, thus holding one of the largest keys to unlocking a reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere. It will cost an estimated $1.75 trillion to decarbonize the sector, and that means changing vehicles, upgrading energy grids, and more. Meanwhile, transportation emissions are projected to increase by 60% by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency. 

Founded in 2021, Clearly is looking to solve one part of that puzzle. Its platform — based on anonymized data provided by its customers, which are logistics operators, fleet owners, and other transportation supply chain participants — includes diagnostics on vehicle movement and performance, GPS, tracking, IoT data, load weight, and more. Based on this, the resulting dashboard then provides various emission-related insights for fleet managers, as well as alerts, delivered through an app, for drivers, intended to ‘nudge’ their behavior. (These might include instructions such as “Try to drive more slowly.”) The platform now tracks over 100 million trips from clients. 

The aim is to help operators save money while ensuring they meet emission regulations and targets, which are now written into legal compliance in many countries. 

The company’s current blue-chip clients include Webfleet, Bridgestone’s fleet management solution.

Walsh says Clearly’s data was able to show that as much as 30% of fuel consumption is influenced by driving behavior alone, hence the importance of showing a driver data on how to improve their performance. 

“This space is expanding rapidly and we were impressed by the significant demand from large corporates and the financing sector for Clearly’s product,” said Marius Swart, a partner at Pace Ventures, in a statement. “We see the need for data-driven procurement and AI-enabled operational decision-making broadening at a fast pace.”

That said, Clearly faces large incumbents. These tend to be large telematics providers, and that poses a challenge, in Walsh’s opinion: they may have data, but they have struggled to create platforms that fleet operators can apply practically. 

“They track vehicles, tire pressure, and driver behavior, but they don’t know how to layer on that additional data,” she told TechCrunch. While she admits any company that’s looking at operational efficiency or fleet management “could expand their product into our area,” she says they’d require a new technology stack that goes beyond that. 

“If I take 1% of the market, I can make a billion in revenue,” she said. “I would welcome additional players. It’s a very big market.” 

So what would she say to her car-racing-enthusiast family, now that she’s turned from a gearhead into a ‘climatehead’?

“Well, I just raised $4 million… How about that?”, jokes Walsh.

Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has passed away at age 56

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Image Credits: Wikimedia commons

Tragedy has again struck a famous Silicon Valley family. Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki just passed away, according to social media posts by her husband, Dennis Troper, and by Google CEO Sundar Pichai. She was 56.

Wrote Troper on Facebook earlier Friday night, “It is with profound sadness that I share the news of Susan Wojcicki passing. My beloved wife of 26 years and mother to our five children left us today after 2 years of living with non-small cell lung cancer.”

“Susan was not just my best friend and partner in life, but a brilliant mind, a loving mother, and a dear friend to many. Her impact on our family and the world was immeasurable. We are heartbroken, but grateful for the time we had with her. Please keep our family in your thoughts as we navigate this difficult time.”

Pichai also sent a note to Google employees late Friday.

“By now you may have heard the news that Susan Wojcicki has passed away after two years of living with lung cancer. Even as I write this it feels impossible to me that it’s true. Susan was one of the most active and vibrant people I have ever met,” the note said.

Non-small cell lung cancer is one of two primary types of lung cancer and the most common kind, according to the Yale School of Medicine. Because its symptoms are often mistaken for common illnesses, 80 percent of people diagnosed with the condition have already progressed to advanced stages, according to a fact sheet associated with the university.

Wojcicki’s passing comes on the heels of another heart-breaking loss for Wojcicki and her husband in February of this year, when their 19-year-old son, Marco Troper, died of an accidental overdose in his dorm room at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a freshman.

Wojcicki rose to fame as the CEO of YouTube, a role she held for nine years before stepping down in early 2023, saying in a blog post at the time that she had “decided to start a new chapter focused on my family, health and personal projects I’m passionate about.”

Wojcicki was among the first 20 employees of Google, which went on to acquire YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion — what seemed like an astronomical amount at the time. She famously became involved with the company after renting the garage of her Menlo Park, Calif., home to friends Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were Ph.D. students at Stanford at the time. (Google was restructured in 2015, at which point Alphabet became its parent company.)

According to reports over the years, it was after observing the early traction of YouTube that Wojcicki herself — then a marketing manager at Google — proposed to Page and Brin that Google buy the video streaming platform.

Under her leadership, YouTube became a multibillion dollar cash generator for Google. In 2023, YouTube posted $8.1 billion in revenue through ad sales — nearly 10% of Alphabet’s total revenue.

Wojcicki’s family has deep ties to Silicon Valley and to the Bay Area more broadly. One of her sisters is 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki. Another sister, Janet, is a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. Meanwhile, their mother Esther Wojcicki, is a renowned educator who has written extensively on how to raise successful children.

Here is the full memo Pichai sent to Google employees:

Googlers,

By now you may have heard the news that Susan Wojcicki has passed away after two years of living with lung cancer. Even as I write this it feels impossible to me that it’s true. Susan was one of the most active and vibrant people I have ever met. Her loss is devastating for all of us who know and love her, for the thousands of Googlers she led over the years, and for millions of people all over the world who looked up to her, benefited from her advocacy and leadership, and felt the impact of the incredible things she created at Google, YouTube, and beyond.

Susan’s journey, from the garage she rented to Larry and Sergey … to leading teams across consumer products and building our Ads business … to becoming the CEO of YouTube, one of the world’s most significant platforms, is inspiring by any measure. But she didn’t stop there. As one of the earliest Googlers — and the first to take maternity leave — Susan used her position to build a better workplace for everyone. And in the years that followed, her advocacy around parental leave set a new standard for businesses everywhere. Susan was also deeply passionate about education. She realized early on that YouTube could be a learning platform for the world and championed “edutubers” — especially those who extended the reach of STEM education to underserved communities.

Over the last two years, even as she dealt with great personal difficulties, Susan devoted herself to making the world better through her philanthropy, including supporting research for the disease that ultimately took her life. I know that was very meaningful to her and I’m so glad she took the time to do it.

Susan always put others first, both in her values and in the day to day. I’ll never forget her kindness to me as a prospective “Noogler” 20 years ago. During my Google interview she took me out for an ice cream and a walk around campus. I was sold – on Google and Susan.

I feel so fortunate to have spent so many years working with Susan closely, as I’m sure many of you do — she was absolutely loved by her teams here. Her time on earth was far too short, but she made every minute count.

We’re in close touch with Susan’s family, including her husband and fellow Googler, Dennis. We will share more soon about how we’re going to celebrate her incredible life. In the meantime, let’s honor Susan’s memory by continuing to build a Google she would be proud of.