Defense startup raises $82 million to build drone factories in containers

Firestorm Labs has raised $82 million to pack drone factories into shipping containers, a bet that the next edge in warfighting may come from building unmanned systems near the fight instead of shipping them across vulnerable supply lines.

The San Diego company said Tuesday its Series B was led by Washington Harbour Partners, with participation from NEA, Ondas, In-Q-Tel, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Booz Allen Ventures, Geodesic and Motley Fool Ventures, among others. The new round brings Firestorm’s total funding to $153 million and will accelerate production of its xCell platform, a containerized manufacturing system designed to produce combat-ready drones and parts at the tactical edge.

Firestorm is pitching xCell as a direct answer to a problem that has long frustrated Pentagon planners: centralized manufacturing can be slow, brittle and exposed when a conflict stretches supply chains. The company says its fielding efforts are focused on the Indo-Pacific, where contested logistics and long distances can make resupply difficult. Firestorm says it has already completed successful demonstrations for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army and is now moving toward scaled production and broader fielding across operational theaters.

The platform uses industrial-grade 3D printing in a partnership with HP and is built as an open ecosystem, allowing partner-designed systems to be produced inside the same containerized setup. That flexibility matters in a military environment where mission needs can shift quickly and where replacing lost drones, or adapting them for new tasks, can matter as much as building the first batch. Firestorm CEO Dan Magy said the company’s goal is to build a “decentralized factory of the future,” a phrase that captures the broader shift the startup is trying to sell to defense buyers.

The new financing builds on a fast run. In July 2025, Firestorm announced a $47 million Series A, including $12 million in venture debt from J.P. Morgan, and said it would scale xCell, add engineers and open a larger production facility. In January 2025, the company said it had won a five-year, $100 million IDIQ contract from the U.S. Air Force to support unmanned aircraft development and integration. Together, the contract wins and funding show a growing appetite for distributed production models that could let the military generate drones, parts and mission-specific systems closer to the battlefield.