US Air Defense in Israel, Mystery Drone Swarms, and Catching Rockets with Chopsticks
Advanced Computing, Advanced Manufacturing, & Synthbio
Good morning,
Did you miss us this weekend? We’re still figuring out the right mix of news to keep our readers informed without overwhelming you. To this end, we’re going to consolidate several of our editions to better streamline the newsletter. We’re also going to try and bring a bit of focus back, so expect (hopefully) better curation. Today’s edition is focused on Advanced Computing (chips, Nanotech, quantum computing), advanced manufacturing, and synthbio. But only as those techs advanced our national interests.
Now, let’s go!
News Headlines:
US deploying THAAD missile defence system, troops to Israel (AlJ)
SpaceX successfully catches returning Starship booster (TC)
Mystery drones swarm US military base for 17 days, the Pentagon is stumped (WSJ)
Taiwan spots Chinese carrier, China military video says 'prepared for battle' (RT)
Quantum Computing:
Q-CTRL, a Sydney-based quantum infra software developer, raised $59M in Series B-2 funding led by GP Bullhound (VB)
QC company TreQ Global raised a $5M seed round led by Lavrock for open-architecture QC clusters (PRN)
Chinese scientists report using quantum computer to hack military-grade encryption (QI)
Nanotech, Nanomaterials, Chips
Chinese chip stocks are rallying like Nvidia (WSJ)
Advanced Manufacturing
At this Air force Depot, advanced manufacturing is cutting edge no longer (ASF)
Deal Flow:
Shore Capital Partners closed three PE funds totaling $1.9B--including its inaugural Healthcare Advantage Fund (BW)
GHK Capital Partners, a Greenwich, Conn-based PE firm, raised $870M for its second fund focused on the industrials sector (WSJ)
Gropyus, a startup that prefabricates buildings using robots, raised a $109M round led by Semapa and Practical Venture Capital (TC)
Lithium extraction startup EnergyX raised a $75M round from small retail investors (TC)
Basecamp Research, an AI model to understand biology, raised a $60M Series B led by Singular (TC)
Honeywell will spin off its advanced materials unit at an $11B valuation (RT)
Japan's largest oil refiner Eneos is planning to spin off its metals division JX Advanced Metals at an over $4.7B valuation (NKA)
PE firm MBK Partners and Korean conglomerate Young Poong increased their offer for Korea Zinc to $12.9B (BBG)
Global miner Rio Tinto agreed to buy Arcadium Lithium for $6.7B cash (RT)
Opportunities
DARPA is looking for proposals about how using Quantum Biology can accelerate Quantum Computing (SAM)
Editor's Picks:
See if you can catch Starship as well as SpaceX did.
Lighter Side:
Keep Building,
BOF