directed-energy
(6)
Chariot Defense
Chariot Defense is a South San Francisco defense-technology company building hybrid-electric power systems for the battlefield. Its Amphora platform delivers quiet, high-density, software-controlled power to distributed military hardware - drones, sensors, radios, electronic-warfare and directed-energy systems - so that energy never becomes the limiting factor in a fight. Founded in 2024 by former Anduril and Archer engineer Adam Warmoth, the company raised a $34M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz in February 2026, bringing total funding to roughly $41-42M, and has fielded its systems with the U.S. Army and the Defense Innovation Unit.
Aurelius Systems
Aurelius Systems is a San Francisco defense-technology startup building Archimedes, an autonomous, high-powered laser turret that detects, tracks and neutralizes drones in seconds for roughly the cost of electricity. Founded in 2024 by photonics veterans Michael LaFramboise and John Marmaduke, the company fuses commercial off-the-shelf hardware, advanced optics and AI-guided targeting into a compact, low-cost counter-UAS platform aimed at protecting soldiers and critical infrastructure from cheap, swarming aerial threats.
Thor Dynamics
Thor Dynamics is a Palo Alto-based defense-tech startup building Laser Armor, an AI-powered directed-energy system that detects, tracks, and neutralizes hostile drones and drone swarms with a high-energy laser. Founded in 2024 by a team of MIT- and Wharton-trained operators and former U.S. Navy leadership, the company pairs up-to-20-kilowatt laser output with reinforcement-learning targeting and NVIDIA edge compute to deliver affordable, scalable counter-drone defense for critical infrastructure and the military.
Gleb Chuvpilo
Gleb Chuvpilo is an American serial entrepreneur, engineer, and venture investor who is co-founder and CEO of Thor Dynamics, the maker of Laser Armor, an AI-driven directed-energy system built to detect, track, and burn drone swarms out of the sky within seconds from a kilometer away. A graduate of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Wharton School, he was an early Palantir engineer, traded quant strategies at Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, invested alongside Peter Thiel at Thiel Macro, and co-founded startups including Authy (Y Combinator 2012, acquired by Twilio), Ride, and Pager. He also runs deep-tech VC firm Thundermark Capital and is known in AI circles for his annual AI Research Rankings analyzing publication output at NeurIPS and ICML.
Michael LaFramboise
Michael LaFramboise is the CEO and co-founder of Aurelius Systems, a San Francisco defense startup building autonomous, AI-guided laser turrets that detect and destroy drones at the speed of light for roughly pennies per shot. A Case Western engineer, Navy veteran, and ex-Coherent and Amazon Devices operator, he dropped out of a Columbia PhD in nano optical systems to build Archimedes, a low-cost directed-energy weapon. Aurelius raised a $10 million seed co-led by General Catalyst and Draper Associates in September 2025 and opened a U.S. manufacturing line for high-power fiber lasers in 2026, aiming to become America's domestic one-stop laser shop.
Nathan Mintz
Nathan Mintz is the co-founder and CEO of CX2, an El Segundo defense-tech startup building AI-enabled hardware and software to detect, disrupt, and destroy threats in the electromagnetic spectrum. A Stanford-trained electrical engineer who spent 14 years designing radar and electronic-warfare systems at Raytheon and Boeing, he went on to co-found directed-energy unicorn Epirus and automotive-radar company Spartan Radar before launching CX2 in 2024. He argues modern warfare has reached 'consumer scale,' where multimillion-dollar missiles are wasted on cheap drones, and that control of the spectrum now matters as much as supply lines did in the 20th century. CX2 raised a $31M Series A led by Point72 Ventures in May 2025, part of $46M total funding.