After five years of building an educational technology company, 22-year-old Nathan Nwachuku realized that Africa was at a crossroads. The continent is undergoing rapid industrialization, he told TechCrunch. There is money, opportunities and a young and motivated population. He thought that, very soon, the continent would be on the “brink of an industrial revolution.”
“At the same time,” he said, he felt the continent was still struggling to address what was one of its biggest Achilles heels. “Terrorism and insecurity.” Africa has more terrorism-related deaths than any region in the world, and it is this problem that could slow – or even completely stop – the region’s growth, Nwachuku said.
He teamed up with a friend, Maxwell Maduka, 24, and launched Terra Industries, a defense company that designs infrastructure and autonomous systems to help governments and organizations monitor and respond to threats. The company announced Monday that it came out of stealth with an $11.75 million round led by Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC.
Other participants in the round include Valor Equity Partners, Lux Capital, SV Angel and Nova Global. The company previously raised an $800,000 pre-seed round and Nwachuku said others became very interested in the company after it was featured on CNN. African investors in the company include Tofino Capital, Kaleo Ventures and DFS Lab.
“The goal is to build Africa’s first defense center, build autonomous defense systems and other systems to protect our critical infrastructure and resources from armed attacks,” said Nwachuku, the company’s CEO. Maduka serves as the company’s CTO.
The team is packed with military experience: 40% of its engineers served in the same role in the Nigerian Army; Alex Moore of 8VC, which specializes in defense investments, is also on the board, with Nigeria’s Air Vice Marshal Ayo Jolasinmi acting as an advisor. Maduka also served as an engineer in the Nigerian Navy and founded a drone company at age 19.
The company, based in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, took a multi-domain approach to product development, considering how to protect critical land, water and air infrastructure. For the air, the company produces long- and short-range drones. On land it has surveillance towers and ground drones. The company is still working on developing maritime technology to help protect infrastructure such as offshore platforms and underwater pipelines.
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Terra powers its technology with its proprietary software, ArtemisOS, which collects, analyzes and synthesizes data in real time. Once threats are detected, they alert response forces (such as security agencies) so they can intercept them. “We want to geofence all of Africa’s critical infrastructure and resources,” Nwachuku said, adding that the problem is not a lack of firepower (many African militaries already have it).
Rather, it is a lack of sovereign intelligence, since much of the intelligence that African countries depend on comes from Western powers, China and Russia.
“We want to take the defense of our continent’s resources and infrastructure into Africa’s hands,” Nwachuku continued. “We are the first truly pan-African defense company.”
Terra recently won its first federal contract, although it said it cannot provide further details. The company makes money when governments and commercial customers place orders for Terra systems and then pay an annual fee for data processing and storage. Nwachuku said the company has generated more than $2.5 million in trading revenue so far and is protecting assets valued at about $11 billion.
Commercial income comes from protecting private infrastructure, such as gold mines or power plants. Terra said it is protecting at least two hydroelectric plants and several smaller mines, and that most of the company’s customers come from Nigeria.
The company hopes to use the fresh capital to help expand and build more defense factories across Africa. It also wants to further expand its software capabilities and grow its AI team. It will open software offices in San Francisco and London, but the company said manufacturing will remain in Africa and more factories will open across the continent to boost job creation.
“It is clear that today Africa is going through what I consider to be an epic fight for its own survival,” Nwachuku said. “The only way to truly free ourselves from the chains that have held us back for the last two decades is to ensure that the basic resources, the critical infrastructure of the continent, are fully protected.”
