SigmaBlox Cohort 25-1

$146.8M DIU classified-infrastructure task

Nooks builds the classified workspaces and infrastructure that defense technology companies need before they can touch real mission data. In August 2026 the company secured a four-year, $146.8M task to deliver Classified-Infrastructure-as-a-Service to the Defense Innovation Unit itself, leveraged off an SBIR Phase III IDIQ. It is the largest single award to come out of Cohort 25-1 — by an order of magnitude.

$40M Space Force contract — largest in company history

Pulse Space is building orbital power beaming: satellites that deliver energy and secure optical bandwidth to other spacecraft. In July 2026 the U.S. Space Force awarded the company a $40M technology development contract — the largest single contract in its history — to accelerate engineering, system testing, and operational deployment. Its design targets 29.7 kilowatts delivered to a 3-meter target from 1,000 kilometers.

$46M led by a16z American Dynamism

Ulysses arrived with a blunt thesis: undersea autonomy had been priced out of the fight. In April 2026 the company announced $46M — a $38M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz's American Dynamism fund on top of an $8M seed — with Booz Allen Ventures also investing. The capital scales production of Mako, a ~$50K-class autonomous underwater vehicle with 72-hour endurance and a 5,000-ft depth rating, and moves the Leviathan autonomous surface mothership and Kraken launch-and-recovery system from prototype to production.

$136M Series B at a $1B+ valuation

Defense Unicorns builds the software delivery backbone for air-gapped and disconnected military networks — the plumbing that lets everyone else's capability actually reach the edge. In January 2026 the company raised a $136M Series B led by Bain Capital at a valuation above $1B, on roughly 300% year-over-year growth in adoption across military systems.

$8M Series A1 co-led by eBay Ventures

Alitheon's FeaturePrint reads the microscopic surface variation every manufactured object already has, authenticating physical items with an ordinary camera and no barcode, QR code, or RFID tag. In June 2026 the company raised $8M in a Series A1 co-led by Emerald Technology Ventures and eBay Ventures to scale deployment across defense and commercial supply chains, on top of roughly $1.5M in federal contracts including work with the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center.

Army PORTAL Direct-to-Phase-II SBIR

Gallatin's Navigator platform compresses resupply decision-making — real-time data integration, AI-generated courses of action, and simulation for contested logistics. In March 2026 the company won a contract under the Army Applications Laboratory's PORTAL Direct-to-Phase-II SBIR to develop Navigator for Army units operating at multiple echelons, and opened an Austin engineering office the month before.

Army contract for swarming ground robots with 1st Cavalry Division

Swarmbotics builds ANTS — attritable, networked, tactical swarms of small unmanned ground vehicles designed to create multiple dilemmas for an adversary at a fraction of the cost of manned platforms. On the back of its xTechOverwatch performance, the Army selected the company to field prototypes with the 1st Cavalry Division, working the formation from January 2026 through July 2027 toward deploying hundreds of robots in maneuver and breaching operations.

DIU x INDOPACOM accelerator, then SO/LIC seed selection

Dunedain came in targeting over 1 billion DoD labor-hours per year ripe for automation. Since the Combine, Warmind reached IL5/FedRAMP Low compliance and went live across Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy units, including disconnected and classified environments. In December 2025 DIU and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command picked Dunedain as one of ten teams for the inaugural Blue Object Management Challenge accelerator — a 12-week sprint against a $500K prize pool. In July 2026 the team pitched Special Operations / Low-Intensity Conflict and was selected for seed funding.

xTechPacific winner, mid-Mastermind in Honolulu

At the Combine, ZeroMark showed a path to shift counter-UAS from million-dollar interceptors to software-defined rifles. In September 2025 — mid-Mastermind — the company spent a week in live experimentation alongside Soldiers in Honolulu and came out an xTechPacific winner, taking prize money and an invitation to submit for a Direct-to-Phase-II Army SBIR worth up to $2M. A strategic round with Beaten Zone Venture Partners followed that October, on top of the $7M seed led by Andreessen Horowitz.

