After five years of building an edtech company, Nathan Nwachuku, 22, realized that Africa was at a crossroads. The continent is undergoing rapid industrialization, he told TechCrunch. There is money, opportunity and a young, driven population. He realized, soon enough, that the continent was on the “edge of an industrial revolution”.
“At the same time,” he said, he felt the continent was still struggling to deal with what had been one of its biggest Achilles’ heels. “Terrorism and insecurity”. Africa has more terror-related deaths than any region in the world, and it is this problem that could slow down—or even halt—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 has come out of stealth with an $11.75 million round led by Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC.
Others 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 appeared on CNN. African investors in the company include Tofino Capital, Kaleo Ventures and DFS Lab.
“The goal is to build Africa’s first defense league, to create 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 has military experience: 40% of its engineers have served in the same role in the Nigerian Army. 8VC’s Alex Moore, who specializes in defense investments, is also on the board, and Nigeria’s Vice Air Marshal Ayo Jolasinmi serves as an advisor. Maduka also served as an engineer in the Nigerian Navy and founded a drone company at the age of 19.
The company, based in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, has taken a multi-sectoral approach to product development, looking at how to protect critical infrastructure from land, water and air. For the air, the company produces long- and short-range drones. On the ground, it has surveillance towers and ground-based drones. The company is still working to develop marine technology to help protect infrastructure such as offshore platforms and undersea pipelines.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
13-15 October 2026
Terra augments 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 services) so they can intercept them. “We want to geographically feed 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 dominant intelligence, as 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, though it said it could not provide more details. The company makes money when governments and commercial customers place orders for Terra systems and then pay an annual fee to process and store data. Nwachuku said the company has generated more than $2.5 million in commercial revenue so far and protects assets worth about $11 billion.
Commercial revenue comes from protecting private infrastructure, such as gold mines or power plants. Terra said it protects at least two hydroelectric plants and several smaller mines, with most of the company’s clientele coming from Nigeria.
The company hopes to use the new capital to help expand and build more defense factories across Africa. It also wants to further expand its software capabilities and develop its AI team. It will open software offices in San Francisco and London, but the company said production will remain in Africa, with more factories opening across the continent to boost job creation.
“It is clear that Africa today is undergoing what I see as an epic struggle for its own survival,” Nwachuku said. “The only way to really break free from the shackles that have held us back for the last decade or two is to make sure that the core resources, the core infrastructure of the continent, are fully protected.”
