LightGage, Inc.

We manufacture high-power lasers and precision gimbals in volume, at low cost using a US supply chain. There are >200,000 critical sites/assets in the US that require protection, right now. Protection cannot cost more than a single small drone swarm.

@zanehengsperger Idea...many are living with parents. Target the parents and educators. Get on Detroit talk radio. Have open house hours on the weekend. You'll spot the smart ones.

I think every manufacturing company can agree hiring quality factory technicians is insanely hard someone should solve this, we are working on it, but its a huge difficult problem

@OwenWest91 @SecWar @DroneDomProgram Yes. It's getting better. We also need steady non-defense revenue. That requires more common sense on regs.

Neros was the top U.S. finisher in @SecWar @DroneDomProgram gauntlet 1. Dozens of new defense entrants from subs to space require steady $ demand to map products for scale. To field rapidly, our 3/4 stars must demand speed from the risk averse gatekeepers citing endless regs.

@MFG_SMB Great picture. Great achievement.

last week I flew to Tampa and handed my dad the final payment for buying out the family machine shop from him he was proud it took me 7yrs taught me the power of burning the ships and you’ll likely figure it out thanks Pops

We manufacture optical systems to fix this problem regardless of whether the threat is friendly or not. They deal with multiple threats simultaneously. Cost is on par with an enterprise DJI Mavic aircraft.

@MichaelDell We manufacture high-power lasers and precision gimbals at very low cost. There are >200,000 critical sites/assets in the US that require protection, right now. Protection cannot cost more than a single small consumer drone swarm.

Focus on what you can control. Build something. Anything. A product. Yourself. A family. Your community. A team. Relationships. Or help someone else build theirs. Don’t complain. Don’t play the victim. Ever. What are you building? #PlayNiceButWin

@PoseidonROV Built on 1/8" thick MDF?

More load testing this week You can make a load bank for many different voltage/current combinations, just using power resistors wired in different series/parallel combinations. 2 Ohm/120W resistors used here

@zanehengsperger Great news! The concept of VC evolves.

Nox Metals exists so America can build 100x more factories and technologically abundant industrial capacity in the West. We are announcing our $11.5M Seed round led by Hyperion, with participation from Palmer Luckey, Y Combinator, Jared Friedman, RoboStrategy, Operator Collective, DTX, Alumni Ventures, and others. Over the past few decades, America has neglected domestic production. We lost our dominating ability to build in the world of atoms while jobs on the factory floor plummeted. It's time to build for America again. As our grandparents once did. Since launching production only 7 months ago, we have shipped metal to hundreds of American factories. Countless truckloads to America's industrial base. And we are no where near slowing down. Our metal has gone to space. It has protected our troops. It is in your car and in the machine that scanned your chest. It is all around us. And we can't stop supplying at warp speeds, because America needs it. We will be revitalizing a WW2 era, 35,000 SQFT factory in Detroit this summer where we will have our techno industrialists working hard to further pursue our mission. We will be tripling down on technology, which has allowed us to move this fast for America thus far. More code. More machines. More metal. More production.

@aphysicist Congratulations!

good day for a ribbon cutting ✂️✂️✂️

@joshuachuminski Correct. And must have a healthy commercial / consumer industrial base to make that happen.

It’s not an either or proposition. Cheap attritable systems have a place alongside high-end precision capabilities. Stockpiling cheap drones that will be obsolete in weeks or months is not a recipe for success, nor is pursuing overly complex expensive requirements-driven systems.

@Perandex @jwt0625 Checking in.

Where are my optics and photonics people at? @jwt0625

Optics/photonics are underappreciated in engineering. Important link between the physical world and software. Also great fun: somehow intangible yet hands-on. Take a dichroic mirror. Splits mid-visible light to a camera, lets a blue-green and higher-NIR weld laser pass through

@traestephens Same for C-sUAS?

With the rise in nationalist populism and a rapidly expanding defense tech ecosystem, it is probably safe to assume that every country with a defense budget over ~$20B will domestically produce cheap group 2/3 one-way attack drones. The tech and production are relatively commoditized and non-exquisite with very little IP moat, so it’s an easy domestic win. Export markets will be limited given that anyone that CAN build them themselves WILL.

@DeltaClimbs @TrentTelenko @OriflammeTech e.g. LOCUST laser weapon system costs "< $5 per shot."

@TrentTelenko @OriflammeTech No one ever includes the operating cost of the thing that delivers the thing that delivers the things and the entire chain behind all of that

This sort of FPV tactic to "explosively erode" civil infrastructure points out the crazy cost advantage of FPV drones. 43 times $1,500 is $64,500. That is roughly the price of a single 2,000 lb JDAM without the $32,000 an hour overhead cost of flying a F-16 strike jet.

@WadingSmith Metal detectors don't solve this. Blade fees solve this. Sawlogs aren't soil.

Just so you know, it ain’t all rainbows and butterflies out here.

@zerohedge Replace the phrase "data centers" with "electrical substations," "hospitals," "food processing plants," "communications towers," "power plants," "airports," etc. Coordinated attacks on soft targets would have a large impact on society. That's why we mfg protection systems.

JPM Call With Axon Reveals Race To Fortify U.S. Data Centers Against Kamikaze Drone Swarms zerohedge.com/technology/jpm…

@BlackScholesMan Good article. "...you do not need shipbuilding-sized budgets to field a great deal of attritable mass." Gold plating the requirements is a huge mistake in C-UAS.

@Erica_Wenger There's room. But we have traditional proven backgrounds.

Rounds have been so so expensive at preseed/seed... this quarter has been brutal If you're just ideating/thinking about raising or closing a round under $20M post, DM us! Actively investing & we look for very untraditional backgrounds that most of venture avoids

@powerus_usa @usairforce We agree. We manufacture high-power lasers and precision gimbals at very low cost. There are >200,000 critical sites/assets in the US that require protection, right now. Protection cannot cost more than a single small consumer drone swarm.

The frontline of drone defense is no longer just overseas - it’s directly above our domestic military bases. As of this week, the @usairforce has officially stood up a dedicated sUAS integration cell to combat the rapid surge of unauthorized drones probing US military installations. Drones have become so accessible that their misuse - whether deliberate surveillance or reckless piloting - is now a daily threat to base personnel and operations. We cannot rely on reactive measures to protect our critical infrastructure. The integration of advanced, proactive drone detection and mitigation systems is a homeland security imperative. jbsa.mil/News/News/Arti… @TheDroneWarrior @CharlieKeebaugh #CUAS #CsUAS #DroneDefense #HomelandSecurity

@Defence_blog Yet another sitting duck.

Pentagon picked a startup's spinning turret for counter-drone testing. The idea: instead of aiming at each drone, the gun rotates constantly and fires the moment a barrel lines up. defence-blog.com/pentagon-picks…

@SemiAnalysis_ *BOM excludes certain items that reduce gross margin.

China's Unitree Will Dominate Global Robotics The Fastest Iteration Cycle In Next-Gen Robotics Should See Unprecedented Acceleration newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/chinas-unitr…

@simoningall 7,000 BTU per lb, when seasoned.

Asked my arborist neighbor for a load of firewood logs. This is what $300 got me. You can just cut up logs and heat your own house in 2027!