Company
Every investor coverage indicates participated in a round Royal Australian Air Force raised.
Companies Royal Australian Air Force acquired or merged with, per published coverage. Buying a company is not investing in one: nothing here counts in the deals column.
| Name | Role | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Terry van Haren | Air and Space Attaché (former) | Defence Connect |
| Craig Inns | Air Combat Officer and Aircraft Engineer (former) | Defence Connect |
| Steven ‘Zed’ Roberton | Air Commander Australia (former) | @AuManufacturing |
Stories naming Royal Australian Air Force. Where several outlets covered the same round, they are bundled under whichever ran the fullest account.
Seitec, a Canberra defence technology maker, has landed a $4 million round with ACTivate Capital leading and Beaten Zone Venture Partners and UNSW participating, funding overseas expansion, product development and hiring.
Also Startup Daily
A $4 million round for Canberra defence sensing firm Seitec is led by ACTivate Capital with UNSW and Beaten Zone co-investing; the ACT Government-backed fund earlier closed $23 million of a possible $50 million.
Roundup of manufacturing news: Archer Materials' biochip results with IMEC, Resmed's CPAP mask launch, Boeing's RAAF P-8A upgrades, Breakthrough Victoria's $75m across venture funds, an Avalon Airport freight facility, and Sleeptite's FlexiSense.
DroneShield has appointed four seasoned national-security figures — van Haren, Osley, McLachlan and Lam-Evans — to strategy, advisory and government-relations roles as the counter-drone company scales.
Roundup of Australian manufacturing updates: Sparc Hydrogen's R&D tax refund, executive appointments at Lockheed Martin Australia, Wellnex Life and Raytheon, a ReNu Energy power purchase deal, and BlueScope joining a low-carbon research centre.
Three local drone makers won defence accelerator contracts worth $2.2 million apiece to finish prototypes and build 100 uncrewed aerial systems, while the Ghost Shark underwater drone reached America for trans-Pacific testing.
Also @AuManufacturing
Australia's federal government announced plans to buy two military drone systems — Germany's Quantum-Systems Vector and Melbourne maker SYPAQ's CorvoX — for the Army and Air Force, with deliveries expected in 2025.
Defence electronics maker REDARC has hired Craig Inns as sales general manager, charging him with lifting the South Australian business into a Tier 2 supplier role for the national defence industry.
Rosebank Engineering has started operating its Melbourne F-35 component repair depot, backed by a $2.26m federal grant, serving Indo-Pacific fleets; the business sits in ASDAM Group, which CPE Capital mostly owns.