After a juicy raise, a Canadian defence darling is angling for an even juicier contract.
What happened: Ottawa-based Dominion Dynamics secured $139 million in new funding, the largest Series A raise ever for a Canadian defence tech startup. It comes on the heels of a $21 million round in January, bringing its total to $169 million raised since launching last year.
Dominion plans to use the fresh cash injection to accelerate development of AuraNet, its flagship Arctic surveillance network, and Scout, its autonomous drone platform.
Catch-up: Arctic security is top of mind for Canada and its NATO allies as melting ice opens up new lanes, and China and Russia make overtures in the region. Dominion has made the issue its niche, and wants to be the company providing threat detection in Canada’s north.
“Canada still lacks persistent awareness across most of its own northern territory. If we can’t see, sense, and operate in our North, then we don’t truly control it,” Dominion founder and CEO Eliot Pence told The Peak in an interview last year.
Why it matters: Dominion has trialled prototypes of its system with Canada’s military, but hasn’t secured a federal contract. The company believes this round will help it make the leap from making prototypes to producing scalable products, thus securing the bag from Ottawa.
Zoom out: The company’s business model doesn’t really work without a federal contract, which it has found hard to come by even with new defence spending initiatives. If it doesn’t get one soon, Pence warned the company’s first contract could very well be in the U.S.—QH
