Autonomy specialist Swarmer is buying ground-robotics company Ratel for as much as $224 million in a mix of cash and stock.
Why it matters:This international deal signals two things, one in the boardroom and one on the battlefield :
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Defense industry consolidation is afoot. Not every startup can or will stand on its own.
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And a world where machines launch machines to fight other machines doing the same, while humans scheme offscreen, has already arrived.
Driving the news:Axios spoke with Swarmer's U.S. chief executive, Alex Fink, and non-executive chairman of the board Erik Prince last week.
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Fink told us the unmanned ground vehicle market "is, obviously, on fire" and that Ratel is "the most technically advanced. They have no salespeople, no government relations, no lobbyists."
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Prince, the Blackwater founder, told us that both the U.S. (where Swarmer is based) and Ukraine (where Ratel is based) were only a few years ago reliant on a "Soviet-style acquisition system," in which everything was "centralized." That has since been thrown out the window — in Kyiv , at least.
Zoom in:Ratel's catalog includes several unmanned transporters, such as the H, M, X and Nurse TB. Vehicles like those, Fink said, are the "perfect launch platform for other assets."
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"You want to launch drones? You want to launch interceptors ? You want to put an entire air-defense system — from detection all the way to the effectors — in one place and drive it somewhere? This is the best way to deploy it."
Follow the money:Swarmer's stock is up some 375% since listing in March.
What's next:Ratel CEO Taras Ostapchuk will report to Fink, if and when the deal closes. Swarmer's workforce is expected to grow significantly.
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"We already have a Ukrainian subsidiary," Fink said. "Now we'll have two."
Go deeper: Vectus, led by Erik Prince, pitches air defense as a service
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