Where Defense Technology Actually Comes From

This Post is disseminated on behalf of Intellistake Technologies Corp.

This June, the U.S. Air Force signed production contracts for its first drone fighters, and most of the attention went to Anduril.

Anduril says its FQ-44 went from prototype award to production contract faster than any fighter aircraft in more than 50 years.¹ Companies love a superlative in a press release, so take the "50 years" part with a grain of salt if you like. The contract is real either way.

You’ve likely not heard of the company behind the FQ-44, and truthfully, I hadn’t either until I looked into it: Blue Force Technologies.

Ninety people

Blue Force is where the aircraft came from. It was called Fury back then, and the company behind it had about 90 employees and two facilities near Raleigh, North Carolina.²

90. You could fit the whole company into a hotel conference room.

The War Zone followed the project for two and a half years and described Blue Force as a small outsider trying to get into one of the most rigid markets in aerospace. Anduril bought it in September 2023.

Now I’m thinking about that deal from Anduril's side. Fury had never flown. Its first flight wasn't until October 2025, two years after the purchase. So Anduril bought a company whose main product had never left the ground. That's a pretty gutsy thing to sign.

Anduril's chief strategy officer, Chris Brose, explained it to The War Zone pretty simply. Blue Force had decided a capability needed to exist, and then it went and built it, which is what Anduril tries to do too. In other words, they did the hard yards before anyone asked them to.
I'd love to have been in the room when they pitched it.

Who it was up against

In April 2024, Fury won a prototype award in the Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. Then, before this year's production decision, the Air Force reopened the competition to all five original bidders. That included Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing. The Air Force picked Anduril and General Atomics again.

Some context on those three names. They're prime contractors, the companies that hold Pentagon contracts directly and run whole programs. In the 1990s there were 51 of them in U.S. aerospace and defense. Today there are five, and the Department of Defense has admitted it now relies on a small number of companies for critical capabilities.⁴

So a design that started in a 90-person shop in North Carolina went up against three of those five. And it came out on top.

Anduril and Boeing have done this before

Area-I, 2009

Area-I, founded in the Atlanta area, built a small tube-launched drone called ALTIUS.⁵ In field experiments it was fired out of Army Black Hawk helicopters and AC-130 gunships, and the Army was already using it in its Project Convergence exercises.⁶

Getting tested and getting bought are very different things, though. The industry has a grim name for the gap between the two: the valley of death. After 12 years, Area-I sold to Anduril in 2021, and its founder was upfront that the deal brought an infusion of capital.

Insitu, 1994

Boeing was far more patient. It spent six years working alongside Insitu, a start-up from Bingen, Washington, on the ScanEagle drone before buying the company in 2008. By then, ScanEagle had logged more than 100,000 operational flight hours.⁷ The Oregonian put the price at US$400 million or more.⁸

And the story keeps going. In August, Boeing agreed to sell Insitu to Archer Aviation. The companies say its technology has been used by the armed forces of 35 nations.⁹

Our version

Myself and Gregory, our Chief Strategy Officer, actually went back and forth on the Fury story a few weeks ago. We talked about the 90 people, because we'd just been on the buying side of a deal like this ourselves, on a much smaller scale.

We're not Anduril, and we're not Boeing, so we won’t compare ourselves to them directly.

In August, Intellistake signed a definitive agreement to acquire NanoAi Technologies. NanoAi is a small company that has already developed standoff detection devices, and its core technology is backed by peer-reviewed research.¹⁰ That research mattered a lot to us. When you're looking at a small team, you want proof that the process works, and it’s not just a fabrication from their own pitch deck.

Our plan is to bring Intellistake's AI and data infrastructure to NanoAi's detection platform.

Yes, Anduril's name was on the press release in June, and yes Anduril earned it. I just wish more people had heard about the 90 people behind it, so they could understand the significance of why acquisitions of small companies really do matter.

Disclaimer

Intellistake has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NanoAi and Intellistake has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NanoAi and Completion of the NanoAi transaction remains subject to customary conditions including completion of satisfactory due diligence (including verifying title to the intellectual property of NanoAi), completion of the audit of financial statements of NanoAi, the Company maintaining a minimum cash balance of $2 million and no objection from the Canadian Securities Exchange. Closing is targeted within 60 days thereafter, subject to satisfaction of closing conditions in the definitive agreement.

This report contains "forward-looking information" concerning anticipated developments and events related to the Company that may occur in the future. Forward looking information contained in this report includes, but is not limited to, all statements in respect of the Company's growth and development, expectations regarding market growth, the operations and business segments of the Company and NanoAi, the functionality of the Company’s technology, and its benefits, the details of the proposed acquisition of NanoAi, the conditions to completion of the proposed acquisition of NanoAi, the benefits of the acquisition of NanoAi, the business model of NanoAi, the benefits of the NanoAi lease. the synergies between NanoAi and the Company, and bridging the gap between emerging decentralized networks and real-world industry adoption.

In certain cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "expects", "intends", "anticipates" or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "would", or "might" suggesting future outcomes, or other expectations, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. Forward-looking information contained in this report is based on certain assumptions regarding, among other things, the Company will continue to have access to financing until it achieves profitability; the Company and NanoAi satisfy all conditions necessary to close the proposed transaction; the technology and blockchain industries in which the Company intends to focus its business in will grow at the rate and in the manner expected; the ability to attract qualified personnel; the success of market initiatives and the ability to grow brand awareness; the ability to distribute Company's services; the Company creates strategies to mitigate risks associated with cryptocurrency price fluctuations; the Company remains compliant with all applicable laws and securities regulations and applicable licensing requirements; the Company engages and collaborates with local experts, as necessary, to address jurisdiction-specific matters and ensures compliance with foreign regulations to avoid penalties; the Company addresses any potential cybersecurity threats promptly and effectively; the ability of the Company to develop its technology, acquire customers and have revenue; the ability to successfully deploy the new business strategy as a result of the change of business. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable, they may be incorrect.

Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed by the forward-looking information. Such factors include risks related to general business, economic and social uncertainties; failure of the Company and NanoAi to satisfy all conditions necessary to close the proposed transaction; failure to raise the capital necessary to fund its operations; inability to create strategies to mitigate the risks associated with cryptocurrency price fluctuations; the costs of regulation in the digital asset industries increase to the extent that the Company is no longer generating sufficient returns for shareholders; failure to promptly and effectively address cybersecurity threats; insufficient resources to maintain its operations on a competitive basis; and the actual costs, timing and future plans differs expectations; legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; the inherent risks involved in the cryptocurrency and general securities markets; the Company may not be able to profitably liquidate its current digital currency inventory, or at all; a decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on the Company's operations; the Company's success may depend on the continued involvement of key personnel, including advisors, whose involvement cannot be guaranteed; institutional adoption of decentralized AI infrastructure remains uncertain and may not occur at the pace or scale anticipated; evolving regulatory frameworks, including those related to AI (such as Canada's proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act) and prediction markets, may impose additional compliance burdens or restrict certain business activities; valuation figures are based on publicly available market data and internal assessments at the time of the referenced transactions and may not reflect current or future valuations; the volatility of digital currency prices; the inherent uncertainty of cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses, currency fluctuations; regulatory restrictions, liability, competition, loss of key employees and other related risks and uncertainties; delay or failure to receive regulatory approvals; failure to attract qualified personnel, labour disputes; and the additional risks identified in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's filings with applicable Canadian securities regulators.

Although the Company has attempted to identify factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this report. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update forward-looking information.