New Vista Capital

New Vista Capital is an early-stage aerospace and defense venture firm backing courageous founders forging the future across air, land, sea & space.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

We have said it plainly a few times: the next arsenal of democracy gets built by the teams who treat manufacturing as the product.

This week the Pentagon said it back, its next APFIT round will prioritize technology "that can be made cheaply at scale."

Not the flashiest demo. Not the most exquisite platform. The thing you can actually build, in volume, on time, at a price that fills a deep magazine.

That's deterrence: a magazine deep enough no one dares test it. It's what we back across air, land, sea, and space. If you're building it, our DMs are open.
https://t.co/TH1qTCeaUH

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

Today we honor the veterans who served, and the families who served alongside them.

Many of the founders we back wore the uniform first. They build for the people still out there because they know the job firsthand.

Thank you for your service. Happy Veterans Day.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

The Pentagon just gave Machina $9M to prove it can build LUCAS attack drone airframes in a shipping-container factory near the front.

Two robot arms form each airframe from sheet metal in 2 to 5 days. Change the parameters and you get a different drone for PACOM, CENTCOM, or Ukraine.

The next supply chain ships the factory, not the drone.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

Ukraine's parliament voted 252 in favor today to create a Space Force inside its armed forces. First reading, with more votes to come.

The goals are its own recon satellites, secure military satcom, and early warning against Russian missiles. The stated reason is less reliance on foreign satellite infrastructure.

The country that showed how much modern war runs through orbit now wants to own its piece of it. Every ally watching will want the same, and founders will build those constellations.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

Huge congrats to @PhilipJohnston and the entire @Starcloud_ team!! We are proud to back you, keep cooking!

[John J Lott @lottjj]

Congrats to @PhilipJohnston and @Starcloud_ on their progress toward moving compute to space. The team at @NewVistaCap loves backing bold founders with bold visions!

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

The Pentagon just committed to at least 850 F-35s over 10 years, pending Congress. In return, Lockheed will self-fund at least $7B into the program.

That's the trade: give industry a long demand signal and private capital shows up.

Now offer it to the founders building autonomous systems, munitions and space hardware. Most still get one-year prototype deals and are asked to build factories anyway. We need to be supporting the new entrants the same way.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

A Ukrainian soldier held a front-line position for nearly 500 days, resupplied by drone.

When he was badly wounded, mines and Russian drones ruled out a ground rescue. So a heavy-lift hexacopter flew him out. Ukraine says it's a first.

The battlefield's last mile now runs on drones, both ways.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

Russian military satellites have spent months working onto the orbit of ICEYE-X36, a commercial radar sat that supplies data to Ukraine. This weekend Kosmos 2612 made a close pass, uninvited.

Commercial space is the front line now. If you sell to defense from orbit, you need to see who's coming and be able to move.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

The Army's next look at the industrial base isn't a study. It's a race.

Acting Secretary Adam Telle announced at AUSA a Manufacturing Rodeo for early 2027: industrial partners stress the supply chain and manufacturing processes until they show where it breaks. Learn by doing, not by postulating at the Pentagon.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

SDA has 84 Tranche 1 satellites on orbit from three builders. The first bus to fly came from York, not Lockheed or Northrop.

The breakthrough isn't the satellite. It's the buying model: small batches, a set cadence, competition every tranche. That's how new builders get in.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

https://t.co/6Z7FDvBV2K

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

Austin just put out its first Deep Tech 50. Eight local VC firms voted, and the companies on it raised more than $10B in the past year.

Proud to back five of them: @allencontrol ,1AU Technologies, @traysartech , @warheadco Bravo Ordnance, and Deterrence.

Counter-drone turrets, photonics, underground breaching, warheads, and munitions automation. Austin builds the hard stuff now.

Congrats to all 50.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital just offered Wolfspeed up to $1.5B on a 30-year term (conditional). @DoWCTO
@wcooper19

That's money no venture fund can write, aimed at silicon carbide and gallium nitride, the materials under EW systems and rad-hard space parts.

Venture funds the systems. Someone has to fund the wafers.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

Benchmark's first pure defense investment is a seed round into a one-year-old interceptor company. That's the signal.

@Furientis is designing interceptors to be built 1,000 per factory per year, from readily available parts. The shortage was never about how good our best missiles are. It's about how few of them we can make.

Congrats @brody_franzen and the team.

[Brody Franzen 🇺🇸 🚀 @brody_franzen]

Excited to announce @Furientis @DeptofWar OTA contract for 100mi interceptor and $25M Seed raise led by @benchmark!

This couldn't have happened w/o our incredible engineering team testing at industry best pace. Join us- we're hiring across all disciplines!
https://t.co/ankNypRwAG

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

America has 16,876 machine shops. 83% employ fewer than 20 people. (2022 Economic Census, via @a16z)

Every missile, drone, and rocket coming off a prototype line runs through those shops. A production ramp moves at the pace of its smallest supplier.

Founders fixing this bottle neck are building defense companies too.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

The Army just picked five companies to build Precision Strike Missile Increment 4. @Castelion is one of them.

The other four: Anduril, Mach Industries, Lockheed Martin, RTX.

The requirement: 1,000 kilometers or more, launched off a HIMARS, against targets that are moving, at sea, and on land. Roughly double the range of the baseline missile.

Four years ago Castelion didn't exist. Today it's developing a strategic-range strike weapon on the same program line as the two biggest missile houses on earth with a competitive fly-off in FY27 to decide who advances.

That's the whole argument. Not that new companies deserve a seat, that they earn one in a fly-off.

Congratulations @hargsb and the Castelion team. Proud to be behind you.

https://t.co/1XUQnNXes5

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

Huge congrats @SwarmAero for the unveiling of Gamera!

The Air Force needs an MQ-9 successor under $10M a unit, at rate, by 2031. Every requirement in that sentence is a manufacturing requirement.

Production is the product. Proud to back the team that started there.

[Swarm Aero @SwarmAero]

Meet Gamera, a new category of Group 5 strike and sensing UAS that we unveiled at @AFA_Air_Space's Air, Space & Cyber Conference today.

Mass-producible, significantly lower cost than legacy platforms, and the first UAS specifically designed to employ bomber-class strike munitions such as LRASM/JASSM-ER, Gamera delivers all of the capabilities needed in the next generation of UAS, at 10X lower cost-per-effect than legacy approaches to strike. With over 9,000 nautical miles of unrefueled range, Gamera's unique combination of low cost, large payload, and long range does not exist in any other UAS.

Since 2022, Swarm has been designing and building Gamera to provide the low-cost persistent strike and sensing that the @usairforce's Massed Modular Aircraft program is now seeking, making the force more capable, survivable, and effective, and renewing U.S. dominance of the skies.

Read our announcement here: https://t.co/Lw6UyL5T3s

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

Twenty-five years.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001. We honor those who lost their lives.

Never forget.

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

The Pentagon's industrial base chief testified last week that there are 400,000 unfilled skilled-trade jobs in the defense industrial base right now. In ten years it could be 2.5 million.

Not a funding gap. Not a facilities gap. Welders.

Every reindustrialization plan assumes someone shows up to run the line. Capital found this sector two years ago; capacity is being appropriated. Neither one bends metal.

The next generation of submarine builders and welders is in middle school right now. That's the real lead time.
https://t.co/AUoIrsIeWW

[New Vista Capital @NewVistaCap]

@AtomsNotBits Needed