Terra Industries has raised an additional $18 million, closing its seed round at $52 million and making the Nigerian-founded defence technology company one of the most heavily funded African startups of its cohort. Investors in the extension include Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, Silent Ventures and Nova Global.
The company has now raised in three tranches: $11.75 million announced in January when it emerged from stealth, a $22 million extension led by Lux Capital in February that took the round to $34 million, and this $18 million top-up.
Founded in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku, 22, and Maxwell Maduka, 24, Terra is building autonomous systems for infrastructure protection, surveillance and threat response — including long- and mid-range drones, sentry towers, unmanned ground vehicles and mine-detecting combat vehicles. Around 40% of its engineers previously served in the Nigerian Army, and Maduka was an engineer in the Nigerian Navy.
Where the AI sits
The intelligence layer is ArtemisOS, Terra’s proprietary software platform. It aggregates and analyses data in real time from multiple sensors and autonomous systems, handling threat detection, autonomous mission planning and coordinated response. The company’s pitch is that this replaces troop-heavy, reactive security models with continuous surveillance calibrated to African terrain and scale.
Terra said in February that it secures infrastructure assets valued at about $11 billion. It now says it is on track to book $100 million in contracts — including at least one federal contract — and generate revenue in the tens of millions of dollars by year end. Those are projections rather than reported results.
The competitive frame
Terra says its competition is any defence company holding government contracts, particularly suppliers from Turkey, China and the West.
That framing carries the argument the company was founded on. Many African countries depend on the West, Russia or China for security intelligence, working with numerous international contractors, which leaves defence supply chains fragmented and vulnerable to disruption. Terra’s founders have positioned the company around “Pax Africana” — indigenous security capability and sovereign intelligence, with Nwachuku describing the goal as building “the first truly pan-African defence company.”
8VC also backs Anduril, reportedly in talks to raise at a $100 billion valuation, and Shield AI.
A shift in emphasis
The new capital will fund manufacturing expansion across the Global South, a London office, hiring and faster product deployment. Terra also plans offices in San Francisco and Washington DC to improve access to capital and US partnerships.
That is a notable change of register. The company’s earlier positioning centred on reducing African dependence on foreign defence suppliers. Its expansion plan is oriented toward Western capital markets and US partnerships — which is a rational path for a company at this stage, and one that sits somewhat awkwardly beside the sovereignty argument.
It is also a pattern iAfrica has tracked repeatedly this year: Moove, founded in Lagos, now headquarters in Abu Dhabi with autonomous operations in Phoenix, Miami and London. Vercel acquired Egyptian-founded Stakpak and Ethiopian-founded Better Auth within days of each other. African-founded companies reaching scale tend to move their centre of gravity toward the capital.
Whether Terra proves the exception — building African defence capability while raising from and operating in Western markets — will be visible in where the manufacturing goes and which governments the contracts come from.
