Squadra News: NetRise to be acquired, welcome Copia and Volund to the Squad
Cyber-physical systems and operational technology rising, open roles at Aurelius Systems.
Accenture is making a $4.2 billion investment into industrial cybersecurity. As announced in the Wall Street Journal, core to that advance is the acquisition of NetRise.
What started as “extended internet of things” monitoring, NetRise’s software supply-chain security technology delivers firmware-level visibility into device exposure to customers across critical industries. Now, the NetRise team will take this mission to scale.
As we celebrate NetRise's acquisition, we recognize the work ahead to secure cyber-physical systems across all domains. We’re proud to announce investments in Copia Automation and Volund Manufacturing, two companies that underscore the technical realities built resilience demands.
Critical infrastructure remains one of the most vulnerable and under-addressed attack surfaces. Treating code as a critical asset, Copia Automation delivers an industrial code management platform that ensures the cyber and operational resiliency of the code that runs the physical world.
American reindustrialization requires innovation to simultaneously drive capacity and capability. Volund Manufacturing builds attritable, low-cost turbines and has re-engineered production with a software-driven manufacturing execution system, changing the calculus of the pace, precision, and flexibility of delivery.
Consider this your go-to snapshot of how to engage.
In this edition you will find:
🏆 Challenge from Instant Teams celebrating America's 250th
💥 Open roles at Aurelius Systems
🚀 Invitations to upcoming events in Washington, DC
Company News to Celebrate
NetRise to be acquired by Accenture to strengthen critical infrastructure defense. Alongside the acquisition of NetRise, Accenture will acquire a majority stake in Dragos, a leading platform for operational technology cybersecurity, and asset intelligence and exposure assessment company runZero, creating an end-to-end XoT cybersecurity platform. The combination of these technologies will provide industrial and critical infrastructure operators the ability to see and understand everything in their OT network, delivering insight that stops attack. NetRise will operate under Dragos and co-founders Thomas Pace, CEO, and Michael Scott, Chief Technology Officer & Chief Scientist, will join the Dragos executive team. Read the press release from Accenture.
Volund Manufacturing secures $12M in seed financing to build MIL-SPEC propulsion systems and automated manufacturing capabilities in a round led by Root Ventures and Squadra Ventures. By designing and producing scalable, low-cost propulsion systems for attritable drones and next-gen defense systems, Volund pairs commercial manufacturing capability with advanced manufacturing automation to transform US supply chain resilience. Read more in Tectonic.
Copia Automation secures $26M in funding to unify operational technology code management, backup, and recovery in a round led by AE Ventures and Squadra Ventures. Copia’s platform brings modern code capabilities to the OT teams that are first responders in the event of an industrial cyberattack or downtime incident. Providing visibility, traceability, and control across the full automation lifecycle, Copia safeguards the industrial control systems that keep our society running. Read more in The Next Web.
Citra Space Corporation opened their new headquarters in Colorado Springs, CO. The team was joined by Rep. Jeff Crank and Mayor Yemi Mobolade to cut the ribbon, as well as tech community members and industry stakeholders. Watch the segment from KRDO 13 News.
Wyvern was awarded a contract with NASA's Earth Science Division through the Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition program. Under the firm-fixed-price, ID/IQ multiple-award contract, Wyvern will deliver hyperspectral imaging data to NASA researchers. Read more in NASA Science.
PDW acquired Vanteon Corporation, an electronics engineering company specializing in advanced communications, RF engineering, and software-defined radio development. The acquisition strengthens PDW’s ability to integrate communications architecture as part of a complete system rather than treating it as a separate component. Read more in Inside Defense.
Network Highlights to Share
250 years of force: Behind every service member is a military spouse navigating moves, deployments, and constant change. Despite those challenges, they continue to build skills, lead teams, and drive results. In honor of the last 250 years military spouses have served our country, Instant Teams launched Mission250 to celebrate America's most mission-driven workforce — challenging 25 companies to hire 250 military spouses into remote roles. Read the announcement on LinkedIn.
Defense tech hackers unite: The U.S. Army hosted more than 50 defense companies at Operation Jailbreak in Fort Carson, CO. This "Right to Integrate" hackathon was a month-long sprint, bringing companies like Shift5 together to integrate the Army's disparate weapons systems and platforms including missiles, tanks, drones, and air defense systems. Read the recap on LinkedIn.
Lord of the microchips: Falcomm introduced GaNdalph.ai, an AI-native electronic design automation software tool for RF/mmWave chip design, in partnership with leading semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundaries at the annual IMS conference in Boston, MA. GaNdalph.ai supports GF’s RFGaN1 process, with a methodology that can be applied to GaN and CMOS processes across the industry. Read the announcement on LinkedIn.
