Chariot Defense raises $34M Series A to build battlefield power systems for drones and counter-UAS platforms

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Yes.

Good to see you again. Welcome back to the show. Uh let's kick it off with the news. What happened?

Yeah. Uh today we announced our $34 million series A. Uh Yep. Let's get the gong.

Big gong day. We got a bigger gong since the last time you were on.

We did. We did. Welcome back.

Impressive.

Welcome back. So, um

not as impressive as as a $34 million series, but it's it's up there.

Yeah. Take us take us through uh uh the shape of the business today, the key customers, key products, and and sort of what changed since the last time you were on the show.

Yeah. Awesome. So, so last time I was on the show, I was just getting done with our first transformation and contact exercise. You guys had had Dan Driscoll, Randy George on the show. Yeah,

they had kind of talked about that. We were just coming back from our first participation there.

Uh that was our second test event. Uh we've done about 25 since then.

Um and so we've got systems deployed in pretty much uh every theater um across a bunch of different army units, Marine Corps units, uh and really just starting to see the traction and the demand for the systems grow. as we do see things like drone dominance happening, as we see things like next generation command and control, um all of those systems are fielding and running into issues with that power infrastructure layer. Yeah.

Um and we've been able to fill that gap uh and and iterate quickly kind of working with the war fighters, working with the soldiers, uh and getting the systems out there.

Yeah.

And assume assume that you know someone listening today didn't catch your first

appearance, catch us up to speed on on the the shape of the product and and all that.

Yeah. So, so effectively what Chariot's building is the power layer for robotic warfare. Uh, so really, you know, you wouldn't send a soldier into the fight without food and water and nicotine. Uh, you wouldn't you wouldn't send a robot into the fight without communications, compute, and power.

Cool.

Um, and so we really see that as one of those core infrastructure layers uh behind kind of this defense modernization.

Uh, you know, Andre's building some great systems in the compute space. Palanteer are really dominating the network space. Uh and we're kind of building that third missing layer. Um and so effectively what we're doing is taking the technology coming out of companies like Tesla, Apple, Lucid, Rivian, Archer, Joby, high voltage batteries, silicon carbide power electronics. If you've read Paky McCormix, the electric slide goes into detail on kind of major transformations happening in the commercial industry on that core technology stack.

We're taking those and lifting and shifting them into the defense platforms to build hybrid high power systems.

Yeah. uh walk us through exactly what needs to happen to deploy a high voltage battery on the battlefield. I think most people will be familiar with like the Tesla Power Wall and we've all seen like the IBM tough book. You put some rubber corners on it and give it a nice graphite, you know, case and I imagine there's a lot a lot more going on. So, what's the state-of-the-art?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, we really kind of take the best of commercial technology. Mhm.

Our first product we deployed M424 is literally in a Pelican case.

Okay.

So we took a Pelican case. We say hey why reinvent the wheel

uh on on just some of that core rugged uh technology.

We do some additive manufacturing uh to create these kind of internal bulkhead structures.

Sure.

Um to kind of isolate uh the electronics and then we integrate the batteries, the power electronics, the microcontrollers into that in a form factor that can be left out in the rain and mud, can be dropped off the back of the Humvey. Yeah.

Uh and when I say can be has been uh has looked to tell the tale.

Yeah. So you've been through testing. I assume you've done some SBIS. Are you moving towards program of record or are you just sort of in the supply chain for other companies that might be primary uh contractor?

Yeah. So we've got a split go to market model. One being directly to the government both bottom up selling directly to units and top down for our record.

Okay.

Uh and then also selling to other companies uh as part of a broader kit.

Cool. Um so the inspiration for chariot was I was the counter UAS program manager at Ander.

Yeah.

Uh we were constantly running into power problems, right? So kind that idea of selling this as part of a power kit uh that's enabling other systems is another part of our go to market model.

Very cool.

Where do you where do you stand on the verticalization debate? We had uh we had uh Mike from also capital. He kicked the hornets's nest cuz he was basically saying like, "Yeah, it's great to verticalize, but there there's uh there's there's some businesses that you can just buy a lot of components

off the shelf and make a great product, prove that people want it, and then do it later." A lot of people,

I would say most people were were disagreeing with that,

but there's every business is different.

Yeah, I am I'm going to I'm going to come in here on team Mike. Um so uh you know we've really been able to leverage the supply chains from companies like Tesla right and and and Apple and and Archer where you have actually mature commercial technologies around these core components around batteries and power electronics. Uh what nobody has done is kind of gone and done that forward engineering.

Um and so Aaron Price Wright who led around uh I think in her post said you know we should actually call out the chief forward deployed engineer. Um that's really what I've been doing over the past year. Yeah. Um and it's that forward deployed engineering model that kind of maps to what Palunteer and Andreal did as well.

Yeah.

So Palunteer didn't invent you know cloud compute right uh or big data models right that was tens of billions of dollars of investment uh from Silicon Valley companies and then through good go to market good forward deployed engineering brought that into the department.

Okay.

Uh and did the same the the Sentry tower first sentry tower was you know really enabled by the uh autonomy technology developed by the self-driving car industry. Mhm.

You know, computer vision went from an unsolved problem in 2014 to just download YOLO V4 in 2017. And they were able to kind of capitalize on massive investment, right, uh, from the self-driving car industry and just through good for deployed engineering, uh, good go to market, uh, bring that into the the department and that's what we're doing for all the technology coming out of electric vehicle electrical transportation space.

What are you most excited about in defense tech? Uh, there's obviously a lot of the Andal products people are aware of. uh there's, you know, this big small drone boom. Is there something like what's the next big defense tech trend that you think is going to become really important?

Yeah. So, so there's going to be a little bit of a a self self-s serving angle here, but you know what we're really uh you know, I spent years doing counter UAS, counter drone systems, uh pre- Ukraine, right? So, counter US was a big topic. uh when we were working with it on with SOCOM in 2021, not that many people were talking about it.

Uh and and that insight around what it actually takes to do counter US at the edge um is is is really kind of what inspired Chariots. So, uh there's a lot of focus on drone dominance. Um but countering these small drones uh is going to require pushing more sensors and more countermeasures onto every mobile platform. Uh and what that's going to mean is every mobile platform needs more power to to power those sensors to be able to turn the engine off and manage signature and hide.

Uh so so avoid detection in the first place

and then be able to drive big surges of power to do things like electric electronic warfare or high powered microwaves or or higher energy lasers.

Um so we've done tests with higher energy lasers already

uh as one of those kind of US technologies that that needs that big surge of power.

Yeah.

And that's really where batteries come in. We want to get shirts that say we heart diesel. We're the most diesel loving battery company out there. Hydrocarbons are incredibly energy dense. What batteries give you is that ability to surge that power. Yep.

Or the ability to dial it down and hide your signature and that's really the differentiation of the Chariot platform.

So why can the Tesla Model Plaid go 0 to 60 in under two seconds like it's surge of power and that's what's and that's what's unique. Uh thank you so much for