Pentagon’s ouster of Anthropic opens doors for small AI rivals

by Kristen Stanley | Apr 13, 2026 | Companies

13 April 2026 – In the weeks since the Department of Defense’s troubled ‌relationship with Anthropic burst into public view and led to the company being kicked out of the U.S. military, new defense-focused AI companies like Smack Technologies and...

This founder helped build SpaceX’s most powerful rocket engine. Now he’s building a ‘fighter jet for orbit.’

by Kristen Stanley | Apr 10, 2026 | Companies

10 April 2026 – Portal Space Systems has raised $50 million to bring it to life

Why Vanguard: Data Observability for Mission-Critical Autonomy

by Kristen Stanley | Mar 25, 2026 | Companies, FirstIn

25 March 2026 – By Arthur Karell As the cost of deploying AI at the edge collapses, competitive manufacturers and integrators are going to want their own autonomy stack in their products, even down to the component level. An unmanned vehicle will have its own...

Startup Antithesis turns years of real-world chaos into hours of simulated mayhem—and key trading firms and crypto networks are paying close attention

by Kristen Stanley | Mar 24, 2026 | Companies

25 March 2026 – Will Wilson wants to make sure the software running everything from your bank account to your favorite crypto exchange actually works—and his company Antithesis is rethinking how software has been tested for the last 80 years.​​

What AI Models for War Actually Look Like

by Kristen Stanley | Mar 10, 2026 | Companies

10 March 2026 – Anthropic might have misgivings about giving the US military unfettered access to its AI models, but some startups are building advanced AI specifically for military applications.

Pryzm Raises $12M to Transform Federal Procurement with AI

by Kristen Stanley | Dec 10, 2025 | Companies

9 December 2025 Pryzm today announced a $12.2 million seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) American Dynamism fund