Dave Alberga’s Post

In December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced plans to produce tens of thousands of drones every month and, more recently, an entirely new wing of the military dedicated to them. With the Russian invasion entering its third year, the country could become a vital testing ground for Firestorm’s new product: a shipping container-sized factory that can manufacture war-ready drones in less than a day. Firestorm calls it xCell and says it is designed to be easily delivered to the frontlines of battle to crank out mission specific drones or quickly convert older systems to fit a given operation. The tech prints the frame of the drone, which can be quickly outfitted with pre-configured brains, engines and payloads. “You can make modifications in hours or days as opposed to weeks,” says Firestorm cofounder and CEO Dan Magy. Firestorm recently opened a 15,000 square foot factory in San Diego which will serve the dual duty of 3D printing drones and building xCells that will do the same on the battlefield. Magy expects the factory to produce more than 500 unmanned machines every month. Firestorm figures wars of the future will go through 10,000 drones per month. “I think that is what will be required, unfortunately, with what we're seeing in Ukraine,” Muceus told Forbes. In service of attaining that scale, Firestorm is amassing #venturecapital. In previously-unreported investment rounds, the company has attracted $12.5 million in funding, $3 million of it from Lockheed Martin Ventures, the lead firm across two deals in 2023. The company plans to use that money to ramp up production of xCell and two drones that can be 3D printed in less than a day: the 55 pound Tempest and the 10 pound El Nino, designed for more clandestine sorties.

This week, I was asked: "What is so different about you guys?" If that's unclear in the first few minutes, we are not telling the story well. ▶ We build our systems fast(10x faster) and can scale to large quantities ▶ We are affordable (not cheap) and as much as 5x less than our competitors ▶ We are partnering with all relevant technologies as payloads and integrations ▶ We are re-defining attritable outside of the US Our competitive advantage is our speed of action. More to come from Firestorm ... #replicator #uas #military #contestedlogistics #airlittoral

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