African defense tech Terra Industries, founded by two Gen Zers, raises another $22 million in a month | TechCrunch

Just a month after raising $11.75 million in a round led by Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, African DefenseTech Terra Industries announced it has raised another $22 million in funding led by Lux Capital.

Nathan Nwachuku, 22, and Maxwell Maduka, 24, launched Terra Industries in 2024 to design infrastructure and autonomous systems to help African countries monitor and respond to threats.

Terrorism remains one of the biggest threats in Africabut much of the security information countries rely on comes from Russia, China or the West. In January, CEO Nwachuku said his goal was to “build Africa’s first defense first, to build autonomous defense systems and other systems to protect our critical infrastructure and resources from armed attacks.”

At the time, Terra had just won its first federal contract. The company has government and commercial clients, and Nwachuku said Terra had already generated more than $2.5 million in commercial revenues and protected assets worth about $11 billion.

He said this round of extensions came quickly because of the “strong momentum.” Other investors in the round include 8VC, Nova Global and Resiliience17 Capital, founded by Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola. Nwachuku said investors were seeing “faster-than-expected traction” on deals and partnerships, creating an urgency to undercut and increase their commitment. The round closed in just under two weeks, bringing the company’s total funding to $34 million.

The extensive increase is not that surprising. After all, setting up a defense company isn’t cheap. By comparison, Anduril has raised more than $2.5 billion in funding; ShieldAI has raised approximately $1 billion in equity; drone maker Skydio has approximately $740 million raised, and autonomous shipbuilder Saronic, has raised approximately $830 million.

Since January, Nwachuku said the company has begun expanding into other yet-to-be-announced African countries (Terra is based in Nigeria), and has secured more government and commercial contracts, including with AIC Steel, with more to be unveiled this year.

The partnership with AIC Steel will allow Terra to establish a joint manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia focused on building surveillance infrastructure and security systems. “It is our first major production expansion outside Africa,” he said.

“The priority is to work with countries where terrorism and infrastructure security are major national concerns,” Nwachuku added, referring to countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel region in particular. He said many of these companies have not only lost billions in infrastructure over the past decades, but also lost thousands of lives.

“We’re focused on targeting major economies where the need for infrastructure security is urgent and where our solutions can have a meaningful impact. That’s how we think about expansion.”