Firestorm Labs raises $82M to take drone factories into the field

In a conflict in the Pacific, the nearest American drone factory is thousands of miles away. Ships and planes transporting parts to the front lines would be vulnerable to attack. Starting up defense Firestorm Labs thinks the answer is a drone factory that fits in a shipping container.

The company announced Wednesday that it has raised $82 million in Series B funding led by Washington Harbor Partners with participation from NEA, Ondas, In-Q-Tel, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Ventures, Geodesic, Motley Fool Ventures and others, bringing its total funding to $153 million.

Firestorm did not start as a factory company. It started as a drone maker, but when customers started asking to move production closer to the front lines, the founders saw an opportunity to pivot.

Dan Magy, CEO of Firestorm Labs, is a serious defense technology entrepreneur. Its co-founders have complementary backgrounds: Chad McCoy is a special operations veteran, and CTO Ian Muceus has more than a dozen patents in 3D printing.

The San Diego-based startup makes xCell, a containerized manufacturing platform that can print drone systems in less than 24 hours. The drones are not locked into one target. Depending on what the mission requires, they can be configured for surveillance or electronic warfare, Magy told TechCrunch. When asked if the platforms are capable of lethal operations, Magy confirmed that they are. All platforms are supplied to uniformed operational commands of the Ministry of Defense, which deploy them in accordance with military doctrine.

It’s not just startups like Firestorm that are noticing this. The Pentagon has made contested logistics – keeping weapons and supplies under fire – one of only six national critical technology areas. Firestorm generates revenue through hardware sales and government contracts across all branches of the US military. The Air Force contract has a ceiling of $100 million, although only $27 million has been obligated so far.

The technology has already been used in the real world. Two xCell units are currently deployed domestically; one at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York, and one at the Air Force Special Operations Command in Florida, Magy said. Firestorm declined to specify which units in the Indo-Pacific are using xCell, although the company says the platform is operational in the region.

Inside each xCell container is an industrial HP 3D printer that prints the body and shell of each drone. Under the agreement, Firestorm has a five-year global exclusivity with HP to use its industrial 3D printing technology in mobile deployment units, Magy said. The weapons themselves are not 3D printed and will be added separately, according to Magy. The Army has also used xCell to locally print replacement parts for a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, parts that would otherwise take months to acquire, the CEO noted.

The problem goes deeper than distance. Fixed production locations are themselves targets, a vulnerability that Ukraine has experienced the hard way. And modern conflicts move quickly. Lessons from Ukraine show that drone designs can change in days, not months, Magy said.

For Firestorm, the key event is the Indo-Pacific, where the company says the logistical challenges of modern conflict are most difficult to solve. The startup aims to have xCell fully operationally deployed there, “ideally within the next two years,” Magy told TechCrunch.