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

In the Pacific conflict, the nearest US drone factory is thousands of miles away. Ships and aircraft carrying parts to the line can be vulnerable to attack. Security startup Firestorm Labs thinks the answer is a drone factory that fits inside 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 didn’t start out as a factory company. It started as a drone manufacturer, but when customers started asking to bring production closer to the front lines, the founders saw an opportunity to pivot.

Firestorm Labs CEO Dan Magy is a serial defense tech entrepreneur. Its founders bring complementary backgrounds: Chad McCoy is a veteran of special operations, and CTO Ian Muceus holds 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. Drones are not locked to one purpose. Depending on what the mission requires, it can be configured for surveillance or electronic warfare, Magy told TechCrunch. When asked if the platforms are capable of deadly missions, Magy confirmed that they are. All platforms are brought to the operational orders of the Department of Defense in uniform, deploying them in accordance with military doctrine.

It’s not just a startup like Firestorm to be aware of. The Pentagon has made countermeasures — keeping weapons and equipment moving under fire — one of only six critical technology areas. Firestorm makes money by selling hardware and government contracts to all branches of the US military. The Air Force contract has a ceiling of $100 million, although only $27 million has been committed so far.

The technology has already seen real-world applications. Currently, two xCell units are distributed at home; one with the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York, and the Air Force Special Operations Command in Florida, Magy said. Firestorm declined to specify which Indo-Pacific units are using xCell, although the company says the platform is active in the region.

Inside each xCell container sits an industrial-grade HP 3D printer that prints the body and shell of each drone. Under the agreement, Firestorm has entered into a five-year global agreement with HP to use its 3D printing technology in the mobile manufacturing industry, Magy said. The weapons themselves are not 3D printed and are added separately, according to Magy. The military also used xCell to print replacement parts for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle on site, parts that would have taken months to procure, the CEO noted.

The problem goes deeper than distance. Fixed production sites are targets in themselves, a vulnerability Ukraine learned the hard way. And today’s conflict is moving quickly. Lessons from Ukraine show that drone designs can change within days, not months, Magy said.

For Firestorm, the Indo-Pacific is a major event, where the company says the logistics challenges of modern conflict are more difficult to solve. The startup aims for xCell to reach full-scale deployment in, “actually the next two years,” Magy told TechCrunch.