12 SBIR awards and ACES Phase III production

Founded by an Apple engineer turned Blackhawk MEDEVAC pilot, Hadron's Photon platform became the technical foundation of the Air Force's Advanced Collaboration Enterprise Services program through a Phase III contract with AFRL. Their Phase II Sequential SBIR builds a VR tactical radio and NetOps training environment integrated with the Army's Unified Network Operations program of record.

Completed USAF SBIR Phase I

Intelligenic's Product Studio automates the software development lifecycle. In August 2026 the company announced successful completion of its Phase I SBIR with the Department of War and the U.S. Air Force, demonstrating measurable improvement in USAF software development groups.

Three federal awards in 2026

A $3M USITC contract to modernize the Harmonized Tariff Schedule into a digital system, a place on the NASA SEWP VI government-wide acquisition contract, and a $3M ICE follow-on — all inside 2026.

AFWERX TACFI award announced at Farnborough

AFWERX granted AEROSENS a Tactical Funding Increase to continue developing its AeroISU platform for in-transit visibility and operational readiness, announced at the Farnborough International Airshow in July 2026.

Manufacturing expansion behind Army and NASA work

A $1.6M Army SBIR Phase II for conformable hydrogen storage tanks and more than $5.5M in NASA contracts for lunar propellant tanks, followed by a May 2026 equipment expansion backed by investors and the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.

Navy MUSV partnership at Sea-Air-Space 2026

A memorandum of understanding with Birdon America to pursue Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel opportunities against evolving Navy requirements, announced at Sea-Air-Space 2026, alongside integration of the Mythos autonomy stack into Ocean Power Technologies' WAM-V fleet.

$3.5M SAFE and a paid Blue Origin demo

Custom drones with 4K cameras and 3D LiDAR that autonomously inspect aircraft. In March 2026 the company opened a $3.5M post-money SAFE, having completed a paid onsite demonstration with Blue Origin.

Air Force patent license for FOD detection

The Department of the Air Force gave notice of intent to grant Airtrek a partially exclusive patent license covering foreign object debris detection on paved surfaces, and the company piloted autonomous wingwalking under the FLITE program at Gerald R. Ford International Airport.

Four SBIRs and a DARPA Embedded Entrepreneur selection

A DTRA STTR Phase I for RADIANT, an AI radiation-safety companion built with Stony Brook; a DLA SBIR Phase I for energy-efficient AI; an Army SBIR Phase I for PRELUDE; and selection into DARPA's Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative through its Commercial Strategy Office.

$3.68M raised for 3D data collaboration

A cloud platform for hosting, analyzing, and sharing 3D data, funded by the Air Force for 3D situational awareness. The company raised $3.68M in September 2025, weeks after the Combine.

DARPA exercised its Phase II third-year option

DARPA picked up the third-year option on X-Hab 3D's SBIR Phase II, funding work with Penn State on locally-sourced construction materials, blast-resistant mixtures, and protective 3D-printed structural designs.

$349M USSOCOM, $99M Army, and a $450M acquisition

Raft has had the kind of year that reprices a category: a $349M indefinite-delivery contract from U.S. Special Operations Command for edge-to-enterprise data and AI, a five-year $99M enterprise IDIQ from Army Contracting Command in August 2026, and an agreement for Leonardo DRS to acquire the company for $450M in cash, expected to close in Q4 2026.

Thunderforge prime and a $500M CDAO ceiling

We brought Scale AI into INDOPACOM on a sub-$1M unfunded requirement — before Thunderforge, before the CDAO expansion, before Meta paid $14.3B for a 49% stake.

Scale AI is the prime on Thunderforge, the DoD's flagship program for putting AI agents into the workflows military planners actually use, delivered with Anduril and Microsoft. In 2026 its Chief Digital and AI Office work stepped up to a $500M ceiling — five times the prior agreement — alongside an expanded Army R&D partnership.