Riot Ventures
Assembly Line
Karman Industries Emerges from Stealth to Deliver Advanced Thermal Energy Technology
Karman Industries, the company electrifying global manufacturing, announced it has emerged from stealth with $4 million in pre-seed funding led by Riot Ventures in partnership with Space VC.
Founded in August 2024, Karman is on a mission to help global enterprises significantly reduce costs and eliminate onsite scope 1 emissions by transitioning their manufacturing operations from natural gas to electricity. Thermal01, Karman’s high-performance, mass-manufactured, and self-contained electric heat pump, leverages advanced manufacturing techniques and technologies from other leading-edge industries, including turbomachinery from the rocket sector and high-frequency power electronics popularized by the electric vehicle market.
Shield AI Raises $200M, Reaching $2.7B Valuation
Shield AI, the defense technology company building the world’s best AI pilot for aircraft, today announced it has raised $200 million in Series F funding in an oversubscribed funding round. This funding, led by U.S. Innovative Technology Fund (USIT) and co-led by Riot Ventures, with participation from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest and returning investors Disruptive and Snowpoint, values Shield AI at $2.7 billion.
Shield AI builds an AI pilot called Hivemind, which enables teams of intelligent aircraft to operate autonomously in high-threat environments on the edge, without the need for remote operators, command inputs, or GPS. The technology approach is similar to those in the self-driving car industry and its software stack is aircraft agnostic, allowing Shield AI to provide autonomy to a variety of form factors across the aerospace industry. This announcement comes on the heels of the company’s recent launch of its V-BAT Teams product. This product enables a single human operator to command a minimum of four V-BATs, generating real-time AI-driven flight paths, and exhibiting dynamic read-and-react behaviors autonomously. Except for lethal decision-making, V-BAT Teams can complete missions from start to finish without the need for an operator or pilot.