Security SaaS magic: Gartner's Magic Quadrant for SaaS Management Platforms this year recognized the compounding challenges of SaaS applications and generative AI usage in the enterprise. Nudge was recognized as a vendor to address these challenges. Read the announcement on LinkedIn.
Credibility that stacks up: UFORCE's Magura USVs have sank 14 Russian warships. Their air systems have flown over 220,000 combat missions. CEO Oleg Rogynskyy joined the Mission Matters podcast to share his experience leading a defense tech unicorn, not only by valuation, but by fielded capability. Listen to the podcast.
Super-human vision: Overwatch Imaging was featured in Seapower Magazine, the official publication of the Navy League of the United States. "The crew can focus on making decisions, rather than looking at a lot of raw data. Let’s use computers to look at the raw data," said CEO Greg Davis. Overwatch's Automated Sensor Operator software supports a wide-range of maritime ISR missions. Read the article.
Open Roles at Aurelius
Aurelius Systems builds AI-powered directed energy laser defense platforms that protect troops, bases, and infrastructure from UAS drone threats. Headquartered in downtown San Francisco, CA, the company has 17 open roles across all aspects of the business.
Help us find their next team members — please forward this email. Aurelius Systems is hiring:
💥 Electrical Engineer who can own a wide surface area of electromechanical hardware across power, embedded control, wire harnesses, and subsystem integration.
💥 Forward Deployed Engineer to lead demonstrations, field tests, and field integration for their autonomous counter-UAS laser system, serving as the the field deployed technical face of the company.
💥 Business Operations Associate to be the connective tissue of the company, owning systems, scheduling, internal tooling, and taking on cross-functional problems.
💥 Senior Robotics Software Engineer to own development across the robotics software stack from perception, to control, to autonomy, while championing QA and CI/CD practices.
💥 Mechanical Engineer to lead design ruggedization and survivability across shock, vibration, moisture, and environmental extremes for a fiber laser system in a deployable, field-rugged package.
Interested in roles at our other portfolio companies? Visit our jobs board.
Up Next this Month
See the Future of Engineering — 7/15: Join technical practitioners for a live demonstration of how interoperable AI-native digital engineering tools and AI agents can integrate to drive systems engineering and design. Part of the international CDFAM Computational Design Symposium, SysGit will demonstrate real-time git-based requirements management alongside Istari and nTop. Complimentary registration is available to US Government employees for this evening session. Register for the workshop.
Protecting Uptime Online — 7/16: Modern data centers are complex cyber-physical ecosystems, when OT and IT networks merge, traditional security measures are not enough. Join Copia Automation and Claroty for a conversation on the software securing modern data centers. Register for the webinar.
Navigating AI in Venture — 7/21: GPs are moving fast, LPs are asking, lawyers have concerns. Between experimentation and full-production deployment, venture capital teams are making AI a part of their workflows. Hosted in partnership with STATION DC and VIA, this roundtable discussion will share what’s working, what’s a mess, and what nobody knows yet. Register for the roundtable on Luma.
Final Look from the Field
Aurelius Systems exhibited at last month's Reindustrialize, the annual gathering of leaders at the intersection of technology, policy, and capital driving the rebuilding of American industry in Detroit, MI.
The company displayed its autonomous directed-energy platform Archimedes integrated with a robotic combat vehicle. The compact, low-SWaP design delivers a lower-cost engagement model than traditional kinetic air defense solutions, improving scalability and operational sustainability. Integrating these two autonomous capabilities creates a force multiplier in high-risk environments, protects warfighters, and improves mission effectiveness.
Throughout the two-day event, the team met with attendees from across the defense tech ecosystem. From peer-to-peer discussions about the role of autonomous directed energy in the future of air defense and the need for a domestic supply chain, it was clear that the vision behind Archimedes and the platform’s capabilities more than meet the moment.
Featured here is Manufacturing Engineer Carter Stewart, who joined Aurelius earlier this year, alongside CTO and co-founder John Marmaduke.
Squadra Ventures is a venture capital firm led by founder-operators that invests in early-stage national security companies advancing the critical edge.
Grounded in the belief that success is a combination of people, product, and planning, the Squadra team provides transformational support to startup leaders in the complex dual-use technology ecosystem. By applying a growth-stage mindset at the seed stage and a commitment to building alongside entrepreneurs, Squadra empowers extraordinary teams to win and leave a lasting positive impact on the world.
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