CHAOS Industries raises $510M to build next-gen adaptive radar systems for modern battlefields

Yeah.

We'll see you soon.

Thanks.

Uh let me tell you about public.com investing for those that take it seriously. They got multiasset investing industry yields. They're trusted by millions. Our next guest is John Tennant from Chaos Industries, I believe. Chaos. Yeah, Chaos Industries. Correct.

Yeah. How you guys doing?

Great. We're great.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for hopping on the show.

I love one I I love the suits. Uh B and I were going to wear the Dumb and Dumber tuxedos to our Christmas party this year, [laughter] so we might need to go yellow.

Yellow is a good one. Uh is your I imagine your whole brand is like black and white, so you can't get too crazy with it. But have you ever

Yeah, you know, we got some we got some tan in there, but that's what we figured like maybe go duxed, light it up a little bit.

Maybe like high viz high viz like you're on the work site like you know, orange or something. That might be good. like high viz multicam like like

I think that could work pretty

well. Yeah. Yeah. Bring the construction site into the into the suit the formal suit this holiday season. Anyway, uh

uh

let's kick it off.

Half a billion dollars. Huge number.

Who'd you raise it from?

Let's go.

Yeah. Uh we led from Valor Equity Partners. Um Antonio,

hey, by the way, also sorry I got I'm like swagger jacking you guys in every turn. Where did you get the gong? Because again, this is something Bo and I have talked about. We want to get like a sales gong in the new office.

Got to get one. We should go to that. We should make

We should. Yeah, we Yeah. Yeah. We'll figure out how to how to send you a gong.

I'll buy it for you guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have a couple. Uh we we actually become like somewhat of gong experts where we've tested a a number of different gongs. We've learned that if you don't warm them up, you can break them. Uh sizes,

sound quality,

also the price gets exponentially bigger, like uh exponentially higher. So going from like a 30-in gong to a 80in gong will like 100x the price. So you go from like 800 bucks.

You're going to need to

It sounds like it's a good margin for you guys.

I know you raised you raised my co-founder who's like you.

It's like my my co-founder is probably like the greatest technical mind of a generation. The like the in-depth conversation he and I got into about the right type of gong that he wants to buy for the LA office.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

So I think we may have to both come back and talk through this with you guys pretty soon.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway,

we're not here just to talk about gongs. We're here to talk about you. Uh can you uh introduce like yourself, the shape of the business, how you're describing it these days?

Yeah. Yeah. Uh so first of all, thanks again for having us. Uh yeah. So founder Chaos Industries.

Um so we sort of look at the world in in three waves. Uh kind of as this sector's grown over the last 20ome years and you know wave one you have Palanteer and SpaceX, wave two of Anderal. And you know wave three we didn't see like another big multi-product sort of new prime being built. Um and and that's sort of where that was the sort of initial thesis seeing kind of where the world was going um in terms of especially you know the Russians have been taking advantage uh of of the lack of integrated air defense systems in Ukraine um and they've been attacking energy infrastructure and civilian targets sort of in in an effort to break the will of the of the Ukrainian people. you know, the the Iranians have been helping them, you know, build their drone capacity. And so we sort of saw this and and all the while, by the way, the Chinese are watching here um about, you know, what, you know, what's going to h you know, what could happen in in in Taiwan. So I think we we took it from from the angle of, you know, uh we got worried about the fact that America's losing airsp. Um, and so we wanted so like the first wave of our products, we we wanted to build get get away from sort of the monolithic legacy structures that were built during the cold war and bring new systems to the war fight and really protect our people downrange.

So multi-product interesting it and certainly gotten there but started with a sensor tower and then uh you know anvil like one you know counter us drone system. uh did you follow a similar path uh knocking down uh single products to get multi-product or did you do like the compound startup thing where you uh on day one were working on multiple products to bring them all together?

So we we were so we were the chunk we we're biting off first is sort of in the radar market. So we got four different radar products.

Okay. Now, now there's now, but there is a sort of long tale of of products that we're going to be investing in that

uh the Department of War has been asking for as well. And um we'll come back on and talk about some of that stuff in the future with you guys. But but the goal here is if you're going to do this the right way, you have to be multi-product.

