After five years working at an educational tech company, Nathan Nwachuku, 22, realized: Africa is at a crossroads \u2013 the continent is rapidly industrializing, there is money, there are opportunities, and a young, ambitious population. He believes Africa is already close to an industrial revolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cterrorism and instability.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Nathan Nwachuku<\/p>\n
Terra and its mission<\/p>\n
He teamed up with his friend Maxwell Meduka, 24, and founded Terra Industries \u2013 a defense company that develops infrastructure and autonomous systems for monitoring and threat response. The company emerged from stealth mode and announced a financing round of $11.75 million led by 8VC\u2019s Joe Lonsdale.<\/p>\n
Participants in the round included Valor Equity Partners, Lux Capital, SV Angel and Nova Global. Earlier Terra raised a pre-seed round of $800k; Nwachuku noted that others became interested after appearing on CNN. African investors in the company include Tofino Capital, Kaleo Ventures and DFS Lab.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is to build the first truly pan-African defense company.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Nathan Nwachuku<\/p>\n
The Terra team has substantial military experience: 40% of the engineers previously held similar positions in the Nigerian army; Alex Moore from 8VC, who specializes in defense investments, sits on the board, and Vice Admiral Ayo Jolasinmi of Nigeria serves as an advisor. Meduka also served as an engineer in the Nigerian Navy and founded a drone company at the age of 19.<\/p>\n
The company is based in Nigeria\u2019s capital, Abuja, and uses a multi-domain approach to product development: for air \u2013 long- and mid-range drones; for land \u2013 surveillance towers and ground drones; they are also developing in the maritime sphere to protect infrastructure such as offshore platforms and underwater pipelines.<\/p>\n
Terra runs on its own ArtemisOS software, which collects, analyzes and synthesizes data in real time. If a threat is detected, the system notifies responding forces for rapid interception of the threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to cover all of Africa\u2019s critical infrastructure and resources through geofencing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Nathan Nwachuku<\/p>\n
Terra recently secured its first federal contract, but the company does not disclose details. Revenues come from government and commercial contracts; total commercial revenue exceeds $2.5 million, with assets under protection estimated at about $11 billion. Most clients are in Nigeria, but work is being done in other African countries as well.<\/p>\n
The company plans to use the fresh capital to expand and build new defense factories across Africa, improve software, and grow the AI engineering team. It also announced plans to open offices in San Francisco and London, while production will remain in Africa with plans to launch new facilities on the continent to create jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfrica is currently in an epic battle for its own survival.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Nathan Nwachuku<\/p>\n
Gradually, Terra aims to strengthen the continent\u2019s defense capabilities, with a focus on manufacturing in Africa and developing AI technologies. The company sees this as a path to increased Africa\u2019s security autonomy and the creation of new jobs, while also expanding offices outside the continent to attract global investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After five years working at an educational tech company, Nathan Nwachuku, 22, realized: Africa is at a crossroads…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[63,11648,11649,11650,11651,11652,11653,96,11654,11647],"class_list":{"0":"post-18674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-african-defense-technology","10":"tag-african-industrialization","11":"tag-african-startups","12":"tag-ai-security-systems","13":"tag-autonomous-drones","14":"tag-defense-investment-africa","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-terra-industries","17":"tag-terra-industries-african-defense-technology-ai-security-systems-african-startups-autonomous-drones-african-industrialization-defense-investment"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}