Dominion Dynamics raises $100M to build Canada's first defense prime with Arctic autonomous systems

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Let me tell you about Console. Console builds AI agents that automates 70% of IT, HR, and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets. Our next guest is Elliot Pence from Dominion Dynamics. He's the founder and CEO.

Welcome to the show.

Hey guys.

Sorry, that's a special sound effect. It's very dramatic.

It's very dramatic,

but we're making

But I feel like it's fitting. It is fitting. Let's do it again.

Welcome to the show, Elliot.

Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Love it. I'm great. It's hard to follow the Asian Cowboys, though.

I know. Tough act. Tough act. Well, we'll hit the gong even harder for you.

Yes, we'll make it up.

Tell us about yourself. Tell us about the company. Tell us about the round.

Yeah, for sure. So, we just raised 100 million. Uh company is called Dominion Dynamics. It's focused on we're bu we're building a a Canadian neopime. So we connect autonomous systems. We're focused on domain awareness in the Arctic.

All software or hardware as well.

Soft software and hardware. We've built 10 things, five hardware, five different platforms. Uh and we're about to build a a big drone.

Why is that not why why is that not crazy? Like building one thing is hard. Building 10 things, five things like that that that feels like like you know obviously hundred million dollar series A it's great but like you know isn't there value to focus. Why is this industry different?

No. Look the opportunity in Canada is not to focus. It's such a wide opportunity landscape. Canada used to have a very rich and deep defense tech history. you know, you you can track it back to Canada and Bombardier and they have all these companies. First first autonomous submarine, first uh two operational drones, first passenger jet and then we basically went on a starvation diet. So there's talent in tech here,

but we've not actually had a large prime for some time. So I think actually the the the opportunity is to basically do a land grab and but to do it with software, not just

kind of one specific thing. So like in the US, yeah, there's 970 companies that have been backed over the last six years, but in Canada, it's a G7 country without a defense brand. That's insane.

Yeah, that's crazy. Is uh is the in America, Palmer LK's talked about how uh the government does not want Anderal to be a monopoly. It can be a great business. It can be a big business, but if it gets to be the only supplier of something, the government will say, "Look, we're going to give a contract to someone else because we want a diversity Of course, the government's not going to want to have a monopoly. That's not the point. Like the point is have the best capability. Yeah. But it is likely that some of those companies will build the best capability. And if they build the best capability, they should have a monopoly.

Okay.

How are you how are you thinking about uh you you guys feel uniquely, you know, situated to be able to dominate in with like Arctic capabilities. How big is the opportunity outside of Canada in your view? Yeah. So what we want to build is a global company. We want it to be a Canadian company headquartered in Canada, majority owned, majority controlled, which it is.

Uh we think it's a huge opportunity. What we're really building is not just Arctic, right? The reason we're starting in the Arctic is it's the harshest operating environment in the world. But the other reason is because you have to architect solutions very differently. There's no comms. The hardware situation is insane because power doesn't work. The ground what they call breeze because of the tundra. So it like cracks and breaks. So runways don't work. Uh if you're building drones, you've got to go 5,000 kilometers. So like it's basically like building for the moon. If you build for the moon, you will build massive modes because it's the hardest thing to do.

Um in terms of uh Canadian ownership, what does that look like when you go out to fund raise? I see Valor Equity Partners at Trades, Bessemer, uh amazing funds. I think of them as American funds. uh is do do you draw the line around G7 investors or is there is there a broader scope that you can think about or or do you think about cap table construction one way or another

100% we talk about and think about capable construction we've been super intentional about who we bring in so we wanted to have pension funds in

sure

Canada has two and a half trillion under management by the Maple 8 so we brought two of those pension funds in Exactly um BCI and uh just for the for the pensioners.

Let's give it up for the Canadian pensioners.

It's fantastic.

But you know those those funds like Valor and Trees invest, they're all global funds, right? They have mandates to do global investing and we wanted the best of the best. So

we went out and got the best of the best.

Very cool. Um what what have been the biggest breakthroughs since you were on the show last I think it was January of this year?

Five months. Well, we did a 5,500 kometer snowmobile operation across the Northwest Passage with Orinet, which is our our kit, our back end.

Yeah. Yes, exactly. Across the Northwest Passage.

Wait, and is that a snowmo a drone snowmobile or you guys are like

No, literally snowmobiles. Dudes on snowmobiles for 3 months

across that testing out the communications back end. That's very cool. I love it.

No gong for that.

We'll hit it again. We'll hit it again.

Tremendous tremendous progress. Um, great to have you back on. Uh, and uh,

you're you're you're coming on at a good clip. So, I I I'm confident that we'll see you again this year.

And you know the name of the you know the name of the communications platform,

Ara. It's called

Aura. Aura. Wow. Powerful

or farming. That's good. I love it. very on trend. Uh, thank you so much for coming on the show

and happy Canada Day, guys.

Happy

Wait, it's Canada Day?

It's Canada Day. We got TO HIT THAT G.

WOW. FOUR.

Everyone who's listening, please text Jeremy Gon. Happy Canada Day. I'll give you his phone number right here. It's 29.

Who? Oh, wow. Canada into the round of 16.

We're hoping to follow you. We're hoping to follow you guys in there

later today. Yeah, exactly.

And thank you so much.

Well, thanks guys.

Yeah, great talk. Cheers. Have a good one. Let me tell you about Shopify. Shopify founded in Canada, Canadian company. Shopify is a commerce platform