How much of what you're doing in radar? When you say multi-product within radar is uh different radar technologies or the same radar, like the same data output, but this one is waterproof, this one flies, this one goes in the back of a truck. different packages.

Yeah. Yeah. I would say like completely different form factors, different technology.

Oh, everything

types of sensing technology. So, we've kind of like rewritten the book on how it's done. And I think it's big credit to

obviously Bo um you know he he knows more about you know weapon systems, radars than you know most people. He's forgotten more than [laughter] most people will be able to learn in a lifetime. He's probably the most brilliant technical mind uh I've ever seen. And so

why is the old radar not good enough? Is that because the drones are getting smaller these days?

I can't see drones, right? These are legacy monolithic systems, right? So, one, manufacturing times are way too long.

Sure.

Two, the form factors are enormous. So, I think if you look at at Patriot, right? Like the things the size of a tractor trailer, you'll be lucky to get

those within two and a half years of of three. And like look, they do some things really really well. Like don't get me wrong,

but these are sort of like monolithic legacy Cold War era built systems. and and the the reality is the battlefield's changed uh very dramatically and and you need more traitable systems as well as sort of like more expeditionary systems. Um I think like you guys had my buddy Scott Sanders on this week, right? For Terra.

Um so shout out Scotty. Love you.

Um but uh you know we partnered with Forera, right? because like the the the ability to have the these systems be mobile and move around the battlefield and not have your transmit and your receive in the same location I think is you know buys our war fighters so much more time than they would already have

and I think if you talk to our

chief mission officer Chris Musleman you know Mus was

yeah well he's named [clears throat] Chris Musleman by the way

half the reason I started by the way half the reason I started trying to get my PRs in the wait room again is because Mus comes and talks [ __ ] to me every day in the office. [laughter] Excuse my language. I don't know if I can curse on here, but but I think you

for muscle, man.

Sorry. But I think Mus would tell you that, you know, 30 seconds is in a trading in a gunfight like we're buying

exponentially more time.

Yeah.

So that that's really the goal here.

Is the US uh Department of War uh happy to buy systems that are maybe influenced by the war in Ukraine? uh like like are the learnings there translating or or or do the Ukrainians want something that is maybe fundamentally different from the way the US is set up?

No, I mean I think I think Ukraine is one of the best test beds out there. I mean we've had our systems over there for for a long time.

Um I think is we we sort of look at this as two-pronged, right? Because there's a big international component to what we do. So our international partners all they care about is hey has this been tested on the front lines in Ukraine, right? And then I think you know if you look at some of the work we've been able to do overseas you know in the Middle East and in Ukraine it is a it is a real key discriminator when we go in it's like we don't have a PowerPoint like we've got data the thing works you know

take a look at it right and so I think uh it it's it's been a big big help.

Yeah. Are you optimistic about the uh the Ukraine war winding down? It feels like uh it's it's gone on much longer than I expected it to. It's been this war of attrition. Um, I've been very hopeful that there'll be just some sort of conclusion. Uh,

you'd hope so. You'd hope so. I mean, I think obviously it's just terrible what's been happening over there. And so, this is why, you know, we want to do our part to help.

Yeah.

Um, but, you know, it doesn't seem like it's ending anytime soon, but again, you know, I'm not a policy maker, so I don't have an asymmetric view into it.

Yeah.

Putin needs to pivot to AI. He's falling behind in the race for artificial intelligence. should be focused on building data centers instead of uh

we're transitioning the you know building tanks into building gongs.

Yes. Yes. Do something productive. Putin, stop fighting.

I still wouldn't buy gongs if he made them though. I'm only buying from you guys.

Thank you. Thank you.

American gongs.

Um well well thank you so much for coming on the show. George you have another question.

Great great to meet uh and uh congrats.

Congrats on the massive round. Congrats on all the progress and thank you for everything that you're doing to support.

Appreciate it and thank thank you guys. Hope to uh hope to see you guys in person soon.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Come on the show for for the next round, whatever whatever letter that is.

We'll do. Absolutely. Cheers. Thanks. See you soon. Bye.

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